Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/625

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594
ROME
[FORUM ROMANUM


inserted either in place of or at the sides of the shattered piers. These later additions, apparently of the 3rd and 4th centuries, are omitted in fig. 8 for the sake of clearness. In or about A.D. 470 the façade of the rostra was prolonged northwards by an addition in very poor brickwork, apparently to celebrate a naval victory over the Vandals.

At the northern end of the curved platform there is a cylindrical structure of concrete faced with brick and lined with thin marble Umbilicus and Milliarum. slabs; it is in three stages, each diminishing in size, and appears to be an addition of about the time of Severus. This is usually identified with the Umbilicus Romae, or central point of the city, mentioned in the Notitia and the Einsiedeln MS. (Jordan, Topographie der Stadt Rom, ii. 655). Near the rostra, below the temple of Saturn, stood the Milliarium Aureum, a marble column sheathed in gilt bronze and inscribed with the names and distances of the chief towns on the roads which radiated from the thirty-seven gates of Rome (Plin. H.N. iii. 66). It was set up by Augustus in 20 B.C., and its position “sub aede Saturni” is indicate by Tacitus (Hist. i. 27; see schol. on Suet. Otho. 6, and Plut. Galba, 24). The Miliarium is mentioned in the Notitia (Reg. viii.) as being near the Vicus Jugarius. Its precise position cannot be determined. Fragments of a marble cylinder and cornice with floriated reliefs, now lying in front of the temple of Saturn, probably belonged to this monument; they were found in 1835 near the supposed site.

The position of the temple of Saturn is indicated in Mon. Anc. (see below, n. 6) and shown on the marble plan, and is also identified Temple of Saturn. by various passages in ancient writers. Varro (L.L. v. 42) speaks of it as being in faucibus Capitolii; Servius (Ad Aen. ii. 115) says that it is in front of the Clivus Capitolinus, and near the temple of Concord (see Plate VIII.). It was built against a steep slope or outlying part of the Capitoline hill[1] (cf. Dionys. i. 34) on the site of a prehistoric altar to Saturn, after whom the Capitoline hill was originally called Mons Saturnius. The public treasury was part of this temple (Serv. Ad Aen. ii. 116, and Macrob. Sat. i. 8). The original temple is said by Varro (ap. Macrob. i. 8) to have been begun by the last Tarquin, and dedicated by T. Larcius, the first dictator, 498 B.C.; but Dionysius (vi. 1) and Livy (ii. 21) attribute it to the consuls A. Sempronius and M. Minucius in 497 B.C. It was rebuilt on a larger scale by L. Munatius Plancus in 42 B.C. (Suet. Aug. 29). The only part remaining of this date is the very lofty podium of massive travertine blocks, and part of the lower course of Athenian marble, with which the whole was faced. In the 16th century a piece of the marble frieze was found, inscribed L . PLANCVS . L . F . COS . IMPER . ITER . DE . MANIB . (C. I. L. vi. 1316). The erection of the six granite columns in the front and two at the sides, with their clumsily patched entablature, bearing the inscription SENATVS . POPVLVSQVE . ROMANVS . INCENDIO . CONSVMTVM RESTITVIT, belongs to the last rebuilding in the time of Diocletian. Some of these fine columns are evidently earlier than this rebuilding, but were refixed with rude caps and bases. One of the columns is set wrong way up, and the whole work is of the most careless sort. Part of the inscription, once inlaid with bronze, recording this latest rebuild in, still exists on the entablature. On the Forum side the temple is flanked by the Vicus jugarius, while the steep Clivus Capitolinus winds round the front of the great flight of steps leading up to the cella, and then turns along the north-west side of the temple.[2] The Vicus Jugarius. Vicus Jugarius (see fig. 8), part of the basalt paving of which is now exposed, was so called (see Festus, ed. Müller, p. 104) from an altar to Juno Juga, the guardian of marriage. Starting from the Forum, it passed between the temple of Saturn and the Basilica Julia, then close under the cliff of the Capitolium (see Liv. xxxv. 21) and on to the Porta Carmentalis. It was spanned at its commencement by a brick-faced arch lined with marble, the lower part of which exists, and is not earlier than the 3rd or 4th century.[3] At this end of the Forum the arch of Tiberius was built beside the Sacra Via. It was erected in A.D. 17, to commemorate the recovery of the standards lost by Varus.[4] The concrete foundation has recently been exposed.

The Basilica Julia[5] occupies a great part of the south-west side Basilica Julia. of the Forum, along the line of the Sacra Via; its ends are bounded by the Vicus Jugarius and the Vicus Tuscus. It was begun by Julius Caesar, who dedicated it when still unfinished, on the 26th of September 46 B.C., completed by Augustus, and again rebuilt by him after a fire, as is recorded in Mon. Anc. 4, 13,[6] in an important passage which gives its complete early history. It consisted of a central hall with aisles, galleries and clerestory, surrounded on three sides by a colonnade in two storeys approached by steps; on the S.W. a row of rooms or tabernae took the place of the colonnade. The central nave was paved with richly coloured oriental marbles, namely pavonazzetto, cipollino, giallo and africano. The covered aisles are paved with large slabs of white marble.[7] Many tabulae lusoriae, or gambling boards, are scratched on this marble paving (cf. Cic. Phil. ii. 23).[8] Low marble cancelli, with moulded plinth, closed the otherwise open arches of the basilica; many fragments exist, and one piece of the sub plinth is still in situ. This basilica held four law-courts, which in important cases held joint sessions. Trajan and other emperors held law courts there (Dio Cass. lxxxviii. 10). An inscription found near it (C. I. L. vi. 1658) records its restoration by Septimius Severus in A.D. 199, after a fire; it was again burnt in 283 and restored by Diocletian. These fires had destroyed nearly all the fine marble arches of Augustus; and Diocletian rebuilt it mostly with brick or travertine piers, portions of which remain.[9] A final restoration is recorded in inscriptions discovered at various times from the 16th century onwards, as being carried out by Gabinius Vettius Probianus, praefect of the city in 377; one of these is on a pedestal which now stands in the Vicus Jugarius. Suetonius (Cal. 37) mentions that it was one of Caligula's amusements to throw money to the people below from the roof of this basilica, which formed a link in the bridge by which this maniac connected the Palatine with the Capitolium.

The Vicus Tuscus passes from the Sacra Via between the Basilica Julia and the temple of Castor to the Velabrum and Circus Maximus; Vicus Tuscus. its basalt paving has been exposed at many points along its whole line. A very early statue of Vortumnus stood in this street, a little to the south-west of the Basilica Julia, where part of its pedestal was found in 1549 inscribed VORTVMNVS TEMPORIBVS DIOCLETIANI . ET . MAXIMIANI . . . (C. I. L. vi. 804;[10] see also Pseudo-Ascon, Ad Cic. Verr. ii. 1, 59). The Vicus Tuscus was also called Thurarius, from shops of perfume-sellers (see Schol. ad Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 228, and Ep. ii. 1, 269). It is the street along which processions passed, mentioned by Cicero (Verr. ii. 1, 59) as extending a signo Vertumni in Circum Maximum.

The temple of Castor[11]—or, more properly, of “the Castores,” i.e. Castor and Pollux—on the south-east side of the Vicus Tuscus Temple of Castor. was founded to commemorate the apparition in the Forum of the Dioscuri, announcing the victory of Aulus Postumius at Lake Regillus, 496 B.C., and was dedicated in 484 B.C. by the son of A. Postumius (Liv. ii. 20, 42; Dionys. vi. 13; Ov. Fast. i. 706). In 119 B.C. it was restored by the consul L. Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus (Ascon. In. Cic. Pro Scaur. 46), and finally rebuilt in the reign of Augustus by Tiberius and Drusus, A.D. 6 (Suet. Tib. 20; Ov. Fast. i. 705; Dio Cass. lv. 8, 27); the three existing Corinthian columns and piece of entablature, all very delicate and graceful in detail, and of the finest workmanship, in Pentelic marble, belong to a still later restoration under Trajan or Hadrian. One point shows Roman timidity in the use of a lintel: the frieze is jointed so as to form a flat arch, quite needlessly, with the object of relieving the weight on the architrave. Its plan, hexastyle, with only eleven columns on the sides, is shown in fig. 8. It had a lofty podium, faced with marble and decorated with a heavy cornice and pilasters, one under each column. The podium is an interesting example of the enormous solidity of Roman buildings of the best period. Solid tufa walls, 8 ft. thick, are built under the whole of the cella and the front row of columns, while the columns of the sides rest on spurs of similar walling, projecting at right angles from that under the cella; the part immediately under the columns is of travertine, and the spurs are united and strengthened laterally by massive flat arches, also of travertine. Between the foundations of the columns were chambers used as offices, &c. With the exception of a small chamber under the steps, entered from the Vicus Tuscus, the entire podium is filled up by a solid mass of concrete, made of broken tufa, pozzolana and lime, the whole forming a lofty platform, about 22 ft. high, solid as a rock, on which the columns and upper structure are erected. The podium contains

  1. Below the temple of Saturn the Clivus Capitolinus is carried on an arched substructure of somewhat irregular opus reticulatum. This has been described (but without much probability) as the rostra of Caesar.
  2. A portion of these streets with part of the temple of Saturn and the Basilica Julia is shown on fragments of the marble plan (see Plate VIII.).
  3. One side of this gate was built against one of the marble piers of the Basilica Julia, a perfect print of which still exists in the concrete of the gate, though the marble pier itself has disappeared. The other side of the gate abutted against the marble-lined podium of the temple of Saturn.
  4. See Tac. Ann. ii. 41, who says it was propter aedem Saturni.
  5. See Suet. Aug. 29; Gerhard, Bas. Giulia, &c. (1823); and Visconti, Escavazione della Bas. Giulia (1872).
  6. [note 6]“Forvm . Ivlivm . et . basilica . qvae . fvit . inter . aedem . Castoris . et . aedem . Satvrni . coepta . profligataqve . opera . a . patre . meo . perfeci . et . eandem . basilica . consvmptam . incendio . ampliato . eivs . solo . svb . titvlo . nominis . filiorvm . inchoavi . et . si . vivvs . non . perfecissem . perfici . ab . haeredibvs . [meis . ivssil].” The filii here referred to are Augustus's grandsons, Gaius and Lucius, adopted by him in 17 B.C. (see Dio Cass. lvi. 27).
  7. Three medieval lime-kilns were found by Canina within this basilica, which accounts for the scantiness of the existing remains.
  8. A few have inscriptions, e.g. “Vinces . gaudes: perdes . plangis.”
  9. The whole building has unhappily been much falsified by needless restoration.
  10. A drawing of this pedestal, which is now lost, with MS. note by Ligorio, exists in Cod. Vat. 3439, fol. 46.
  11. The temple of Castor is shown on two fragments of the marble plan, and its position is also indicated by the passage in the Mon. Anc. quoted above (note 6).