As previously stated (p. 49), the deviation of the axis of this building from that of the Forum is undoubtedly due to the fact that it followed the direction of a street which bordered it on the east side before the colonnade of Popidius was built; this is therefore an evidence of the antiquity of the temple. The style of architecture, however, is in no essential particular different from that of the colonnade and of other buildings of the Tufa Period, and gives no indication of great age. The most probable explanation is that the temple was rebuilt in the Tufa Period on the site of an earlier structure, the orientation of which was preserved. The difference in direction is concealed by the increasing thickness, from south to north, of the pillars between the Forum and the court of the temple. The spaces between the pillars were originally left open. Later, at what time it is impossible to determine, they were all walled up except the three opposite the side of the temple; since the temple was excavated these also have been closed. In comparison with the entrances from the Forum, at first ten in number, the one on the south side, opening on the street leading from the Porta Marina, must have been considered unimportant. Otherwise pains would have been taken to give to the colonnade on that side an even number of columns, so that the door of the temple should face an intercolumniation; as it is the number is uneven and the entrance to the court had to be put a little to one side that it might not open upon a column. The court is of oblong shape. The continuous colonnade about the sides, the peristyle, was originally in two stories. At the rear of the peristyle on the north side stood the small colonnade of the Doric order already mentioned (p. 62); one of the rooms into which in later times this was divided (6) was connected with the court of the temple, and was probably occupied by the sacristan (_aedituus_). The temple stood upon a high podium, in front of which is a broad flight of steps. The small cella was evidently intended for but one statue. The columns at the sides of the deep portico, which in other respects follows the Etruscan plan (p. 63), are continued in a colonnade which is carried completely around the cella. In Plate II and Fig. 30 we give a view of the ruins as they are to-day; in Fig. 32 a view of the temple as it appeared before the earthquake of 63. The height and diameter of the Corinthian columns seen in the restoration can be calculated with approximate correctness; of the entablature and parts above nothing has been found except a large waterspout of terra cotta in the form of a lion's head.