The Hemicycle Terrace (IV) is planned, Fasolo and Gullini discovered, symmetrically to the axis of the whole composition, at this level marked by a central stair which has suffered a good deal from having had a modern house built on top of it. One can make out, however, that the stair was narrowed at one point (where there may have been a gate) by fountain niches on either side. The play of water is important at every level of the Sanctuary. Under the stair passes a vaulted corridor connecting the two axially symmetrical halves of the terrace. Closest to the stair on each side are four arches; beyond these, the monumental hemicycles which are the architectonic center of each wing. They have vaulted, coffered ceilings, and a concentric colonnade with Ionic-Italic (four-voluted) columns. Before they were restored, these were badly corroded, and covered with verdigris from the acid of the coppersmith’s shop which occupied the spot before the bombing. The epistyle carries an inscription, almost illegible, but apparently referring to building and restoring done on the initiative of the local Senate, presumably after the Sullan sack. The outer surface or extrados of the vaults is concealed--as it was on the porticoed ramp--by a story called an attic, in _opus incertum_, divided into rectangular panels by engaged columns with semicircular drums in tufa. At the back of each hemicycle runs a platform approached by two steps, with consoles on which planks could be placed to make more room; this suggests that it was intended for spectators to stand on. The pavement, as in the room at the foot of the ramp, is _lithostroton_; the likeness in the paving justifies the inference that the two terraces (III and IV) were built about the same time. On the far side of each hemicycle are four more arches. In front of the right-hand (eastern) hemicycle is a wishing well, with footings round it from which Fasolo and Gullini have been able to restore to the last detail, with the help of some architectural fragments, a small round well-house, with a high grille above its balustrade, now to be seen in the museum. Coins found in the well, whose heaviest concentration is in the mid-second century A.D., suggest that the well-house is much later in date than the terrace on which it stands. But the well-house stands on the central terrace of seven; it may have been the spot where, in the early days of the Sanctuary, the lots were cast. From either end of the Hemicycle Terrace ramps (Fig. 5.4) ascended to the Cortina Terrace (VI), the next but one above. [Illustration: FIG. 5.4 Palestrina, Sanctuary of Fortune. Model from southwest, showing buttresses, and ramp from Hemicycle Terrace to Cortina Terrace. (H. Kähler, _Ann. Univ. Saraviensis_ 7 [1958], Pl. 39) ]