_From the vineyard turn to the right. Some little way down on the right is the_ entrance to the Jewish Cemetery. This hill was the ancient Clivus Publicus, a continuation of the Vicus Tuscus, and up which the sacred processions used to come to the Aventine. _In the valley below us was_ THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS. "Tarquinius also built the great circus which lies between the Aventine and Palatine Hills. He was the first who erected covered seats round it; for till then the spectators stood on scaffolds supported by poles. And he divided the places between the thirty curiæ. He assigned to each curia a particular part, so that every spectator was seated in the place that belonged to him. This work also became in time one of the most beautiful and most admirable structures in Rome. The circus is 3½ stadia in length, and 400 feet in breadth. Round the two greater sides, and one of the lesser, runs a canal, 10 feet deep and as many broad, to receive the water; behind the canal, porticoes are erected three stories high, of which the lowest has stone seats, as in the theatres, raised a little above the level of the ground, and the two upper porticoes have wooden seats. The two larger porticoes are connected into one, and joined together by means of the lesser, and, meeting, form a semicircular figure; so that all three constitute one amphitheatral portico of 8 stadia, capable of receiving one hundred and fifty thousand persons. The other lesser side is left uncovered, and contains several arched starting-places for the horses, which are all opened at one signal. On the outside of the circus runs another portico of one story, which has shops in it, and habitations over them. In this portico are entrances and ascents for the spectators at every shop, contrived in such a manner that so many thousand persons may go in and out without any molestation" (Dionysius, iii. 69). This description is evidently of the building as it stood in the days of Augustus. Founded by Tarquin, it was extended by Cæsar, and kept in repair and embellished by Augustus, Claudius, Domitian, Trajan, Constantine, and Theodoric. (See Suetonius, "Cæsar," xxxix.; Pliny, xxxv. 24, xxxvi. 15; Livy, vii. 20, i. 35.) The valley in which it stood was originally called the Murzian Valley. Here Romulus gave the games when the Romans ran off with the Sabine women. The stream of the Almo runs through it: this branch of the Almo was taken from the main stream, about six miles from Rome, and made to pass through the Circus to supply with water the canal made by Cæsar which separated the spectators from the arena. Remains of the curve can be seen at the Cœlian end, and some fragments of seats exist under the Palatine. _Crossing the site of the Circus, on our right, standing back, is the_ CHURCH OF S. ANASTASIA,