It was matter of dispute whether in this year, 212, Apollo was expected to show his favour to Rome as a conqueror of her foe or as an averter of pestilence in the summer heats; both functions were within his range. But in 208 we are told that the ludi were renewed by a lex, made permanent, and fixed for July 13 in consequence of a pestilence[753]; and we may fairly assume that this was, in part at least, the cause of their institution four years earlier. What little we know of the traditions of Apollo-worship at Rome points in the same direction. His oldest temple in the Flaminian fields, where, according to Livy, a still more ancient shrine once stood[754], was vowed in 432 B.C. in consequence of a pestilence; and the god had also the cult-title Medicus[755]. The next occasion on which we meet with the cult is that of the first institution of a lectisternium in 397 B.C., Livy’s account of which is worth condensing[756]. That year was remarkable for an extremely cold winter, which was followed by an equally unhealthy summer, destructive to all kinds of animals. As the cause of this pestilence could not be discovered, the Sibylline books were consulted; the result of which was the introduction of a _lectisternium_, at which three couches were laid out with great magnificence, on which reposed Apollo and Latona, Diana and Hercules, Mercurius and Neptunus, whose favour the people besought for eight days. The cult of Apollo, though thus introduced in its full magnificence at Rome in historical times, was, ‘so old in Italy as almost to give the impression of being indigenous[757].’ Tradition ascribed to Tarquinius Superbus the introduction from Cumae of the Sibylline oracles, which were intimately connected with Apollo-worship; and that Etruscan king may well have been familiar with the Greek god, who was well known in Etruria as _Aplu_[758], and who was worshipped at Caere, the home of the Tarquinian family, which city had a ‘treasury’ at Delphi[759]. The Romans themselves, according to a tradition which is by no means improbable, had very early dealings with the Delphic oracle. It does not seem certain that Apollo displaced any other deity when transplanted to Rome. It has been thought that the obscure Veiovis became clothed with some of Apollo’s characteristics, but this is extremely doubtful[760]. The mysterious deity of Soracte, _Soranus_, is called Apollo by Virgil[761]; this, however, is not a true displacement, like that, e. g., of the ancient Ceres by the characteristics of Demeter, but merely a poetical substitution of a familiar name for an unfamiliar one which was unquestionably old Italian.