d no more silver in coin or
bars, but a considerable quantity of vases and other objects
beautifully chiselled in gold. With the help of his associates the
booty was removed to the palace. But the more the king had, the more
he wanted: and setting aside dignity, self-respect and reverence for
the memory of his great predecessors, he ordered his guard to search
the vaults, even to the very coffins of David and Solomon. The legend
says that the profanation was prevented by an outburst of flames which
killed two of the men. This event filled Herod with fear, and to
expiate his sacrilege he raised a beautiful monument of white marble
at the entrance of the tombs.

The reader must not believe that such discoveries are either of
doubtful credibility or a matter of the past only. They have taken
place in all centuries, the present included; they take place now.

In July, 1793, behind the choir of the nuns of S. Francesco di Paola,
in the Via di S. Lucia in Selci, a room of a private Roman house was
discovered, and in a corner of it a magnificent silver service, which
had once belonged to Projecta, wife of Turcius Asterius Secundus, who
was prefect of the city in 362 A. D. The discovery was witnessed and
described by Ennio Quirino Visconti and Filippo Aurelio Visconti. The
objects were of pure silver, heavily gilded, and weighed one thousand
and twenty-nine ounces. Besides plates and saucers, forks and spoons,
candelabras of various sizes and shapes, there was a wedding-casket
with bas-reliefs representing the bride and groom crowned with wreaths
of myrtle; she, with braids of hair encircling her head many times, in
the fashion of the age of the empress Helena; he, with the beard cut
square, in the style worn by Julian the apostate, and Eugenius. The
reliefs of the body of the casket represented love-scenes, Venus and
the Nereids, the Muses and other pagan subjects; and just under them
was engraved the salutation:--

"Secundus and Proiecta, may you live in Christ."

The casket was filled with toilet articles and jewels. Later
discoveries brought the total weight of the silver to fifteen hundred
ounces.

In 1810 a peasant ploughing his field in the territory of Faleria,
three miles from Civita Castellana, met with an obstacle which, on
closer examination, proved to be a box filled with silver. He loaded
himself with the precious spoils, as did many other peasants, whom the
news of the discovery had attracted to the spo