e convent. Six
nobly-born young women, sworn to chastity, and dressed in a ritual
garb, live in an edifice of much magnificence under the rule of one
who is the chief Vestal, a sort of Mother Superior. Many pedestals of
the statues of such chief priestesses still remain, and we can clearly
trace the arrangement of their abode, with its open court--once
containing a garden and cool cisterns of pure water--its separate room
for each Vestal, its baths, and its resources of considerable comfort
and even luxury.

[Illustration: FIG. 22.--VESTAL VIRGIN]

If, as you face this way, you look up to your right, you will perceive
the Palatine Hill rising steeply above you, with its summit crowned by
the lofty palaces and gardens constructed by the Caesars. At the side
and corner which look down upon the Forum stands the part built by
Caligula, the epileptic who thought himself no less than a god, and
who in consequence not only turned the temple of Castor into a lower
vestibule to his own house, but also built a bridge across the valley
over the temple of Augustus and the Basilica of Julius to the
Capitoline Hill, so that he might visit and converse with Jupiter, his
only compeer. From the top of the Basilica he occasionally threw money
into the Forum to be scrambled for by people who crushed each other to
death in the process. It would require too much space if we climbed
the sloping road which leads on to the Palatine and examined the
various structures upon that hill. As we now see it in its ruins it is
perhaps the most mysteriously impressive place in the world. But many
alterations and enlargements of the palaces were made after the date
of Nero, and we cannot now be sure of the precise aspect of the
hill-top in his day. Suffice it that, overlooking the Forum,
overlooking the Velabrum Valley which leads from the Forum to the
Tiber, and overlooking the middle of the valley where the vast Circus
or race-ground separated the imperial hill from the Aventine, there
were portions of the huge imperial abodes, rising in several stories
gleaming with marble, and enjoying the purest air and the widest views
obtainable within the city. Nero himself, it is true, was not content
with such mere human housing. After the great fire of this year 64, he
proceeded to make for himself what he called "a home fit for a man,"
and so built--though he never finished--that famous or infamous
"Golden House," which ran from the Palatine all across the