adorning after the manner of writers of his day; or he may have worked in the contents of other pontifical books, _libri_ or _commentarii pontificales_. The point for us is simply the continued activity of the pontifex maximus in this work, which must have become almost entirely secular in character. The notes may have been jejune, but they were probably accurate, and free from the perversions of family vanity or such lengthy rhetorical ornamentation as became the universal fashion among private writers of annalistic history. They were, we may suppose, exactly what our modern historical conscience demands. But all that is left of them, or almost all, is the list of consuls (_fasti consulares_) and of triumphs (_fasti triumphales_) which in their present form must, or at least may, have been extracted from them.[582] On the whole, we may reckon them as the most valuable work of the college; and they may be taken as marking a growing sense of the importance of Rome and her history, the commemoration of which is thus committed to an official who, as an individual, had invariably served the State well, and in whom all classes had perfect confidence.[583] One important part of the work of the college in this century must have been the adjustment of the civic religion of the Italian communities to that of Rome. What deities were to be made citizens of Rome? Which were to be left in their old homes undisturbed? No doubt many other questions must have called for attention in religious matters after the conquest of Italy, but this is the one of which we know most. The temple foundations of this period have all been carefully put together (chiefly from Livy's invaluable records) by Aust,[584] and show that there was a certain tendency to bring in deities from outside, not so much because they represented some special need of the Romans, corn or art or industry, as two centuries earlier, but simply because they were deities of the conquered whom it might be prudent to adopt. The great Juno Regina of Veii was long ago induced by _evocatio_ to migrate to Rome; Fors Fortuna from Etruria, Juturna from Lavinium, Minerva Capta from Falerii, Feronia, a famous Latin goddess from Capena, Vortumnus from Volsinii,[585] all attest the same liberal tone in religious matters which on the whole marks the secular Italian policy of the Senate in this period. If we had but more information about the former, we should be able to understand the latter far better. We should like to know why in some cases the chief deity of a community came to Rome, while in others there is not trace of migration. The famous Vacuna of Reate, for example, never left her home in the Apennines, possibly because she was a kind of Vesta, who could not be spared from Reate, and was not wanted at Rome.[586]