Serapis was the god of commerce, so his shrine was enriched by the merchants who thronged to the ever-busy port. It was probably after this temple (the original home of Mercury) was submerged, that the smaller one was erected to him at Baiæ. The latter was a famous marine watering place of ancient Italy, perched on an indentation of the western shore of the Bay of Naples. It is celebrated for the softness of its climate, and the abundance of its hot springs, so it became fashionable about the era of Lucullus, the ruins of whose magnificent villa, as well as those of Cæsar, Pompey and Augustus, still remain. It was a favourite resort until the invasion of the barbarians under Theodoric the Goth. Horace alludes to the palaces and temples overhanging the sea, but most of these have now fallen into the water, where beautiful columns may be seen beneath the waves. Besides these luxurious homes, and the vast temple of Serapis that was so near, there remain ruins of a temple to Jupiter, another to Venus, and others that are unidentified. But the one that remains in the best condition and state of preservation is Mercury's, as the domed roof protected it when the others were destroyed by the ashes from the neighbouring volcano. The façade of the temple has been removed, but one long vaulted hall remains. It is not pierced with windows, and was probably intended to be dark, for the better perpetration of mysteries. On the ceiling may be traced oblong shaped paintings, "men portrayed upon the wall," that are too much defaced to identify, but they recall the shape and approximate size of the Atouts of the Tarots. These may be seen at stated intervals, and, when originally placed there, would have accommodated the twenty-two Atout cards ranged in the order in which they are now numbered. It was supposed that the emblematic figures representing Osiris, Maut, Isis and other deities with the virtues, vices, love, marriage, death, etc., were placed in recesses or alcoves in the Egyptian temples, but if these half-obliterated figures in the temple at Baiæ were intended to represent the Atouts, a different plan was followed, more like that mentioned in Ezekiel xxiii:14. It may have been that the priests followed the idea of putting the figures on the ceiling, so that they might teach their followers the significance of the emblems when it was no longer worth while to make mysteries of them and to conceal them. Beside the temple, and opening from it, is an inner room that was probably once covered by a roof, but that has fallen, and now the space is only an enclosed court. In the centre remains what might have been a platform or altar where the sacrifices of pigs or tongues, and of other things immolated to Mercury, were made yearly at the time of his festival, on the thirteenth of May. Prof. Charles Anthon, in his "Classical Dictionary," when describing Mercury, says: