. Two sides of the cella of the temple
still remain, formed by large massive blocks of peperino, probably
taken from the second wall of Rome, which must have passed very near
to the east end of this temple; for the ancient Roman architects were
as unscrupulous in appropriating the relics of former ages as their
successors. The roughness of these walls was hidden by an outer casing
of marble, ornamented with pilasters, of which only the small capitals
now remain. Both the cella and the portico still retain a large
portion of their magnificent marble entablature; and the frieze and
cornice are richly covered with carvings of vases and candelabra,
guarded by griffins, exquisite in design and execution. The marble
slabs that covered the whole outside of the temple had been burnt for
lime in a kiln that stood in front of the portico in the sixteenth
century, and in this lime-kiln were found fragments of statues,
bas-reliefs, and inscriptions, which were about to be destroyed in
that barbarous fashion.

The temple was originally begun by Antoninus Pius to the memory of his
unworthy wife Faustina in the year 142 of our era, but being
unfinished at his death, it was dedicated by the senate to both their
names. We see it represented in all its magnificence on some of the
coins of this emperor. In the year 1430 Pope Martin V. built over its
remains a church called S. Lorenzo in Miranda, whose singular ugliness
was in striking contrast to the grandeur of the venerable ruin which
embraced it. The floor of this church was ten feet above the original
level of the temple, and its roof was carried twenty feet above its
cornice. It contained several tombs of the Roman apothecaries, to
whose Corporation it belonged. No one will regret that it has been
removed; the excavations in front of it having reduced the level of
the ground far below its doorway, and thus cut off the approach. It is
strange to think of the two different kinds of worship carried on at
such widely separated intervals within this remarkable building, first
a pagan temple and then a Christian church--worship so different in
name and yet so like in reality; for the divine honours paid to a
mortal emperor and his wife were transferred in after ages to frail
mortals such as Saint Laurence and the Virgin Mary. We are reminded by
the inscription above the portico of the temple, "Divo Antonino et
Divae Faustina," that the government of the Caesars had become an
earthly omnip