It was driven into the right side of the temple of Jupiter supremely good and great, on that part where the temple of Minerva is.

They say that the nail was a mark of the number of years elapsed, because letters were rare in those times, and that the law was referred to the temple of Minerva, because number is the invention of that goddess.

Cincius, a careful writer on such monuments, asserts that there were seen at Volsinii also nails fixed in the temple of Nortia, a Tuscan goddess, as indices of the number of years.

Marcus Horatius, being consul, according to law dedicated the temple of Jupiter the best and greatest the year after the expulsion of kings; the solemnity of fixing the nail was afterwards transferred from the consuls to the dictators, because theirs was a superior office.

The custom being afterwards dropped, it seemed a matter of sufficient importance in itself, on account of which a dictator should be appointed.