cription of the column of Henry IV. was made
to disappear at the same time. We have found it concealed in a remote
corner of the convent of S. Antonio.[25] The column itself, and the
canopy which sheltered it, fell to the ground on Thursday, February
15, 1744; and when Benedict XIV. restored the monument in the
following year, he severed forever its connection with these
remarkable historical events, by dedicating it DEIPARAE VIRGINI. Having
been dismantled in 1875, during the construction of the Esquiline
quarter, it was reerected in 1880, not far from its original place, on
the east side of S. Maria Maggiore,--not without opposition, because
there are always men who think they can obliterate history by
suppressing monuments which bear testimony to it.

One of the characteristics of ancient sanctuaries, by which the weary
pilgrim was provided with bathing accommodations, is also to be found
in the old churches of Rome. We are told in the "Liber Pontificalis"
that Pope Symmachus (498-514), while building the basilica of S.
Pancrazio, on the Via Aurelia, _fecit in eadem balneum_, "provided it
with a bath." Another was erected by the same Pope near the apse of
S. Paolo fuori le Mura, the supply of water of which was originally
derived from a spring; later from wheels, or noriahs, established on
the banks of the Tiber. Notices were written on the walls of these
bathing apartments, warning laymen and priests to observe the
strictest rules of modesty. One of these inscriptions, from the baths
annexed to the churches of SS. Sylvester and Martin, is preserved in
section II. of the Christian epigraphic museum of the Lateran. It ends
with the distich:--

NON NOSTRIS NOCET OFFICIIS NEC CULPA LABACRI
QUOD SIBIMET GENERAT LUBRICA VITA MALUM EST,--

"There is no harm in seeking strength and purity of body in baths; it
is not water but our own bad actions that make us sin." These verses
are not so good as their moral; but inscriptions like this prove that
the abandonment of such useful institutions must be attributed not to
the undue severity of Christian morality, but to the ruin of the
aqueducts by which fountains and baths were fed. However, even in the
darkest period of the Middle Ages we find the traditional "kantharos,"
or basin, in the centre of the quadri-porticoes or courts by which the
basilicas were entered. Such is the vase in the court of S. Caecilia,
represented on the next page, and that in front of S. Cosimato in