The hut itself (Fig. 3.1) was a large one (12 × 16 feet), sunk about a yard into the tufa of the hill, with six cuttings for the perimetral posts, two for a front porch, and one for the central support. The cuttings, averaging fifteen inches in diameter, are wider than is necessary for posts to support so flimsy a structure; the logs were probably held upright by wooden or stone wedges. The hut, reconstructed, represents a historical fact very much like what Vergil had in mind when he described the sleeping quarters assigned by Evander to Aeneas, and such _capanne_ can be found in out-of-the-way places of the countryside near Rome even today. Lucretius, Vergil, and Livy all knew what a Bronze and an Iron Age meant; their generation venerated a replica of the “Hut of Romulus” on the Palatine. It suited Augustus’ propaganda purpose to stress Rome’s rise from humble origins; so, too, to us, archaeology’s picture of Rome’s primitive beginnings may well make the story of her later expansion seem more impressive, and her domination of subject peoples less overbearing. * * * * * [Illustration: FIG. 3.1 Rome, Palatine. Prehistoric hut, reconstruction. (G. Davico, _Monumenti Antichi_ 41 [1951], p. 130)] [Illustration: FIG. 3.2 Rome, Forum necropolis, showing cremation and inhumation graves. (MPI)] Archaeology’s second major contribution to our knowledge of early Rome is provided by Boni’s excavation of the Forum necropolis (Fig. 3.2), the results of which are displayed with great clarity in the Forum Antiquarium, installed in the cloister of the church of S. Francesca Romana in the Forum itself. The surviving part of the necropolis stretches between the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, on the north side of the Forum, and a late Republican structure to the east which was pretty certainly (to judge from the built-in beds, the narrow rooms, and the analogy with a building similar in plan at Pompeii, certainly identified by its erotic pictures) a house of ill-fame. The original extent west and southward was probably much greater. The graves have now been filled in, but their sites are marked by plots of grass, round for cremation graves, oblong for inhumation ones. The two types sometimes cut into each other; what inferences are warranted by this fact are better postponed until we have discussed the grave contents.