that which one was saying; and it
held commodiously an infinite multitude of people, and its name,
rightly speaking, was Parlatorio [speaking place]. This was afterwards
destroyed in the time of Totila, but in our days the foundations may
yet be seen, and part of the vaulting near to the church of S. Simone
in Florence, and reaching to the beginning of the square of Santa
Croce; and part of the palaces of the Peruzzi are built thereupon, and
the street which is called Anguillaia, which goes to Santa Croce, goes
almost through the midst of the said Parliament house.

Sec. 37.--_How the city of Fiesole surrendered itself to the Romans and
was destroyed and laid waste._

[Sidenote: Circ. 72 B.C.]

[Sidenote: Par. vi. 53, 54. xv. 124-126.]

Fiesole having been besieged as aforesaid the second time, and the
city being much wasted and afflicted both by reason of hunger and also
because their aqueducts had been cut off and destroyed, the city
surrendered to Caesar and to the Romans at the end of two years and
four months and six days (for so long had the siege lasted), on
condition that any which desired to leave the city might go in safety.
The city was taken by the Romans, and despoiled of all its wealth, and
was destroyed by Caesar, and laid waste to the foundations; and this
was about seventy-two years before the birth of Christ.

Sec. 38.--_How the city of Florence was first built._

After the city of Fiesole was destroyed, Caesar with his armies
descended to the plain on the banks of the river Arno, where Fiorinus
and his followers had been slain by the Fiesolans, and in this place
began to build a city, in order that Fiesole should never be rebuilt;
and he dismissed the Latin horseman whom he had with him, enriched
with the spoils of Fiesole; and these Latins were called Tudertines.
Caesar, then, having fixed the boundaries of the city, and included two
places called Camarti and Villa Arnina [of the Arno], purposed to call
it Caesaraea from his own name. But when the Roman senate heard this,
they would not suffer Caesar to call it after his name, but they made a
decree and order that the other chief noble Romans who had taken part
in the siege of Fiesole should go and build the new city together with
Caesar, and afterwards populate it; and that whichever of the builders
had first completed his share of the work should call it after his own
name, or howso else it pleased him.

[Sidenote: Inf. xxiii. 107, 108.