the wife of Augustus, along with an arm holding a globe, and belonging,
no doubt, to the consecrated statue which must have stood upon the
pedestal at the end, a statue of the Emperor. Then this was the temple
of Augustus. The apartment to the left shows a niche and an altar, and
served, perhaps, for sacrifices; the room to the right offers a stone
bench arranged in the shape of a horse-shoe. It could not be one of
those triple beds (_triclinia_) which we shall find in the eating
saloons of the private houses; for the slope of these benches would have
forced the reclining guests to have their heads turned toward the wall
or their feet higher than their heads. Moreover, in the interior of this
bench runs a conduit evidently intended to afford passage to certain
liquids, perhaps to the blood of animals slaughtered in the place. This,
therefore, was neither a Pantheon nor a temple of Augustus, but a
slaughter-house (_macellum_.) In that case, the eleven apartments
abutting to the right on the long wall of the edifice would be the
stalls. But these rooms, in which the regular orifices made in the wall
were to hold the beams that sustained the second story, were adorned
with paintings which still exist, and which must have been quite
luxurious for those poor oxen. Let us interrogate these paintings and
those of all these walls; they will instruct us, perhaps, with reference
to the destination of the building. There are mythological and epic
pieces reproducing certain sacred subjects, of which we shall speak
further on. Others show us winged infants, little Cupids weaving
garlands, of which the ancients were so fond; some of the bacchanalian
divinities, celebrating the festival of the mills, are crowning with
flowers the patient ass who is turning the wheel. Flowers on all
sides--that was the fantasy of antique times. Flowers at their wild
banquets, at their august ceremonies, at their sacrifices, and at their
festivals; flowers on the necks of their victims and their guests, and
on the brows of their women and their gods. But the greatest number of