the right of excavating and the objects
discovered should belong to her, for a limited number of years, up to
1891, I believe. The first campaign, opened January 2, 1889, and
closed in June, must be considered as one of the most valuable
contributions to the study of Etruscan civilization which have been
supplied of late to students, either by chance or by design. Had the
empress been able to carry out her plans for two or three years more,
the whole city and necropolis would have been explored, surveyed, and
illustrated, in the most strictly scientific manner. Political events
and the death of this noble woman brought the enterprise to a close.
To come back, however, to the bed of votive objects in terra-cotta and
bronze, I was able to make a rough estimate of its dimensions, which
are two hundred and fifty feet in length, fifty feet in width, and
from three to four in depth; nearly forty-four thousand cubic feet.
The objects collected in two weeks number four thousand; the fragments
buried again as worthless, double that number. The heads of veiled
goddesses alone amount to four hundred and forty-seven, of which three
hundred and seventy are full-faced, the rest in profile. The vein
contains fifty-two varieties of types; to Bartoli's list, we must add
busts, masks, arms, breasts, wombs, spines, bowels, lungs, toes,
figures cut open across the breast and showing the anatomy, figures
approximately human, or male and female embryos ending like the trunk
of a tree with stumps corresponding to the feet, figures of
hermaphrodites, human torsos modelled purposely without heads, arms
without hands, legs without feet, hands holding apples or
jewel-caskets, figurines of mothers nursing twins, beautiful
life-sized statues of draped women, with movable hands and feet, rats,
wild boars, sucking pigs, cows, rams, apples and other fruits, and
"marbles."

* * * * *

The first structures dedicated to the gods in Rome were called _arae_,
and had the shape of a cube of masonry, in the centre of a square
platform. They were modelled, in a measure, on the pattern of the
Pelasgic _hierones_, in which the territory of Tibur and Signia is
especially abundant. The _arae_ best known in Roman history and
topography are six in number, namely, the _ara maxima Herculis_; the
_Roma quadrata_; the _ara Aii Locutii_; the _ara Ditis et
Proserpinae_; the _ara pacis Augustae_; and the _ara incendii
Neroniani_. The oldes