Marcellus on the eastern side of the Circus. Augustus also built the Porticus Octaviae, which hemmed in the Circus on its northeastern side. Augustus' relation Lucius Marcius Phillipus restored the Temple of Hercules Musarum with a surrounding portico that could be accessed from the Circus. In AD 15, statues to the deified Augustus were erected, dedicated by C. Norbanus Flaccus. In the early Principate two monumental arches were added at the north and south ends of the Circus, the northern one dedicated to Germanicus in the year of his death (19 CE), and the southern one to the stepson of Augustus, Drusus. Location Beginning in the Renaissance, the Circus Flaminius was identified with the ancient arcades facing onto the Via delle Botteghe Oscure ("Street of Dark Shops"), so-called because in the Middle Ages the arcades had sheltered the workshops of artisans. This placed the Circus north of the porticus Phillipi between the Piazza Paganica and Piazza Margana. In the 1960s, this long-held identification was challenged by the joining of new fragments to the Forma Urbis, which identified the arcades as in fact belonging to the Theatre of Balbus and its connecting portico (the "Crypta Balbi" as the archaeological site is known). New excavations combined with the new configuration of the Marble Plan altered the understanding of where the Circus Flaminius was located, moving it southwest closer to the Tiber and placing it on a southeast–northwest axis. A previously disregarded reference in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae ("Circus Flammineus Ad Pontem Ludeorum"), which placed it near the Pons Fabricius, and a fragment of the Marble Plan labelled "CIR FLAM" which fitted south of the Portico of Octavia, confirmed the Circus to be roughly located between the Tiber to the south and the Porticos of Octavia and Phillipus to the north, and hemmed in by the Theatre of Marcellus to the east. Use The Circus Flaminius was never meant to rival the much larger Circus Maximus, and, unlike the Circus Maximus, it was not just an entertainment venue. It almost certainly lacked a track designed for chariot racing. The only ludi held there were the Taurian Games, which featured horseback racing around turning posts (metae). The obscure Taurian Games were held to propitiate the gods of the underworld (di inferi), and seem to have been symbolically grounded in the site itself, as they were never moved to a different circus. Equestrian events were