In the middle of the court is an altar faced with marble and adorned on all four sides with reliefs of moderately good workmanship. The sacrificial scene shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 44) is on the front side, facing the entrance to the court. A priest with a toga drawn over his head in the manner prescribed for those offering sacrifice, pours a libation from a shallow bowl, _patera_, upon an altar having the form of a tripod. With him at the left are two lictors with their bundles of rods, a fluteplayer, two boys, _camilli_, carrying the utensils for the sacrifice, and an attendant; at the right a bull intended for sacrifice is being brought to the altar by the slayer, _victimarius_, and an assistant. In the background is a tetrastyle temple, doubtless the temple before us; the scene represents the dedicatory exercises. The middle intercolumniation of the portico, as indicated by the relief and shown in the plan, is wider than the other two. On the sides of the altar some of the utensils and ceremonial objects used in sacrificing are represented: at the left the napkin (_mantele_), the augural staff (_lituus_), and the box in which the incense was kept (_acerra_); at the right the libation bowl (_patera_), a ladle (_simpulum_), and a pitcher. [Illustration: Fig. 44.--Front of the altar in the court of the temple of Vespasian.] The reliefs on the back of the altar, which consist simply of a wreath of oak leaves with a conventional laurel on either side, are of special significance and give a clew to the purpose of the edifice. On the thirteenth of January, 27 B.C., the Senate voted that a civic crown--that is, one made of oak leaves, of the kind awarded to a soldier who had saved the life of a Roman citizen--should be placed above the door of the house in which Augustus lived, and that the doorposts should be wreathed with laurel. From that time the civic crown and the laurel were recognized as attributes denoting imperial rank. This temple, therefore, was built in honor of an emperor. From the inscriptions of the Arval Brethren, we learn that in the case of a living emperor a bull was the suitable victim, but that an ox was sacrificed to an emperor who had been deified after death. As the victim on our altar is a bull, the temple must have been dedicated to an emperor during his lifetime. With these facts in mind it will not be difficult to ascertain to whose worship the building was consecrated. [Illustration: Fig. 45.--View of the temple of Vespasian.]