This temple was one of the most revered and ancient in the city, and its foundation is traced back in legendary myth to the Hellenic Kronos. The earliest date given for the dedication is B.C. 498. Many restorations must have taken place. An inscription recording one in the time of Augustus by Munatius Plancus has been found. This temple long retained the name of the Mint, from the fact that the state treasures were deposited under the care of the god Saturnus, as one of the most venerated of Roman deities. [Sidenote: Area of the Dii Consentes.] The ancient road leading up to the Capitol made a turn behind the Temple of Saturn, and a portico with semi-Corinthian or Composite columns has been restored from some columns and capitals found here in 1835. At the back of this portico were twelve recessed chambers occupied by chapels of the twelve deities called the Dii Consentes. Four of these still remain under the modern Via del Campidoglio. The walls are chiefly of brickwork, apparently of the second or third century, but the back wall against the ascent to the Capitol is of hard tufa. The interiors were faced with marble, of which traces are left. From the inscription found in 1835 upon the architecture it appears that Vettius Prætextatus, a prefect of the city in A.D. 367, restored the statues of the Dii Consentes, which had stood here from ancient times. Varro mentions gilded statues of the gods of the council as near the Forum, and also speaks of their temple. This portico and chambers cannot, however, have been a temple, but were evidently clerks’ offices connected with the state depositories near the Temple of Saturn. Cicero speaks of the clerks of the Capitoline ascent.[55] Vettius Prætextatus, who restored the building in 367, was notorious for his opposition to the Christian religion and for his zeal in supporting the ancient cultus. He held several offices, and was pro-consul of Achaia under Julian, and probably recommended himself to that emperor by his attachment to the old Roman religion. [Sidenote: Schola Xanthi.] Below the portico and its chambers stands another row of lower chambers, three of which are said by Marliani to have been found entire in the sixteenth century. Inscriptions found here give the name of Schola to the chambers, and hence they have been called Schola Xanthi, from the name of Xanthus, which occurs in the inscription as a restorer. They were undoubtedly clerks’ offices, similar to those behind the portico of the Dii Consentes above them. [Sidenote: Temple of Vespasian.]