In the early times of the Republic the Septa were simply an enclosed place on the Campus Martins partitioned off into a number of different plots by means of ropes or slight railings, in each of which one division of voters or century assembled, and whence the presidents passed one by one over the pontes to deliver the vote of their respective century. Hence arose the nickname of ovilia, which was given to the septa on account of their similarity to a sheepfold. Julius Cæsar first entertained the idea of setting up marble enclosures for the comitia centuriata, and surrounding them with a magnificent portico. The whole formed a spacious cloistered court, decorated with works of art, and closely connected with the Villa Publica. Cæsar’s design was completed after his death by Agrippa in B.C. 27, and he gave the building the name Septa Julia. A rostrum was erected in it, and such was the extent of the space enclosed that gladiatorial shows, and sometimes naumachiæ were held there. This was afterwards altered by Hadrian as above described. [Sidenote: Temples of Isis and Serapis.] Westwards from the septa and nearly upon the site now occupied by the church of S. Stefano del Cacco, the little Via di pie di Marmo and a part of the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, stood the temples of Isis, Serapis, and Minerva Chalcidica.[91] The names of the three temples are given in the catalogue of the Curiosum in the ninth region, and the sites of the two first, the Iseum and Serapeum, have been sufficiently traced by the numerous Egyptian antiquities which have been found near the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva. Of these the most remarkable are the two obelisks, one of which now stands in the Piazza della Rotunda in front of the Pantheon, and the others on the Piazza della Minerva. The latter of these was found between the church of S. Ignazio and that of S. Maria in the time of Alexander VII. in 1665, and the former had stood, previously to its erection on the present pedestal, in a little piazza near this place, whence it was removed by Clement XI. The antiquarian Fea, in his Miscellanea, gives an account of various other Egyptian relics found on the south-east side of the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, which undoubtedly belonged to the Iseum and Serapeum.[92]