The recent excavations along the line of the Via Sacra brought to light some unimportant remains of shops and houses facing towards the street. These buildings are of the time of Constantine, and agree in their construction with his Basilica on the opposite side of the street. This part of Rome was destroyed by fire in the reign of Commodus, and again under Maxentius (Dion Cassius, Herodian, Galen, Capitolinus). In this rebuilding they did not clear away the remains of the older houses, but built on and over them--a not unusual custom in Rome. Let us carefully examine the older remains. Our attention is first attracted by different fragments of beautiful mosaic pavements of the best period of the art, and evidently the flooring of no mean house. The first piece that we come across is composed of a pattern made up of several cubes in different colours; in the rebuilding this was hid by a pavement of herring-bone brickwork. Beyond is a beautiful black and white octangular and diamond mosaic pavement, which also did duty to the rebuilt house. In a small room adjoining we notice a travertine base of a column, which stands near a piece of black mosaic pavement, in which are inserted small squares of white marble; in another chamber close by is a white mosaic with a black border, and near this another, of white and black sexangular and diamond shape. Near the cube mosaic are two more bases of columns of travertine, and a travertine well head: travertine stone, from Tivoli, was not used in Rome as a building material till about 50 B.C. Amongst the constructions of the older period we notice six distinct pieces of walls composed of tufa blocks, perhaps old material re-used, some blocks of peperino, and a small piece of _opus reticulatum_. Tufa was used during the kingly period, peperino during the republic, and _opus reticulatum_--net-work wedges of tufa--by the late republic and early empire. Amidst the later construction, which is of brickwork, we notice terra-cotta hot-air pipes, and one piece of a lead pipe, and remains of flights of stairs leading to upper floors. The brick stamps found were of the second, third, and fourth centuries. Amongst these remains was found a small altar. On the scroll at the top is a Roman eagle, and beneath,-- LARIBUS AUG. SACRUM. From the line of the bases of the columns we see that the front of the older house sloped back diagonally from the Via Sacra, the point farthest from the Forum being nearest to the Via Sacra; whilst the more recent construction was on a line parallel with, and abutting on to, the Sacred Way. [Illustration] This early house, appearing beneath the building of later date, is in all probability the house in which Julius Cæsar lived. The construction agrees with that of earlier and contemporary date. It is the first house on the Via Sacra, and the site coincides with the notices which we have of Cæsar's house:--