Of particular objects older than the church of Saint Francis, a restriction which of course also cuts out the church of his friend, Saint Clara, there can be no doubt that the monument of greatest interest is the temple in the forum--now _Piazza grande_--with its Corinthian columns strangely hemmed in by a house on one side and on the other by the bell-tower which was added when the temple was turned into a church. But it is surely not, as it is locally called, a temple of Minerva, but rather of Castor and Pollux. Not the least interesting part of its belongings lies below ground; for the level of the forum at Assisi has risen as though it had been at Rome or at Trier. The temple must have risen on a bold flight of steps, of which some of the upper ones still remain. In front of it, below the steps, was a great altar, with the drains for the blood of the victims, just as we see them on the Athenian akropolis. Such drains always bring to our mind those comments of Dean Stanley on this repulsive feature of pagan and ancient Jewish worship, which has passed away alike from the church, from the synagogue, and from the mosque, save only at Mecca. In front again is the dedicatory inscription with the name of the founder of the temple, and the record of the dedication-feast which he made to the magistrates and people. His name can doubtless be turned to in Mommsen's great collection; we are not sure that in the underground gloom we took it down quite correctly, and it is better not to be wrong. Anyhow the dedication is not to Minerva but to the twin heroes. A great number of inscriptions are built up in the wall of the church. As usual, there are more freedmen than sons; and among the freedmen the one best worth notice is Publius Decimius Eros Merula, physician, surgeon, and oculist, who bought his freedom for so much, his magistracy as one of the _Sexviri_ for so much, who spent so much on mending the roads, and left so much behind him. Here the state of things is vividly brought home to us in which a man could buy, not only his cook and his coachman, but also his architect and his medical adviser. And we are set thinking on the one hand how great must be the physical infusion of foreign blood, Greek and barbarian, in the actual people of Italy, and on the other hand how thoroughly and speedily all such foreign elements were practically Romanized. The son of the slave-born magistrate of Assisi would look on himself, and be looked on by others, as no less good a Roman than any Fabius or Cornelius who might still linger on.