Modern Rome stands thirty feet above the level of Ancient Rome, and is a strange mixture of narrow streets, open squares, churches, fountains, ruins, new palaces, and dirt. Built during the seventeenth century, the city is situated in a valley which formed part of the ancient city, and lies to the north of it, being divided from it by the Capitoline Hill, and offering to the visitor attractions which no other city can boast. The germ of the old Roman race which civilized the world is still alive, and is quickly rising to a new life--lifting itself, after twenty centuries of burial, from the tomb of ignorance and oppression. Here is the centre of art and of the world's past recollections; here is spoken in its purity the most beautiful of languages; here are a fine climate and a fine country; and here are being strengthened the power and the splendour of united Italy. THE WALLS OF ROME. FIRST WALL--ROMA QUADRATA. The city of Romulus, upon the Palatine Hill, was called from its shape Roma Quadrata. It occupied the half of what we know as the Palatine, and was surrounded by a wall built up from the base of the hill, and on the top of the scarped cliff: this wall can be still traced in part. It was formed of large blocks of tufa, hard stone, and must not be confounded with the remains of the Arcadian period, on the Palatine, composed of soft tufa. "Romulus called the people to a place appointed, and described a quadrangular figure about the hill, tracing with a plough, drawn by a bull and a cow yoked together, one continued furrow" (Dionysius, i. 88). "He began to mark out the limits of his city from the Forum Boarium, so as to comprise within its limits the Great Altar of Hercules. The wall was built with Etruscan rites, being marked out by a furrow, made by a plough drawn by a cow and a bull, the clods being carefully thrown inwards, the plough being lifted over the profane places necessary for the gates" (Tacitus, xii. 24). When the Sabines were approaching to attack the Romans, in revenge for carrying off their women, Romulus strengthened the wall of Roma Quadrata, and the Capitoline Hill was occupied as an outpost. "He raised the wall of the Palatine Hill by building higher works upon it, as a farther security to the inhabitants, and surrounded the adjacent hills--the Aventine, and that now called the Capitoline Hill--with ditches and strong palisades" (Dionysius, ii. 37). "The city was difficult of access, having a strong garrison on the hill where the Capitol now stands" (Plutarch, "Romulus," 18). This hill was taken by treachery, and was not previously occupied by the Sabines. It was called the Hill of Saturn, but after its capture the Tarpeian Hill.