the bodies of criminals were exposed;[1] Pliny (H.N. viii. 145) calls
it the “stairs of sighs” (gradus gemitorii).
Forum Romanum and Adjacent Buildings.
The Forum Romanum or Magnum, as it was called in late times to distinguish it from the imperial fora, occupies a valley which extends from the foot of the Capitoline hill to the north-west part of the Palatine. Till the construction of the great cloacae it was, at least in wet seasons, marshy ground, in which were several pools of water. In early times it was bounded on two sides by rows of shops and houses, dating from the time of the first Tarquin (Liv. i. 35). The shops on the south-west side facing the Sacra Via, where the Basilica Julia afterwards was built, were occupied by the Tabernae Veteres.[2] The shops on the northern side, being occupied by silversmiths, were called Tabernae Argentariae, and in later times, when rebuilt after a fire, were called Tabernae Novae (see Liv. xxvi. 27, xl. 51).[3] An altar to Saturn (Dionys. i. 34, vi. 1), traditionally set up by the companions of Hercules, and an altar to Vulcan, both at the end towards the Capitol, with the temple of Vesta and the Regia at the opposite end, were among the earliest monuments grouped around the Forum. The Lacus Curtius vanished, as Varro says (L.L. v. 148-49), probably with other stagnant pools, when the cloacae were constructed (Liv. i. 38, 56).[4] Another pool, the Lacus Servilius, near the Basilica Julia, was preserved in some form or other till the imperial period. Under Sulla it was used as a place to expose the heads of many senators murdered in his proscriptions (Cic. Rosc. Am. 32, 89; Seneca, De Prov. 3, 7). The Volcanal was an open area, so called from the early altar to Vulcan, and was (like the Comitium) a place of public meeting, at least during the regal period.[5] It was raised above the Comitium, and was a space levelled on the lower slope of the Capitoline hill behind the arch of Severus; the foundations of the altar were discovered in 1898. It was probably much encroached upon when the temple of Concord was enlarged in the reign of Augustus. Fig. 8 gives a carefully measured plan of the Forum, showing the most recent discoveries.
Unlike the fora of the emperors, each of which was surrounded by a loft wall and built at one time from one design, the architectural form of the Forum Romanum was a slow growth. The marshy battlefield of the early inhabitants of the Capitol and Palatine became, when the ground was drained by the great cloacae, under a united rule the most convenient site for political meetings, for commercial transactions, and for the pageants of rich men's funerals, ludi scenici, and gladiatorial games.[6] For these purposes a central space, though but a small one, was kept clear of buildings; but it was gradually occupied in a somewhat inconvenient manner by an ever-accumulating crowd of statues and other honorary monuments. On three sides the limits of this open space are marked by paved roads, faced by the stately buildings which gradually took the place of the simple wooden tabernae and porticus of early times. The Comitium[7] was a level space in front of the Curia; the construction of both is ascribed to Tullus Hostilius. For the position of the Comitium and the Curia[8] see plan of Forum (fig. 8). Varro (L.L. v. 155-56) gives the following account of the buildings which were grouped along the northern angle of the Forum:—
“Comitium ab eo quod coibant eo comitiis curiatis et litium causa. Curiae duorum generum, nam et ubi curarent sacerdotes res divinas, ut Curiae Veteres, et ubi senatus humanas, ut Curia Hostilia, quod primum aedificavit Hostilius rex. Ante hanc Rostra; quojus loci id vocabulum, quod ex hostibus capta fixa sunt rostra. Sub dextra hujus a Comitio locus substructus, ubi nationum subsisterent legati qui ad senatum essent missi. Is Graecostasis appellatus a parte ut multa. Senaculum supra Graecostasim, ubi Aedis Concordiae et Basilica Opimia. Senaculum vocatum, ubi senatus, aut ubi seniores consisterent.”
The curia or senate-house passed through many vicissitudes.[9] At first called Curia Hostilia, from its founder Tullus Hostilius (Liv. i. 30), it lasted till 52 B.C., when it was burnt at the Curia. funeral of Clodius, and was then rebuilt by Faustus Sulla, and from his gens called Curia Cornelia (Dio Cass. xl. 50). It was again rebuilt by Julius Caesar, and dedicated by Augustus (B.C.) under the name of the Curia Julia, as recorded in the inscription of Ancyra (q.v.)—CVRIAM . ET . CONTINENS . EI . CHALCIDICVM . . . FECI. Little is known about the adjoining buildings called the Athenaeum and Chalcidicum; Dion Cassius (li. 22) mentions the group. In the reign of Domitian the Curia Julia was restored (Prosp. Aquit. p. 571), and it was finally rebuilt by Diocletian. The existing church of S. Adriano is the Curia of Diocletian, though of course much altered, and with its floor raised about 20 ft. above the old level. The level of the entrance was raised in the middle ages, and again in 1654. Sixteenth-century drawings and engravings show the lower level. The ancient bronze doors now at the end of the nave of the Lateran basilica originally belonged to this building, and were removed thence by Alexander VII. The brick cornice and marble consoles, covered with enriched mouldings in stucco, and the sham marble facing, also of stucco, if compared with similar details in the baths of Diocletian, leave no doubt as to this being a work of his time, and not, as was at one time assumed, the work of Pope Honorius I. (A.D. 625-38) who consecrated it as the church of S. Adriano.
From the Curia a flight of steps led down to the Comitium (Liv. i. 36), a space consecrated as a templum according to the rules of augury (Cic. De Or. iii. 3) and used for the meetings of the Comitia Curiata, and for certain religious ceremonies performed, Comitium. after the fall of the monarchy, by the rex sacrificulus. It contained ancient monuments, relics, such as the ficus ruminalis, and the supposed tomb of Romulus, whose site was marked in later times by a “black stone” (lapis niger). Facing the Curia stood the platform from which speakers addressed the people, adorned in 338 B.C. with the beaks of the ships captured from the Latins at the naval victory of Antium and hence called the rostra. Caesar determined to remove the rostra from the Comitium to the Forum, and this plan was carried out after his murder. From the original rostra Cicero Original rostra. delivered his Second and Third Catiline Orations, and they were the scene of some of the most important political struggles of Rome, such as the enunciation of their laws by the Gracchi. Beside the Comitium another monument was erected, also adorned with beaks of ships, to commemorate the same victory at Antium. This was the Columna Maeniana, so called in honour of Maenius (Plin. H.N. xxxiv. 20, vii. 212). The Columna Duilia was a similar monument, erected in honour of the victory of C. Duilius over the Punic fleet in 260 B.C.; a fragment of it with inscription (restored in imperial times) is preserved in the Capitoline Museum.[10] Columns such as these were called columnae rostratae.
In 1899–1900 the site of the Comitium—which was considerably reduced in extent by the building of the later Curia—was excavated by Commendatore Boni, in some parts as far as the virgin soil.[11] Remains of walls and pavements of various periods (some very early) were discovered; some of the walls, there is no doubt, supported the platform of the early rostra, which appears to have been at first rectangular and at a later time curved. Opposite to the Curia is a square paved with black marble slabs, which it is natural to identify with the lapis niger of tradition. Beneath this pavement was found a group of early monuments, which were at some time destroyed and afterwards covered over. We are told on the authority of Varro that Romulus was buried in front of (or behind) the rostra, and that two lions were sculptured as guardians of his tomb; and we find in fact a foundation (D, fig. 9) from which project two moulded bases of tufa (A, B) on which the lions may well have stood, on either side of a block (C) which might serve as an altar. Beside this tomb (if such it be) stood the trunk of a tufa column (E) and a rectangular stele (F) which bears on all its faces an inscription written alternately upwards and downwards, so that only the ends of the lines can be read. That it is the earliest specimen of the Latin language is undoubted; and it certainly
mentions the rex. But after the expulsion of the kings the rex- ↑ See Tac. Hist. iii. 74, 85; Suet. Vit. 17.
- ↑ See Livy (xliv. 16), who mentions a house of P. Africanus, “pone veteres ad Vortumni signum,” which was bought by T. Sempronius to clear the site for the Basilica Sempronia in 169 B.C. This basilica was afterwards absorbed in the Basilica Julia.
- ↑ Hence these two sides of the Forum are frequently referred to in classical writings as “sub veteribus” and “sub novis.”
- ↑ In later times it was an enclosed space containing an altar; it is described by Ovid (Fast. vi. 403); according to one tradition it marked the spot where Curtius's self-immolation filled up the chasm which had opened in the Forum (see Dionys. ii. 41). (See below.)
- ↑ See Dionys. ii. 50, vi. 67; Plin. H.N. xvi. 236; Plut. Quaes. Rom. 47.
- ↑ The first gladiatorial show in Rome was given in 264 B.C. in the Forum Boarium by D. Junius Brutus at his father's funeral (Liv. Epit. xvi.), the first in the Forum Romanum in 216 B.C. (Liv. xxiii. 30). See also Liv. xxxi. 50, xli. 28; and Suet. Caes. 39; Aug. 43; and Tib. 7.
- ↑ On the Comitium see Detlefsen, Ann. Inst. (1860), pp. 128 ff., and the works mentioned below, note 11.
- ↑ Livy (xlv. 24) indicates their relative positions by the phrase “comitium vestibulum Curiae.”
- ↑ On the Curia and its vicissitudes see Lanciani, L'Aula e gli Uffici del Senato Romano (1883).
- ↑ The column itself is a copy made by Michelangelo; it is at the foot of the stairs of the Palazzo dei Conservatori.
- ↑ The discoveries of Comm. Boni have given rise to much discussion. Of the numerous articles, &c., which have appeared it will suffice to name Petersen, Comitium, Rostra, Grab des Romulus (1904), and Pinza, Il Comizio romano nell' etá repubblicana (1905); see Huelsen, The Roman Forum, pp. 110 ff.
