y account we have of its existence is given by
Flavius Josephus. He relates how Tiberius, after the assault of Mundus
against Paulina,[53] condemned the priests to crucifixion, burned the
shrine, and threw the statue of the goddess into the Tiber. Nero
restored the sanctuary; it was, however, destroyed again in the great
conflagration, A. D. 80. Domitian was the second restorer; Hadrian,
Commodus, Caracalla, and Alexander Severus improved and beautified the
group, from time to time. At the beginning of the fourth century of
our era it contained the _propylaia_, or pyramidal towers with a
gateway, at each end of the _dromos_; one near the present church of
S. Stefano del Cacco, one near the church of S. Macuto. They were
flanked by one or more pairs of obelisks, of which six have been
recovered up to the present time, namely, one now in the Piazza della
Rotonda, a second in the Piazza della Minerva, a third in the Villa
Mattei, a fourth in the Piazza della Stazione, a fifth in the
Sphaeristerion at Urbino, and fragments of a sixth in the Albani
collection.

From the propylaia, a _dromos_, or sacred avenue, led to the double
temple. To the dromos belong the two lions in the Museo Etrusco
Gregoriano, the two lions in the Capitoline Museum, the sphinx of
Queen Hathsepu in the Barracco collection, the sphinx of Amasis and
the Tranquilli sphinx in the Capitol, the cow Hathor and the statue of
Uahabra in the Museo Archeologico in Florence, the _kynokephaloi_ of
Necthor-heb, the _kynokephalos_ which gave the popular name of _Cacco_
(ape) to the church of S. Stefano, the statue formerly in the Ludovisi
Gallery, the Nile of the Braccio Nuovo, the Tiber of the Louvre, the
Oceanus at Naples, the River-God buried in 1440, the Isiac altars of
the Capitol and of the Louvre, the tripod, the crocodile and sundry
other fragments which were found in 1883. Of the temple itself we
possess two columns covered with mystic bas-reliefs, seven
capitals,--one in the Capitol, the others in the Vatican,--and two
blocks of granite from the walls of the cella, one in the Barberini
gardens, one in the Palazzo Galitzin.

The last historical mention we possess of this admirable Egyptian
museum of ancient Rome was found by Delille in the "Cod. Parisin."
8064, in which the attempt by Nicomachus Flavianus to revive the pagan
religion in 394 A. D. is minutely described.[54] The reaction caused
by this final outburst of fanaticism must have been fatal to t