to allude to the church of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was
the first to make the mistake, and Winckelmann followed Rycquius.

Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and says he had heard the
wolf with the twins was found[643] near the arch of Septimius Severus.
The commentator on Winckelmann is of the same opinion with that learned
person, and is incensed at Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero,
in speaking of the wolf struck with lightning in the Capitol, makes use
of the past tense. But, with the Abate's leave, Nardini does not
positively assert the statue to be that mentioned by Cicero, and if he
had, the assumption would not perhaps have been so exceedingly
indiscreet. The Abate himself is obliged to own that there are marks
very like the scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the present
wolf; and, to get rid of this, adds, that the wolf seen by Dionysius
might have been also struck by lightning, or otherwise injured.

Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of Cicero. The
orator in two places seems to particularise the Romulus and the Remus,
especially the first, which his audience remembered to _have been_ in
the Capitol, as being struck with lightning. In his verses he records
that the twins and wolf both fell, and that the latter left behind the
marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the wolf was consumed: and
Dion only mentions that it fell down, without alluding, as the Abate has
made him, to the force of the blow, or the firmness with which it had
been fixed. The whole strength, therefore, of the Abate's argument hangs
upon the past tense; which, however, may be somewhat diminished by
remarking that the phrase only shows that the statue was not then
standing in its former position. Winckelmann has observed that the
present twins are modern; and it is equally clear that there are marks
of gilding on the wolf, which might therefore be supposed to make part
of the ancient group. It is known that the sacred images of the Capitol
were not destroyed when injured by time or accident, but were put into
certain underground depositories, called _favissae_.[644] It may be
thought possible that the wolf had been so deposited, and had been
replaced in some conspicuous situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by
Vespasian. Rycquius, without mentioning his authority, tells that it was
transferred from the Comitium to the Lateran, and thence brought to the
Capitol. If it was found near th