'Quæris cur veniam tibi tardior? aurea Phœbi
Porticus a magno Cæsare aperta fuit.
Tota erat in speciem Pœnis digesta columnis:
Inter quas Danai fœmina turba senis.'
Propert. ii. El. 31.
'Signa peregrinis ubi sunt alterna columnis
Belides, et stricto barbarus ense pater.'
Ovid, Trist. iii. 1. 61.
"Here also was a statue of Apollo sounding the lyre, apparently a likeness of Augustus; whose beauty when a youth, to judge from his bust in the Vatican, might well entitle him to counterfeit the god. Around the altar were the images of four oxen, the work of Myron, so beautifully sculptured that they seemed alive. In the middle of the portico rose the temple, apparently of white marble. Over the pediment was the chariot of the sun. The gates were of ivory, one of them sculptured with the story of the giants hurled down from the heights of Parnassus, the other representing the destruction of the Niobids. Inside the temple was the statue of Apollo in a tunica talaris, or long garment, between his mother Latona and his sister Diana, the work of Scopas, Cephisodorus, and Timotheus. Under the base of Apollo's statue Augustus caused to be buried the Sibylline books which he had selected and placed in gilt chests. Attached to the temple was a library called Bibliotheca Græca et Latina, apparently, however, only one structure, containing the literature of both tongues. Only the choicest works were admitted to the honour of a place in it, as we may infer from Horace:
'Tangere vitet
Scripta, Palatinus quæcunque recepit Apollo.'
Ep. i. 3. 16.
"The library appears to have contained a bronze statue of Apollo, fifty feet high; whence we must conclude that the roof of the hall exceeded that height. In this library, or more probably, perhaps, in an adjoining apartment, poets, orators, and philosophers recited their productions. The listless demeanour of the audience on such occasions seems, from the description of the younger Pliny, to have been, in general, not over-encouraging. Attendance seems to have been considered as a friendly duty."—Dyer's City of Rome.
The temple of Apollo was built by Augustus to commemorate the battle of Actium. He appropriated to it part of the land covered with houses which he had purchased upon the Palatine;—another part he gave to the Vestals; the third he used for his own palace.
"Phœbus habet partem, Vestæ pars altera cessit:
Quod superest illis, tertius ipse tenet.
. . . . .
Stet domus, æternos tres habet una deos."
Ovid, Fast. iv. 951.
Thus Apollo and Vesta became as it were the household gods of Augustus:
"Vestaque Cæsareos inter sacrata penates,
Et cum Cæsarea tu, Phœbe domestice, Vesta."
Ovid, Metam. xv. 864.
Other temples on the Palatine were that of Juno Sospita: