By the popular account, the circus is ascribed to Caracalla, and the temple is called the _stables_ of the circus; but, discoveries as recent as 1825, show that the latter is a temple, or mausoleum, and even in whose honour it was erected. Vasi disposes of the claims of Caracalla satisfactorily; and, to say the truth, they were not very great. He was fond of the amusements of the circus; a circus is seen on the reverse of his medals; and a statue of himself and his mother were found at no great distance from this particular circus, though not in it. On this authority, it was thought he had caused this particular circus to be built. The two first reasons amount to nothing, especially as the circus of the medals is clearly the Circus Maximus, which Caracalla caused to be repaired. The statues may have even belonged to this circus, and been placed there in honour of so great a patron of the sports; for we certainly should not deem it any great proof that Napoleon erected a military hospital because we found his statue in it, or that Nelson erected Greenwich if a picture of him should be discovered in its ruins. This reasoning is made all the stronger by the fact that this circus is of a workmanship much later than the time of Caracalla, who has left memorials enough of his age in his baths. But inscriptions have set the matter finally at rest; and it is now known that this circus was erected by Maxentius, about the year 311 of our era, who caused it to be consecrated to his son Romulus, who was _deified_. This _deification_, at so late a period, must mean something like the canonization of the Catholic saints in our own time. It was a declaration of peculiar sanctity. The lesser gods of antiquity were probably no more than the good men of modern days.