It is doubtful whether the obelisk was altogether pleasing to the ancient Romans. They could not fail to admire its austere dignity and strength, and they regarded it as the insignia of supreme power, human or divine. Roman Emperors from Augustus onward constantly imported them to Rome to celebrate a victory, to adorn a circus, or to place in pairs, one on either side of the entrance to a tomb. But when the Romans re-erected an obelisk, whether in Rome, in Egypt, or in Constantinople, they frequently, if not always, raised the monolith a perceptible distance above the plinth of the base. On the four corners of this plinth they placed a bronze crab--one of the emblems of Apollo--or, as in Constantinople, a square of metal, and the obelisk itself rested upon these, daylight being distinctly visible between the obelisk and its base. The crabs were fixed into the plinth of the base by huge bronze dowels, and other dowels ran up into the four corners of the obelisk, holding it in place. The obelisk in New York, its mate in London, the larger Constantinople obelisk, and the Vatican obelisk were all re-erected by the Romans in that way. Opinions differ as to the reason for this departure from the original Egyptian method, but the decorative effect of this bold but simple device is at once apparent. It is obvious that an obelisk mounted in this way lends itself more easily to alien architectural surroundings. This obelisk of the Piazza del Popolo was brought to Rome by young Octavius, afterward the Emperor Augustus, to honor his victory over Mark Antony at the battle of Actium, B. C. 31. Octavius believed that he owed his triumph to Apollo; and this obelisk erected by an Egyptian monarch of the XIXth dynasty before the great temple in Heliopolis, the city of the sun, seemed an altogether appropriate trophy. Octavius erected it in the Circus Maximus, where it stood throughout the greatest days of the Roman Empire. But the fate of the Roman obelisks had overtaken it at some time, for when Domenico Fontana suggested to Sixtus V to remove it to its present position it was lying broken in three pieces under masses of rubbish on the site of the old Circus. There is no inscription upon the four fountains of the lionesses. They are to be regarded solely as adjuncts architecturally suitable to the obelisk, the interest of which must transcend all minor annals.