life-sized statues of draped women, with movable hands and feet, rats, wild boars, sucking pigs, cows, rams, apples and other fruits, and "marbles." * * * * * The first structures dedicated to the gods in Rome were called _aræ_, and had the shape of a cube of masonry, in the centre of a square platform. They were modelled, in a measure, on the pattern of the Pelasgic _hierones_, in which the territory of Tibur and Signia is especially abundant. The _aræ_ best known in Roman history and topography are six in number, namely, the _ara maxima Herculis_; the _Roma quadrata_; the _ara Aii Locutii_; the _ara Ditis et Proserpinæ_; the _ara pacis Augustæ_; and the _ara incendii Neroniani_. The oldest of these were built of rough stones; those of later periods took the characteristic shape of the altar of Verminus, represented on page 52 of my "Ancient Rome," and of the altar raised to Vedjovis by the members of the Julian family, at Bovillæ, their birthplace, where it was found by the Colonnas in 1823. It is now in the villa of that family on the Quirinal.[40] In imperial times the conventional shape was preserved, with the addition of two _pulvini_, or volutes, on the opposite edges of the cornice, as represented in the illustration on page 35 of "Ancient Rome" (a marble altar found at Ostia). [Illustration: A Pelasgic hieron, or platform of altar, at Segni.] [Illustration: Round Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium.] THE ARA MAXIMA HERCULIS. This altar, the oldest in Rome, was raised in memory of the visit of Hercules to our country. Tacitus and Pliny attribute its construction to Evander the Arcadian, forgetting that in prehistoric times the tract of land on which the altar stood, between the Forum Boarium and the Circus Maximus, was submerged by the waters of the Velabrum. It was at all events a very ancient structure, held in great veneration. Its rough shape and appearance were never changed, as shown by a precious--yet unpublished--sketch by Baldassarre Peruzzi which I found among his autographs in Florence. A round temple was built near the altar, in later times, of which we know two particulars: first, that it had a mysterious power of repulsion for dogs and flies;[41] second, that it contained, among other works of art, a picture by the poet Pacuvius, next in antiquity and value to the one painted by Fabius Pictor, in the Temple of Health, in 303 B. C.[42] The Temple of Hercules, the Ara Maxima, and the bronze statue of the hero-god were discovered, in a good state of preservation, during the pontificate of Sixtus IV., between the apse of S. Maria in Cosmedin (the Temple of Ceres), and the Circus Maximus. We have a description of the discovery by Pomponio Leto, Albertini, and Fra Giocondo da Verona; and excellent drawings by Baldassarre Peruzzi.[43]