prophetess vanished. The volumes were placed under the new temple on
the Capitoline, no one doubting that they actually contained precepts
of the utmost importance. The wise-looking augurs came together, peered
into the rolls, and told the king and the people that they were right,
and age after age the books were appealed to for direction, though, as
the people never were permitted even to peep into the sacred cell in
which they were hidden, they never could be quite certain that the
augurs who consulted them found any thing in them that they did not put
there themselves.

While Tarquinius was going on with his great works, while he was
oppressing his own people and conquering his neighbors uninterruptedly,
he was suddenly startled by a dire portent. A serpent crawled out from
beneath the altar in his palace and coolly ate the flesh of the royal
sacrifice. The meaning of this appalling omen could not be allowed to
remain uncertain, and as no one in Italy was able to explain it,
Tarquin sent to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, to ask the
signification. Delphi is a place situated in the midst of the most
sublime scenery of Greece, just north of the Gulf of Corinth. Shut in
on all sides by stupendous cliffs, among which flow the inspiring
waters of the Castalian Spring, thousands of feet above which frowns
the summit of Parnassus, on which Deucalion is said to have landed
after the deluge, this romantic valley makes a deep impression on the
mind of the visitor, and it is not strange that at an age when signs
and wonders were looked for in every direction, it should have become
the home of a sibyl.

[Illustration: THE RAVINE OF DELPHI]

The king's messengers to Delphi were his two sons and a nephew named