It will be necessary to speak further of the cyclopean wall on the east
side of the city from the Porta del Sole to the Portella, for it has
always been supposed that this part of the wall was exactly like the
rest, and dated from the same period. But a careful examination shows
that the stones in this lower portion are laid more regularly than those
in the wall above the Portella, that they are more flatly faced on the
outside, and that here and there a little mortar is used. Above all,
however, there is in the wall on one of the stones under the house no.
24, Via della Fontana an inscription,[40] which Richter, Dressel, and
Dessau all think was there when the stone was put in the wall, and
incline to allow no very remote date for the building of the wall at
that point. To me, after a comparative study of this wall and the one at
Norba, the two seem to date from very nearly the same time, and no one
now dares attribute great antiquity to the walls of Norba. But the rest
of the cyclopean wall of Praeneste is very ancient, certainly a century,
perhaps two or three centuries, older than the part from the Portella
down.

There remains still to be discussed the lower wall of the city on the
south, and a restraining terrace wall along part of the present Corso
Pierluigi. The stretch of city wall from the Porta del Sole clear across
the south front to the Porta di S. Martino is of opus quadratum, with
the exception of a stretch of opus incertum[41] below and east of the
Barberini gardens, and a small space where the city sewage has destroyed
all vestige of a wall. The restraining wall just mentioned is also of
opus quadratum and is to be found along the south side of the Corso, but
can be seen only from the winecellars on the terrace below that street.
These walls of opus quadratum were built with a purpose, to be sure, but
their entire meaning has not been understood.[42]