 In his 1912 study, Francis Macdonald Cornford explains that the Roman comitium was inaugurated as a temple, shaped like a square and oriented to the four corners of the sky.But Plutarch describes a circular site traced by Romulus at the founding of Rome using divination, after he had sent for men of Etruria who taught him the necessary sacred rites.A circular trench was cut into the ground and votive offerings and samples of earth from each man's native lands were placed within.