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152 "This pious work was intrusted, according to ancient precedent, to one of the most respected of the citizens, by name Lucius Vestinus, who, though only of knightly family, was equal in personal repute to any of the senators. The Haruspices, whom he consulted, demanded that the ruins of the fallen building should be conveyed away and cast into the lowest places of the city, and the new temple erected precisely on the old foundations; for the gods, they declared, would have no change made in the form of their familiar dwelling. On the 20th of June, 70, being a fair and cloudless day, the area of the temple-precincts was surrounded with a string of fillets and chaplets. Soldiers chosen for their auspicious names were marched into it, bearing boughs of the most auspicious trees; and the Vestals, attended by a troop of boys and girls, both whose parents were living, sprinkled it with water drawn from bubbling founts or running streamlets. Then preceded by the pontiffs, the prætor Helvidius, stalking round, sanctified the space with the mystical washing of sow's, sheep's, and bull's blood, and placed their entrails on a grassy altar. This done, he invoked Jove, Juno, and Minerva, and all the patrons of the empire, to prosper the undertaking, and raise by divine assistance their temple, founded by the piety of men. Then he touched with his hand the connected fillets, and the magistrates, the priests, the senators, the knights, with a number of the people, lent their strength to draw a great stone to the spot where the building was to commence. Beneath it they laid pieces of gold and silver money, minted for the occasion, as well as of unwrought metal; for the Haruspices forbade either