XV. The same fortune seems to have attended the second temple also. The first, as we have related, was built by Tarquin, and dedicated by Horatius. This was destroyed by fire in the civil wars. The second was built by Sulla, but the name of Catulus appears as its dedicator, for Sulla died before it was completed. This again was burned during the civil tumults in the time of Vitellius, and Vespasian built a third, which had nearly the same fortune as the others, except that he saw it completed, and did not see it shortly afterwards destroyed, being thus more fortunate than Tarquin in seeing the completion, and than Sulla in seeing the dedication of his work. When Vespasian died the Capitol was burned. The fourth and present temple was built and dedicated by Domitian. It is said that Tarquin spent forty thousand pounds of silver in building the foundations; but there is no private citizen in Rome at the present day who could bear the expense of gilding the existing temple, which cost more than twelve thousand talents. Its columns are of Pentelic marble, exquisitely proportioned, which I myself saw at Athens; but at Rome they were again cut and polished, by which process they did not gain so much in gloss as they lost in symmetry, for they now appear too slender. However, if any one who wonders at the expense of the temple in the Capitol were to see the splendour of any one portico, hall, or chamber in the house of Domitian, he would certainly be led to parody that line of Epicharmus upon an extravagant fellow, "Not good-natured, but possessed with the disease of giving," and would say that Domitian was not pious or admirable, but possessed with the disease of building, and turned everything into bricks and mortar, just as it is said Midas turned things into gold. So much for this.