"Treaties (such as between Pyrrhus and Rome) were then usual, and the ædiles had them in their keeping in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, engraved on plates of copper" (Polybius, iii.). That this was the usual way of keeping the records we learn from the same author, who saw and copied those which "Hannibal left at Lacinium--engraved tablets or records on copper of the events of his stay in Italy." "The censors went up immediately to the Temple of Liberty, where they sealed the books of the public records, shut up the office, and dismissed the clerks, affirming that they should do no kind of public business until the judgment of the people was passed on them"--A.U.C. 686--(Livy, xliii. 16). We have no mention in classic history as to when this building was erected, but fortunately an inscription has been handed down to us, in which Quintus Lutatius Catulus (who dedicated the temple to Jupiter Capitolinus) is expressly named, not only as the founder of the Tabularium, but also of the substructions, the most difficult portion of the whole, and which claim our fullest admiration. Q . LVTATIVS . Q. F. Q. N. CATVLVS . COS . SVBSTRVCTIONEM . ET . TABVLARIVM . EX . SEN . SENT . FACIENDVM . COERAVIT . EADEMQVE . PROBAVIT . The remains form the substructions of the present Capitol, or senator's residence, consisting of a massive wall of Gabii stone 240 feet long and 37 feet high, supporting the portico on the side of the Forum, which consisted of a series of arches, 23 feet by 15 feet, ornamented with sixteen Doric columns. Below this portico or arcade are a series of small chambers, with windows looking into the Forum, opening out of one another, approached by a short flight of steps, and probably used to store the records. At the back of the arcade are a series of large vaulted rooms or offices. At one end a grand flight of steps (repaired) leads up into what has been a grand arcade on the side of the Area Capitolina: its piers now partly sustain the modern building. At the farther end of this arcade is a flight of steep travertine steps, sixty-seven in number, leading down into the Forum, the exit to which has been blocked up by the Temple of Vespasian being built against the entrance. This building must have presented a grand front to the Forum in the olden time, though now it only sustains the buildings of Michael Angelo. In 1389-1394, Pope Boniface IX. first erected on the Capitoline Hill, on the ruins of the Tabularium, a residence for the senator and his assessors. The prospect was altered so that what was the front became the back, and it faced on to what was anciently the Area Capitolina, now the Piazza del Campidoglio, instead of the Forum.