Vitruvius says that every well-arranged Roman house has a dining-room opening into a nymphæum, and accordingly here, on the right, is a _Nymphæum_, with a beautiful fountain surrounded by miniature niches, once filled with bronzes and statues. Water was conveyed hither by the Neronian aqueduct. The pavement of this room was of oriental alabaster, of which fragments remain. Beyond the Triclinium is a disgusting memorial of Roman imperial life, in the _Vomitorium_, with its bason, whither the feasters retired to tickle their throats with feathers, and come back with renewed appetite to the banquet. We now reach the portico which closed the principal apartments of the palace on the south-west. Some of its Corinthian pillars have been re-erected on the sites where they were found. From hence we can look down upon some grand walls of republican times, formed of huge tufa blocks. Passing a space of ground, called, without much authority, _Bibliotheca_, we reach a small _Theatre_ on the edge of the hill, interesting as described by Pliny, and because the Emperor Vespasian, who is known to have been especially fond of reciting his own compositions, probably did so here. Hence we may look down upon the valley between the Palatine and Aventine, where the rape of the Sabines took place, and upon the site of the Circus Maximus. From hence, we may imagine, that the later emperors surveyed the hunts and games in that circus, when they did not care to descend into the amphitheatre itself. Beyond this, on the right, is (partially restored) the grand staircase leading to the platform once occupied by the _Temple of Jupiter-Victor_, vowed by Fabius Maximus during the Samnite war, in the assurance that he would gain the victory. On the steps is a sacrificial altar, which retains its grooves for the blood of the victims, with an inscription stating that it was erected by "Cnæus Domitius C. Calvinus, Pontifex,"--who was a general under Julius Cæsar, and consul B.C. 53 and B.C. 40. Now, for some distance, there are no remains, because this space was always kept clear, for here, constantly renewed, stood the _Hut of Faustulus and the Sacred Fig-tree_. "The old Roman legend ran as follows:--Procas, king of Alba, left two sons. Numitor, the elder, being weak and spiritless, suffered Amulius to wrest the government from him, and reduce him to his father's private estates. In the enjoyment of these he lived rich, and, as he desired nothing more, secure: but the usurper dreaded the claims that might be set up by heirs of a different character. He had Numitor's son murdered, and appointed his daughter, Silvia, one of the Vestal virgins.