This painting refers to the massacres during the Wars of Religion in France: on April 6, 1561 Anne de Montmorency was joined by Jacques d'Albon de Saint-André and the Francis, Duke of Guise in an anti-Protestant Triumvirate. Antoine Caron also reminds the Civil Wars and the massacres carried out by Mark Antony, Octavius, the later emperor Augustus and Lepidus when they became triumvirs in 43 BC. The Roman ancient and contemporary monuments, and sculptures, the Apollo Belvedere and the Dioscuri, are painted after Antoine Lafréry's engravings. Caron had never been to Italy. On the right are Emperor Commodus as Hercules, discovered in 1507; the Arch of Constantine, built in 315 AD; Michelangelo's Capitoline Square; the Palazzo dei Senatori and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. On the left are the Apollo Belvedere; the triumphal arch of Septimus Severus from 203 AD with the a statue of the Fontana dei Dioscuri above; and Trajan's Column. The centre is occupied by the Colosseum, opened by Domitian in 80 AD; the Flaminio Obelisk in the back, the Pantheon and the (destoyed) Septizodium. In the background stand the triumphal arch of Titus on the right, the three columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Castel Sant'Angelo and Ponte Sant'Angelo on the left.