THE PALLADIUM.
In the centre of the peristylium, just coming to the surface and occupying the whole of the width of the open court, are the foundations of an octagonal edifice in brick, with ribs running from the angles to a central circle. Here, doubtless, was the shrine in which was kept the Sacred Palladium, or fatal token of the empire of the Romans. "Fatale pignus imperii Romani" (Livy, xxvi. 27). "Kept under the safeguard of Vesta's temple" (ibid. v. 52). This was a statuette of "Minerva, by no male beheld" (Lucan, ix. 994). "The Vestals alone were permitted to behold the Trojan Minerva" (ibid. i. 598). "That fell from heaven" (Dionysius, ii. 67). It seems it was originally kept in the Temple of Vesta itself (Pliny, vii. 45; Ovid, "T." iii. 1, 39).
"The sacred image of Minerva, to which the Romans pay uncommon veneration, and which, as they say, was brought from Troy, was exposed to public view (during the fire of 192), so that the men of our age beheld the Palladium, never seen by any before since the time it came from Ilium into Italy. For the Vestal Virgins laid hold on it in the hurry and confusion, and carried it openly through the Sacred Way into the Imperial Palace" (Herodian, in "Commodus").
"Elagabalus, wanting a wife for his sun-god, sent for the sacred image of Pallas, which the Romans worship in secret from human eyes, and had it brought into his own bed-room. Thus he dared to displace the Palladium, that had never been moved since the time it came from Ilium, except when the temple was destroyed by fire, and they conveyed the goddess into the Imperial Palace" (ibid. in "Antoninus;" Lampridius, in "Elagabalus," iii.).
Fragments of a statuette of Minerva were found in the excavations.