"Jusqu'au lègne de Commode Rome est représentée par une Amazone; dans l'escalier du palais des Conservateurs, Rome, en tunique courte d'Amazone et le globe à la main, reçoit Marc Aurèle; le globe dans la main de Rome date de César."--_Ampère_, iii. 242.
_The Halls of the Conservators_ consist of eight rooms. The 1st, painted in fresco from the history of the Roman kings, by the _Cavaliere d'Arpino_, contains statues of Urban VIII., by Bernini; Leo X., by the Sicilian Giacomo della Duca;[41] and Innocent X., in bronze, by Algardi. The 2nd room, adorned with subjects from republican history by _Lauretti_, has statues of modern Roman generals--Marc Antonio Colonna, Tommaso Rospigliosi, Francesco Aldobrandini, Carlo Barberini, brother of Urban VIII., and Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma. The 3rd room, painted by _Daniele di Volterra_, with subjects from the wars with the Cimbri, contains the famous _Bronze Wolf of the Capitol_, one of the most interesting relics in the city. The figure of the wolf is of unknown antiquity; those of Romulus and Remus are modern. It has been doubted whether this is the wolf described by Dionysius as "an ancient work of brass" standing in the temple of Romulus under the Palatine, or the wolf described by Cicero, who speaks of a little gilt figure of the founder of the city sucking the teats of a wolf. The Ciceronian wolf was struck by lightning in the time of the great orator, and a fracture in the existing figure, attributed to lightning, is adduced in proof of its identity with it.
"Geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem Impavidos: illam tereti cervice reflexam Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua."
"And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome! She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart The milk of conquest yet within the dome Where, as a monument of antique art, Thou standest:--mother of the mighty heart, Which the great founder sucked from thy wild teat, Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart, And thy limbs black with lightning--dost thou yet Guard thy immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?"
Standing near the wolf is the well-known and beautiful figure of a boy extracting a thorn from his foot, called the Shepherd Martius.