the contrary decree of the Roman Senate very much in dudgeon. He therefore left the country in a huff, and revenged himself by annihilating vast numbers of unfortunate Gauls, Britons, Germans, and other barbarians, who happened to come in his way. The first public edifice of any importance erected in the city was a temple to Mars, with a colossal statue of that divinity in the midst of it. This is the present baptistery, formerly cathedral, of Saint John; for the temple never was destroyed, and never can be destroyed, until the day of judgment. This we know on the authority of more than one eminent historian. It is also proved by an inscription to that effect in the mosaic pavement, which any one may inspect who chooses to do so. [Footnote: Villani, Cron. Lib. I. c. xlii.] The town was utterly destroyed A.D. 450, by Totila, _Flagellum Dei_, who, with great want of originality, immediately rebuilt Fiesole; thus repeating, but reversing, the achievement of the Romans five hundred years before. So Fiesole and Florence seem to have alternately filled and emptied themselves, like two buckets in a well, down to the time of Charlemagne. That emperor rebuilt Florence, but experienced some difficulty in doing so, by reason of the statue of Mars, which had been thrown into the Arno. The temple, converted to Christian purposes, had been the only building to escape the wrath of Totila; but owing to the pagan incantations practised when the town was originally consecrated to the god of war, the statue of that divinity would not consent to lie quietly and ignominiously in the bed of the Arno, while his temple and town were appropriated to other purposes. The river was dragged. The statue was found and set upon a column near the edge of the river, on a spot which is now the head of the Ponte Vecchio. True to its pugnacious character, it brought nothing but turbulence and bloodshed upon the town. The long and memorable feuds between the Guelphs and Ghibellines began by the slaying of Buondelmonte in his wedding dress, at the base of the statue. (A.D. 1215.)