Suetonius (Chapter 57) says that every year, on January 1, all classes of citizens climbed the Capitol and offered _strenæ calendariæ_ to Augustus, when he was absent; and that the emperor, with his usual generosity, appropriated the money to the purchase of _pretiosissima deorum simulacra_, "the most valuable statues of gods," to be set up at the crossings of thoroughfares. Four pedestals of these statues have already been found: one near the Arch of Titus, at the beginning of the sixteenth century; one, in 1548, near the Senate House; one, in the same year, by the Arch of Septimius Severus. The fourth pedestal, that recently discovered near S. Martino ai Monti, was raised at the crossing of two important streets, the _clivus suburanus_ (Via di S. Lucia in Selci), and the _vicus sobrius_ (Via dei Quattro Cantoni), from which the statue was nicknamed _Mercurius Sobrius_, "Mercury the teetotaller." The _immagine di Ponte_, in the Via dei Coronari, the prototype of modern shrines, contains an image of the Virgin in a graceful niche built, or re-built, in 1523, by Alberto Serra of Monferrato, from designs by Antonio da Sangallo. Its name is derived from that of the lane leading to the Ponte S. Angelo (Canale di Ponte). The house to which it belongs is No. 113 Via dei Coronari, and No. 5 Vicolo del Micio. Monumental crosses were sometimes erected instead of shrines. Count Giovanni Gozzadini has called the attention of archæologists to this subject in a memoir "Sulle croci monumentali che erano nelle vie di Bologna del secolo XIII." He proves from the texts of historians, Fathers, and councils that the practice of erecting crosses at the junction of the main streets is very ancient, and belongs to the first century of the freedom of the Church, when the faithful withdrew the emblem of Christ from the catacombs, and raised it in opposition to the street shrines of the gentiles. Bologna has the privilege of possessing the oldest of these crosses. One bears the legend "In the name of God; this cross, erected long since by Barbatus, was renewed under the bishopric of Vitalis (789-814)." This class of monuments abounds in Rome, although it belongs to a comparatively recent age. Such are the crosses before the churches of SS. Sebastiano, Cesareo, Nereo ed Achilleo, Pancrazio, Lorenzo, Francesco a Ripa, and others.