SCALAE CACI
an ancient stairway on the south side of the Palatine, leading
down to the valley of the circus Maximus. The top of it (supercilium)
is named as the end of
ROMA QUADRATA (1) and as the site of the
CASA
ROMULI (q.v.) (
Solin. i. 18; Plut. Rom. 20, where
βαθμοὺς καλῆς ἀκτῆς
of the MSS. has been emended into
Σκάλης Κακίας, Bull. d. Inst. 1852,40;
Diodor. iv. 21). What the
ATRIUM CACI (q.v.) has to do with it is uncertain. Probably the steps originally served as a short cut to the
bottom of the clivus Victoriae, and the porta Romanula stood at their
junction with it, rather than farther north (
CQ 1908, 145), v. supra 376.
Tradition connected this corner with the story of the robber Cacus
(
Liv. i. 7), but both he and his sister Caca were in reality ancient Italic
fire deities (
Mitt. 1895, 163 ff.;
RE ii. 1164, 1166; WR 161). Of the
steps themselves nothing certain is left. At the top the travertine
foundations of a gate of the imperial period are in situ, together with
a small piece of road pavement; a little lower down they turned at
right angles and ran to the south-west corner of the hill; but here they
have been built over by a house of the imperial period, and survive only
in the form of an internal staircase. (See
BPW 1903, 605-606; CQ 9008,
145-147; HJ 39-42; P1. 133-134; DAP 2. vi. 254-255.)
