was emphasised in B.C. 367, when the priesthood of the oracles was opened to the plebeians, while the pontiffs were still patricians.  At first unquestionably the object of the patricians was to keep for themselves the more sacred and the then more important college and to open the lesser priesthood to the plebeians.  But in the struggle of the two orders those things which were opened to the plebeians grew in importance and entirely overshadowed those which were so scrupulously hedged about, and the elements which strove to resist progress were crushed beneath it; and just as the old assembly, the Comitia Curiata, which the patricians had kept for themselves, was later of no account compared with the Comitia Centuriata, which belonged to both orders, so the college of pontiffs lost significance while the keepers of the oracles gained steadily in power and influence.  But it was not merely because Apollo was the great leader of the Greek movement in Roman religion that Augustus chose to honour him.  A far more important consideration guided him, for Apollo was especially attached to the Julian house in all its mythical and historical fortunes.  The first great public evidence of Apollo’s favour in Augustus’s career was at the battle of Actium; but while this led to the first proclamation of the emperor’s devotion to Apollo, it was not Actium which made him a worshipper of the god, but it was because he was a worshipper of Apollo from the beginning that Actium and all subsequent tokens of the god’s favour were emphasised by him.  However much or little the people of the day may have known about Apollo’s previous relations to the Julian family, the legend of his assistance at Actium, and the immortalisation of that legend in the great temple on the Palatine were proofs enough.  The moral effect of the Palatine temple cannot be overestimated, especially when we realise one fact, which is often neglected, that this temple gained infinitely in significance because it was on private ground, attached to the emperor’s own private house, for we must not forget that the Palatine was only in process of transition into the imperial residence, and though the house of Augustus, when he left it, was the palace, during his lifetime it was merely his private residence.  The temple of Apollo was therefore in its origin theoretically the private chapel of a Roman family rather than the seat of a state cult.  It was the Apollo of the Julian house who was being worshipped there.  And yet it was far more than a private worship, for it began very soon to be a cult centre in distinct rivalry to Juppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline.  The oracles of the Sibyl, even though they were the words of Apollo, had never been preserved in the old temple of Apollo on the Flaminian meadow, but instead they had always been in the custody of Juppiter on the Capitoline.  But now these oracles, after being carefully revised by the emperor, were deposited in the new Palatine temple, and by this act the centre of all the Greek cults in Rome was transferred from Juppiter to Apollo, from the Capitoline to the Palatine, and the rivalry between the two was publicly declared.  The temple was dedicated in B.C. 28 and Augustus allowed its influence to permeate the Roman people for more than a decade before he took the next step, a step which was virtually to parallel Apollo and his sister Artemis-Diana with Juppiter and Juno.