"
The temple had been destroyed by fire in the time of Sulla, and its
restoration was not as yet finally completed at the time of our
imaginary walk.[34] It faced towards the river and the Aventine, i.e.
south-east, according to the rules of augural lore, like all Roman
public buildings of the Republican period. From the platform on which
it stands we look down on the Forum Boarium, from which we started,
connected with the Forum by the Velabrum and the vicus Tuscus; and
more to the right below us is the Campus Martius, with access to the
city by that Porta Carmentalis which Evander showed to Aeneas. This
spacious exercise-ground of Roman armies is already beginning to be
built upon; in fact the Circus Flaminius has been there for more than
a century and a half, and now the new theatre of Pompeius, the first
stone theatre in Rome, rises beyond it towards the Vatican hill. But
there is ample space left; for it is nearly a mile from the Capitol
to that curve of the Tiber above which the Church of St. Peter now
stands; and on this large expanse, at the present day, the greater
part of a population of nearly half a million is housed.
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