Now, no one could see the width of the terrace above the lower wall, without thinking that so great a width was unnecessary unless it was to give room for a road.[46] The difficulty has been, however, that the line of arches at the east, not being in alignment with the lower wall on the west, has not been connected with it hitherto, and so a correct understanding of their relation has been impossible.

Before adducing evidence to show the location of the main and triumphal entrance to Praeneste, we shall turn to the town above for a moment to see whether it is, a priori, reasonable to suppose that there was an entrance to the city here in the center of its front wall.  If roads came up a grade from the east and west, they would join at a point where now there is no wall at all.  This break is in the center of the south wall, just above the forum which was laid out in Sulla’s time on the level spot immediately below the town.  Most worthy of note, however, is that this opening is straight below the main buildings of the ancient town, the basilica, which is now the cathedral, and the temple of Fortuna.  But further, a fact which has never been noticed nor accounted for, this opening is also in front of the modern square, the piazza Garibaldi, which is in front of the buildings just mentioned but below them on the next terrace, yet there is no entrance to this terrace shown.[47] It is well known that the open space south of the temple, beside the basilica, has an ancient pavement some ten feet below the present level of the modern piazza Savoia.[48] Proof given below in connection with the large tufa base which is on the level of the lower terrace will show that the piazza Garibaldi was an open space in ancient times and a part of the ancient forum.  Again, the solarium, which is on the south face of the basilica,[49] was put up there that it might be seen, and as it faces the south, the piazza Garibaldi, and this open space in the wall under discussion, what is more likely than that there was not only an open square below the basilica, but also the main approach to the city?

But now for the proof.  In 1756 ancient paving stones were still in situ[50] above the row of arches on the Via degli Arconi, and even yet the ascent is plain enough to the eye.  The ground slopes up rather moderately along the Via degli Arconi toward the east, and nearly below the southeast corner of the ancient wall turned up to the west on these arches, approaching the entrance in the middle of the south wall of the city.[51] But these arches and the road on them do not align exactly with the terrace on the west.  Nor should they do so.  The arches are older than the present opus quadratum wall, and the road swung round and up to align with the road below and the old wall or escarpment of the city above.  Then when the whole town, its gates, its walls, and its temple, were enlarged and repaired by Sulla, the upper wall was perfectly aligned, a lower wall built