"Sta. Francesca Romana is represented in the dress of a Benedictine nun, a black robe and a white hood or veil; and her proper attribute is an angel, who holds in his hand the book of the Office of the Virgin, open at the words, '_Tenuisti manum dexteram meam, et in voluntate tua deduxisti me, et cum gloria suscepisti me_' (Ps. lxxiii. 23, 24); which attribute is derived from an incident thus narrated in the acts of her canonisation. Though unwearied in her devotions, yet if, during her prayers, she was called away by her husband on any domestic duty, she would close her book, saying that 'a wife and a mother, when called upon, must quit her God at the altar, and find him in her household affairs.' Now it happened once, that, in reciting the Office of Our Lady, she was called away four times just as she was beginning the same verse, and, returning the fifth time, she found that verse written upon the page in letters of golden light by the hand of her guardian angel."--_Jameson's Sacred Art_, p. 151. Almost opposite the convent is the Via del Monte Tarpeio, a narrow alley, leading up to the foot of the Tarpeian rock, beneath the Palazzo Caffarelli, and one of the points at which the rock is best seen. This spot is believed to have been the site of the house of Spurius Mælius, who tried to ingratiate himself with the people, by buying up corn and distributing it in a year of scarcity (B.C. 440), but who was in consequence put to death by the patricians. His house was razed to the ground, and its site, being always kept vacant, went by the name of Æquimælium.[98] CHAPTER VI. THE PALATINE. The Story of the Hill--Orti Farnesiani--The Via Nova--Roma Quadrata--The Houses of the early Kings--Temple of Jupiter Stator--Palace of Augustus--Palace of Vespasian--Crypto-Porticus--Temple of Jupiter-Victor--The Lupercal and the Hut of Faustulus--Palace of Tiberius--Palace of Caligula--Clivus Victoriæ--Ruins of the Kingly Period--Altar of the Genius Loci--House of Hortensius--Septizonium of Severus--Palace of Domitian. "The Palatine formed a trapezium of solid rock, two sides of which were about 300 yards in length, the others about 400: the area of its summit, to compare it with a familiar object, was nearly equal to the space between Pall-Mall and Piccadilly in London."[99] The history of the Palatine is the history of the City of Rome. Here was the Roma Quadrata, the "oppidum," or fortress of the Pelasgi, of which the only remaining trace is the name Roma, signifying force. This is the fortress where the shepherd-king Evander is represented by Virgil as welcoming Æneas.