"Transcribed (and compared or verified) from the original bronze tablet which is hung in Rome, in the Capitolium"--and here follows the designation of a special place of the Capitolium, such as,--
"On the right side of the shrine of the _Fides populi romani_" (December 11, A. D. 52).
"On the left side of the _ædes Thensarum_" (July 2, A. D. 60).
"On the pedestal of the statue of Quintus Marcius Rex, behind the temple of Jupiter" (June 15, 64).
"On the pedestal of the _ara gentis Iuliæ_, on the right side, opposite the statue of Bacchus" (March 7, 71).
"On the vestibule, on the left wall, between the two archways" (May 21, 74).
"On the pedestal of the statue of Jupiter Africus" (December 2, 76).
"On the base of the column, on the inner side, near the statue of Jupiter Africus" (September 5, 85).
"On the tribunal by the trophies of Germanicus, which are near the shrine of the _Fides_" (May 15, 86).
Comparing these indications of localities with the dates of the diplomas,--there are sixty-three in all,--it appears that they were not hung at random, but in regular order from monument to monument, until every available space was covered. In the year 93 there was not an inch left, and the Capitol is mentioned no more as a place for exhibiting or advertising the acts of Government. From that year they were hung "_in muro post templum divi ad Minervam_," that is, behind the modern church of S. Maria Liberatrice.
THE TEMPLE OF ISIS AND SERAPIS. In the spring of 1883, in surveying the tract of ground between the Collegio Romano and the Baths of Agrippa, formerly occupied by the Temple of Isis and Serapis, and in collecting archæological information concerning it, I was struck by the fact that, every time excavations were made on either side of the Via di S. Ignazio for building or restoring the houses which line it, remarkable specimens of Egyptian art had been brought to light. The annals of discoveries begin with 1374, when the obelisk now in the Piazza della Rotonda was found, under the apse of the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, together with the one now in the Villa Mattei von Hoffman. In 1435, Eugenius IV. discovered the two lions of Nektaneb I. which are now in the Vatican, and the two of black basalt now in the Capitoline Museum. In 1440 the reclining figure of a river-god was found and buried again. The Tiber of the Louvre and the Nile of the Braccio Nuovo seem to have come to light during the pontificate of Leo X.; at all events it was he who caused them to be removed to the Vatican. In 1556 Giovanni Battista de Fabi found, and sold to cardinal Farnese, the reclining statue of Oceanus now in Naples. In 1719 the Isiac altar now in the Capitol was found under the Biblioteca Casanatense. In 1858 Pietro Tranquilli, in restoring his house,--the nearest to the apse of la Minerva,--came across the following-named objects: a sphinx of green granite, the head of which is a portrait of Queen Haths'epu, the oldest sister of Thothmes III., who was famous for her expedition to the Red Sea, recently described by Dümmichen;[52] a sphinx of red granite, believed to be a Roman replica; a group of the cow Hathor, the living symbol of Isis, nursing the young Pharaoh Horemheb; the portrait statue of the grand dignitary Uahábra, a good specimen of Saïtic art; a column of the temple, covered with high reliefs, which represented a procession of bald-headed priests holding canopi in their hands; a capital, carved with papyrus leaves and lotus flowers; and a fragment of an Egyptian basrelief in red granite, with traces of polychromy.