of gorgeousness, of excessive and obtrusive ornament. In
almost any Roman church of to-day we find the walls and pillars stuck
about with figures, slabs, and so-called decorations to such an extent
that the finer lines and proportions are often ruined, The ancient
Roman likewise was commonly under the impression that the more
decoration you added, the more magnificent was the building. There
were doubtless many buildings in simpler and purer taste, probably
executed by Greek artists under the authority of some Roman who
happened to possess a finer judgment or less self-assertiveness.
Nevertheless the fault of over-elaboration is distinctly Roman.

[Illustration: FIG. 21.--SO-CALLED TEMPLE OF THE SIBYL AT TIVOLI.]

We must not omit to say that, besides temples of this typical
rectangular form, there were others of a round shape, encircled by
columns, like that graceful structure at Tivoli commonly, though
mistakenly, known as the temple of the Sibyl, and that small building
which still exists in an impoverished condition near the Tiber, and
which used to bear the erroneous title of the temple of Vesta. Others
again were simply round and domed, like the true temple of Vesta in
the Forum, or the superb and impressive Pantheon in the Campus
Martius. So far as the bare round was broken in these cases, it was
either by a pillared portico, as with the Pantheon, or by engaged
columns and ornament, as with the true temple of Vesta.

The mention of the temple of Vesta reminds us that it is time to face
about, and, passing behind the temple of Julius, to look in the
opposite direction, from V. Before us lies this circular shrine, a
form gradually developed from the primitive round hut which once
served as house to the prehistoric ancestors of the Roman stock. As it
was the duty of the maiden daughters of that ancient tribe to keep
alight the fire upon the domestic hearth, so through all the history
of Rome it was the duty of certain chosen virgins to keep perpetually
burning the hearth-fire of the city. The roof of the temple is open in
the middle, and you may perhaps see the smoke issuing from it. But if
you are a male, you may not enter. No man, except the chief Pontifex,
may set foot inside the shrine of the virgin goddess, who is attended
by virgin priestesses. Close behind the temple stands the house of
these Vestals. They are in a large measure the ancient prototype of
the modern nun, and their house is the prototype of th