8. The eight Ionic columns still standing, part of the _Temple of Saturn_, the ancient god of the Capitol. Before this temple Pompey sate surrounded by soldiers, listening to the orations which Cicero was delivering from the rostrum, when he received the personal address, "Te enim jam appello, et ea voce ut me exaudire possis." Here the tribune Metellus flung himself before the door and vainly attempted to defend the treasure of the _Ærarium_ in this temple against Julius Cæsar. The present remains are those of an indifferent and late renovation of an earlier temple, being composed of columns which differ in diameter, and a frieze put together from fragments which do not belong to one another. The original temple was built by Tarquin, and was supposed to mark the site of the ancient Sabine altar of the god and the limit of the wood of refuge mentioned by Virgil. 9. Just below the Temple of Saturn is the site of the _Arch of Tiberius_, erected, according to Tacitus, upon the recovery by Germanicus of the standards which Varus had lost. 10. The remains of the _Milliarium Aureum_, which formed the upper extremity of a wall faced with marbles, ending near the arch of Severus in a small conical pyramid. Distances without the walls were inscribed upon the Milliarium Aureum, as distances within the walls were upon the pyramid (from which in this case they were also measured) which bore the name of _Umbilicus Romæ_. The Via Sacra, which is still visible, descended from the Capitol between the temples of Saturn and Vespasian,--being known here as the Clivus Capitolinus, and passed to the left of-- 11. The _Arch of Septimius Severus_, which was erected by the senate A.D. 205, in honour of that emperor and his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. It is adorned with bas-reliefs relating his victories in the east,--his entry into Babylon and the tower of the temple of Belus are represented. A curious memorial of imperial history may be observed in the inscription, where we may still discern the erasure made by Caracalla after he had put his brother Geta to death in A.D. 213, for the sake of obliterating his memory. The added words are OPTIMIS FORTISSIMISQVE PRINCIPIBUS--but the ancient inscription P. SEPT. LVC. FIL. GETÆ. NOBILISS. CÆSARI, has been made out by painstaking decipherers. In one of the piers is a staircase leading to the top of the arch which was formerly (as seen from coins of Severus and Caracalla) adorned by a car drawn by six horses abreast, and containing figures of Severus and his sons. It was in front of this arch that the statue of Marcus Aurelius stood, which is now at the Capitol.