I was running out of hard disk space so I started deleting and compressing unused and little used discretionary files. When I checked my Civ 3 files I noticed some that I believe are junk. These files are in my Civilization III folder: 00000000.016, 00000000.256 ,00000409.016, 00000409.256 .

Can I safely delete them? If not what are they?

I think the game may use those files.

EDIT: I've just been informed that the game DOES use those files. If you delete those, you won't be able to run Civ3. To quote MikeB.FIRAXIS:

They are the splash screen that comes up at the start of the game (256-color and 16-color versions). The game may not run if they are deleted.

No I didn't get rid of them. I just did not remember seeing them before and thought they were a form of temp file from an update. Thanks for the help.