If the porta hepatis was torn it prognosticated a plundering of the enemy's land.
Close to this temple on the west is the site of the gate known in later times as the Porta Aurea, through which the modern road passes, so that no traces now remain.
The depression separating the two lower lobes from the lobus caudatus, and known as the porta hepatis, was appropriately designated as the "crucible" of the liver.
If, for example, the porta hepatis was long on the right side and short on the left side, it was a good sign for the king's army, but if short on the right side and long on the left, it was unfavourable; and similarly for a whole series of phenomena connected with any one of the various subdivisions of the liver.
The superstructure of a similar gate (Porta Marzia), which was removed in 1540 to make way for the citadel, but is depicted in a fresco by Benedetto Bonfigli (between 1461 and 1 477), was re-erected in the substruction walls of the citadel itself.