Mercury greatly affected high ground and conspicuous positions. Thus it is supposed that there was a temple dedicated to Mercury on Montmartre: it is known that he had one on Mont du Chat,[1] near the blue lake of the Bourget, in the land of the Allobroges; another on Mont de Sène, in the Côte d'Or; and a third of considerable importance on the Donon, one of the more elevated heights of the Vosges.[2] But far the most celebrated one remains to be mentioned: it stood on the summit of the Puy de Dôme, in Auvergne, and its foundations are said to prove it to have been an extensive and costly building. It was in fact the great temple of the Arverni; and for it was probably destined the colossal Mercury in bronze, stated by Pliny in his Historia Naturalis, xxxiv. 18, to have been made by the Greek artist Zenodorus for the Gaulish state of the Arverni. It stood 120 feet high, and the work took ten years to accomplish.[3] The expense connected with the worship was probably borne by the cities of Gaul in common, and the fame of the temple lasted to the time of Gregory of Tours; for he relates in his Historia Francorum, i. 32, how it was destroyed by Chrocus, king of the Alamanni, which according to the historian happened in the time of Valerian and Gallien.[4] A fragmentary inscription discovered on the spot happens to have been set up by certain negotiatores or men of business, and it serves to
