griffin; and Viterbo kept the red field, and the Orvietans
charged it with the white eagle. It is true that the Roman lords,
consuls and dictators, after that the eagle appeared as an augury over
the Tarpeian rock, to wit, over the treasure chamber of the Capitol,
as Titus Livius makes mention, added the eagle to their arms on the
ensign; and we find that the consul Marius in the battle of the Cimbri
had on his ensigns the silver eagle, and a similar ensign was borne by
Catiline when he was defeated by Antonius in the parts about Pistoia,
as Sallust relates. And the great Pompey bore the azure field and
silver eagle, and Julius Caesar bore the vermilion field and golden
eagle, as Lucan makes mention in verse, saying,

Signa pares aquilas, et pila minantia pilis.

But afterwards Octavianus Augustus, his nephew and successor, changed
it, and bore the golden field and the eagle natural, to wit, in black
colour, signifying the supremacy of the Empire, for like as the eagle
surpasses every other bird, and sees more clearly than any other
creature, and flies as high as the heaven of the hemisphere of fire,
so the Empire ought to be above every other temporal sovereignty. And
after Octavianus all the Roman emperors have borne it in like manner;
but Constantine, and after him all the other Greek emperors, retained
the ensign of Julius Caesar, to wit, the vermilion field and golden
eagle, but with two heads. We will leave speaking of the ensigns of
the Roman commonwealth and of the Emperors, and we will return to our
subject concerning the doings of the city of Florence.

Sec. 41.--_How the city of Florence became the Treasure-House of the
Romans and the Empire._

Sec. 42.--_How the Temple of Mars, which is now called the Duomo of S.
Giovanni, was built in Florence._

After that Caesar and Pompey, and Macrinus and Albinus and Marcius,
Roman nobles and builders of the new city of Florence, had returned
to Rome, their labours being completed, the city began to increase and
multiply both in Romans and Fiesolans who had settled as its
inhabitants, and in a short time it became a fine city for those
times; for the emperors and senate of Rome advanced it to the best of
their power, much like another little Rome. Its citizens, being in
prosperous state, determined to build in the said city a marvellous
temple in honour of the god Mars, by reason of the victory which the
Romans had had over the city of Fiesole; and they se