Let us glance at the ruins that surround it.  That mound at the other end was the foundation of a temple, the diminutive size of which strikes the newcomer at first sight.  Every one is not aware that the temple, far from being a place of assemblage for devout multitudes, was, with the ancients, in reality, but a larger niche inclosing the statue of the deity to be worshipped.  The consecrated building received only a small number of the elect after they had been befittingly purified, and the crowd remained outside.  It was not the palace, but the mere cell of the god.  This cell (cella) was, at first, the whole temple, and was just large enough to hold the statue and the altar.  By degrees it came to be ornamented with a front portico, then with a rear portico, and then with side colonnades, thus attaining by embellishment after embellishment the rich elegance of the Madeleine at Paris.  But the proportions of our cathedrals were never adopted by the ancients.  Thus, Christianity rarely appropriates the Greek or Roman temples for its worship.  It has preferred the vast basilicas, the royal name of which assumes a religious meaning.

The Romans built their temples in this wise:  The augur—­that is to say, the priest who read the future in the flight of birds—­traced in the sky with his short staff a spacious square, which he then marked on the soil.  Stakes were at once fixed along the four lines, and draperies were hung between the stakes.  In the midst of this space, the area or inclosure of the temple, the augur marked out a cross—­the augural cross, indicating the four cardinal points; the transverse lines fixed the limits of the cella; the point where the two branches met was the place for the door, and the first stone was deposited on the threshold.  Numerous lighted lamps illuminated these ceremonies, after which the chief priest, the pontifex maximus, consecrated the area, and from that moment it became settled and immovable.  If it crumbled, it must be rebuilt on the same spot, and the least change made, even should it be to enlarge it, would be regarded as a profanation.  Thus had the dwelling of the god that rises before us at the extremity of the Forum been consecrated.

Like most of the Roman temples, this edifice is elevated on a foundation (the podium), and turned toward the north.  One ascends to it by a flight of steps that cuts in the centre a platform where, perhaps, the altar stood.  Upon the podium there remain some vestiges of the twelve columns that formed the front portico or pronaos.  Twelve columns, did I say?—­three on each side, six in front; always an even number at the facades, so that a central column may not mask the doorway and that the temple may be freely entered by the intercolumnar middle space.