"We must keep then for the end and go round." Nevertheless he took a few steps to the left, and pausing before an excavation, a sort of grotto in the hillside, exclaimed: "This is the Lupercal den where the wolf suckled Romulus and Remus.

Just here at the entry used to stand the Ruminal fig-tree which sheltered the twins." Pierre could not restrain a smile, so convinced was the tone in which the old soldier gave these explanations, proud as he was of all the ancient glory, and wont to regard the wildest legends as indisputable facts.
However, when the worthy man pointed out some vestiges of Roma Quadrata--remnants of walls which really seemed to date from the foundation of the city--Pierre began to feel interested, and a first touch of emotion made his heart beat.

This emotion was certainly not due to any beauty of scene, for he merely beheld a few courses of tufa blocks, placed one upon the other and uncemented.

But a past which had been dead for seven and twenty centuries seemed to rise up before him, and those crumbling, blackened blocks, the foundation of such a mighty eclipse of power and splendour, acquired extraordinary majesty.
Continuing their inspection, they went on, skirting the hillside.

The outbuildings of the palaces must have descended to this point; fragments of porticoes, fallen beams, columns and friezes set up afresh, edged the rugged path which wound through wild weeds, suggesting a neglected cemetery; and the guide repeated the words which he had used day by day for ten years past, continuing to enunciate suppositions as facts, and giving a name, a destination, a history, to every one of the fragments.
"The house of Augustus," he said at last, pointing towards some masses of earth and rubbish.
Thereupon Pierre, unable to distinguish anything, ventured to inquire: "Where do you mean ?" "Oh!" said the man, "it seems that the walls were still to be seen at the end of the last century.