"Numa erected the Temple of Vesta (A.U.C. 37) between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills; the Forum in which this temple was built lying between them" (Dionysius, ii. 66). "It was made round, as a symbol of the earth" (Ovid, "Fasti," vi. 265). "The roof was covered with bronze of Syracuse" (Pliny, xxxiv. 7). It was destroyed by fire under Nero and Commodus, and rebuilt by Vespasian and Septimius Severus. It was the conservatory of the Palladium and holy fire. The number of Virgins was originally four, afterwards increased to six. They were bound to their ministry for thirty years. If they broke their vow they were buried alive: they took their vows for thirty years. "Ten years they were being instructed in their duties, ten years they practised them, and ten years they passed in instructing others" (Plutarch). _On the opposite corner of the Forum_ ten columns and the side walls remain of THE TEMPLE OF ANTONINUS AND FAUSTINA. Erected by Antoninus Pius, A.D. 160; and dedicated by the Senate on his death to himself and wife, who were deified, as we learn from the inscription,-- DIVO . ANTONINO . ET . DIVAE . FAUSTINAE . EX . S. C. The vestibule of this edifice, composed of ten Corinthian pillars of variegated green marble (cipollino) supporting an architrave and part of the cellæ, built of square blocks of peperino, still remain. The architrave is adorned at each side with arabesque candelabra guarded, as it were, by griffins. The portico was excavated in 1876: the ascent to the Temple from the Via Sacra was found to be by a flight of twenty-one steps, fifteen feet in height. The portico now fulfils the same office to the Church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda, which we understand is to be pulled down. _Between this temple and our vantage point_ a mass of rubble work marks the site of THE TEMPLE-TOMB OF JULIUS CÆSAR. Ovid ("Met." xv., "Let." ii. 2), describes it as "close to Castor and Pollux, having its aspect towards the Forum and the Capitol." "They [the Triumvirs] likewise built a tomb to Julius Cæsar in the middle of the Forum, with an asylum, that should be for ever inviolable" (Dion Cassius, "Aug."). Before the temple was built, "a column of Numidian marble, formed of one stone twenty feet high, was erected to Cæsar in the Forum, inscribed--TO THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY" (Suetonius, "Cæsar," lxxxv.). This gave place to the temple, which had four columns in front, as we learn from a relief and a coin. It was decorated with the statues of the Julian line. "About the time of the death of Nero, the Temple of Cæsar being struck with lightning, the heads of all the statues in it fell off at once; and Augustus's sceptre was dashed from his hand" (Suetonius, "Galba"). _We must now call attention to the buildings between the Temple of Antoninus and the Church of S. Adriano on the line of the houses shortly to be pulled down; but till the excavations are made, we cannot be certain of the details. Next to the temple stood_