vered it into the hands of the matrons who had accompanied him, by whom it was borne in solemn state to Rome, and placed in the TEMPLE of VICTORY on the Palatine Hill. Here it was adored by multitudes who crowded to it with offerings, and its arrival was celebrated by a lectisternium and the Megalesian games. Thirteen years later, a round temple, or tholus, was erected on the Palatine for its reception, and dedicated by M. Junius Brutus, B. C. 191. The goddess was now represented by a statue, with its face to the east; the temple was adorned with a painting of Corybantes, and plays were acted in front of it.1 It must have been about this time that the GRECOSTASIS was added to the Curia. This appears to have been a mere open platform, designed as a waiting-place for foreign ambassadors before they were admitted to an audience of the senate. Its situation on the Vulcanal made it conspicuous from the Forum; and the sight of envoys from various nations, Greeks and Gauls, Asiatics and Egyptians, in their national costumes, and frequently bearing splendid gifts, must have rendered the spectacle almost as gratifying as a triumph to Roman pride and love of pageantry, with which purpose the Græcostasis was probably contrived. Another Greek art introduced at Rome about this period was the practice of medicine. Archagathus, a Greek, appears to have opened the first surgeon and apothecary's shop, B. c. 219. He was received with such welcome that the shop was purchased for him at the public expense, and he was presented with the Jus Quiritium. But he seems to have been a perfect Sangrado, and by too free a use of the knife, and other heroical remedies, soon altogether disgusted the Romans with the medical art.2 1 Liv. xxix. 14, xxxvi. 36; Martial, i. 70, 9. 2 Plin. H. N. xxix. 6. The century closed with the triumph of Scipio in B. C. 201, one of the most magnificent hitherto beheld. The victor at Zama deposited in the public treasury more than 100,000 pounds weight of silver. The name of Africanus, with which he was greeted by the people, initiated the custom of illustrating a fortunate general by the appellation of a conquered people; but King Syphax is said to have been released by an opportune death from the ignominy of adorning his conqueror's triumph.1 Other honours, little short of idolatry, the Romans, in the flush and full tide of success, would have heaped upon Scipio; they were modestly declined, but he nevertheless lived to experience the fickleness and ingratitude of his countrymen, and to learn that not even services like his can always insure a lasting popularity. He retired in disgust to Liternum, and some say he could never be induced to return to Rome. Yet it is uncertain whether he was buried at Liternum or in the family tomb of the Scipios on the Via Appia, a few hundred yards outside the Porta Capena. In the time of Livy, monuments to him were extant at both places. At the Roman tomb were three statues, said to represent Scipio himself, his brother Lucius, and the poet Ennius, whom Africanus had as it were adopted into the family. This tomb, still extant, is perhaps one of the most interesting monuments of the republican period; though its present state conveys but an imperfect idea of the original structure. It was at least as ancient as L. Scipio Barbatus, consul in B. c. 298; the inscription on whose sarcophagus, still preserved in the Vatican, is the oldest contemporary record of any Roman. Many other records of the Scipios and their friends have also been carried from this tomb to the Vatican, and their places supplied by copies. 1 Liv. xxx. 45; Val. Max. iv. 1, Polybius, however (xvi. 23, $6), says that Syphax was actually led in triumph. 2 Liv. xxxviii. 56. Close to 3 For a description of the tomb see Visconti, Mon. degli Scipioni. Cf. Nibby, Roma Ant. t. ii. p. 562 sq. it were the tombs of the Servilii, Metelli, and other distinguished families, all traces of which have now disappeared.1 The close of the third century before the Christian era was marked by some terrible fires. One of these, in B. C. 213, raged two days and a night, levelling all between the Salinæ, near the Porta Trigemina, and the Porta Carmentalis, including the Equimalium and Vicus Jugarius; whence it spread beyond the gate, and destroyed many buildings both sacred and profane. Among the former were the Temples of Fortune, Mater Matuta, and Hope.2 Another still more destructive fire occurred in B. c. 211, which, from its breaking out at once in several places near the Forum, was ascribed to incendiaries. The Tabernæ Septem, probably on the south side of the Forum, were destroyed; the Atrium Regium shared the same fate, and even the Temple of Vesta was with difficulty saved. On the north side of the Forum, the Argentariæ, or silversmiths' shops, subsequently called Novæ, the Lautumiæ, the fish-market, besides many private houses, were consumed. Some noble Campanian youths, convicted on the evidence of a slave, were executed for this act, which they had committed out of revenge for the putting to death of some of their relatives. by the proconsul, Fulvius Flaccus. A few years later, B. c. 192, a fire in the Forum Boarium destroyed all the buildings near the Tiber, with a great deal of valuable merchandise.4 The second century before the Christian era shows a marked improvement in the city. The Romans had now reduced all Italy, had humbled Carthage, and were beginning to turn their thoughts to conquests in Greece. Theirintercourse with the inhabitants of Magna Græcia and Sicily had tended to improve their architectural taste, as 1 Cic. Tusc. i. 7. 3 Ibid. xxvi. 27. 4 Ibid. xxxv. 40. well as to introduce among them other refinements. It is at all events certain that at the beginning of the second century B. C. were erected some splendid buildings of a kind hitherto unknown at Rome. He who stands on the Roman Forum, and surveys its narrow limits, can hardly fail to be struck with surprise, mixed with something like disappointment, that a place of so insignificant dimensions should have been the scene of such grand historical events, the council-chamber, as it were, whence a 'people king' agitated and controlled the affairs of the world. The Romans themselves, as their conquests grew and their ideas expanded with them, seem to have experienced a similar feeling. Hence their attempts to relieve and enlarge the Forum, first by the construction of Basilicæ, and at length, in the imperial times, by the addition of several adjacent Fora. The idea of the Basilica, as well as its name, was evidently borrowed from the Greeks; and the σrod Baoísios at Athens, in which the ǎpxwv Baσiλsús administered justice, probably furnished the model. When we speak, therefore, of a Roman Basilica, we must complete this adjective form with some substantive understood, such as porticus or ædes; just as the Greek has also the substantive form Baoλική, with the omission of στοά or οἰκία. A Basilica was a large building used at once as a law-court and a sort of exchange. Hence its utility in relieving the Forum, which also served in both those capacities. It was of an oblong form, and, according to architectural rules, the breadth should not be more than one half nor less than one third of the length. At first it appears to have been open to the air, and surrounded only with a peristyle of columns, of which there were two rows in height, one resting upon the other; the lower row having columns of larger dimensions than the upper one. From this ex 1 Vitruv. v. 1, § 4. posure to the air Vitruvius recommends that Basilica should be built in the warmest and most sheltered part of a Forum; but the later Romans obviated this inconvenience by surrounding them with a wall. The interior generally consisted of three parts; a central porticus, answering to the nave of a modern church, with two rows of columns at each side, forming two aisles. At one end of the central porticus, or nave, was the tribunal of the judge, commonly of a circular form, though sometimes square. Such was in general the disposition of a Basilica, though of course there might be occasional variations. The first building of this sort constructed at Rome was the BASILICA PORCIA, SO called from its having been founded by M. Porcius Cato in his censorship, B. C. 184.1 In order to make room for it, four of the Tabernæ Veteres on the north side of the Forum were purchased, and behind these the houses of Mænius and Titius, in the place called Lautumiæ. Mænius, however, retained one of the columns of his house with a balcony on the top of it, whence he might view the gladiatoral combats in the Forum.2 The Basilica Porcia must have closely adjoined the eastern side of the Curia Hostilia, since it was consumed in the same fire as the latter building, when the body of Clodius was burnt.3 After this period we hear no more of this Basilica. Behind it was the Forum Piscatorium, or fish-market, the noisome smells of which are described by Plautus as driving into the Forum the subbasilicani, or frequenters of the Basilica.4 There is some difficulty about the date, as Plautus, who is commonly supposed to have died in B. C. 184, mentions the Basilica more than once. Might the Basilica have been erected in the ædileship of Cato, B. C. 199 ? 2 M. Ampère (Hist. Rom. à Rome, t. iv. p. 270, note) questions whether in my article Roma, p. 786, I have done right in distinguishing this column from the Columna Mænia on the Forum. The latter, perhaps, never existed; but, if so, the mistake is Pliny's, who may have been misled by a similarity of name. Cicero (Pro Sest. 58) seems to refer to the column of the house. See above, p. 88. 3 Liv. xxxix. 44; Ascon. ad Cic. pro Mil. Arg. p. 34 (Orelli); Schol. ad Horat. Sat. ì. 3, 21. 4 Capt. iv. 2, 23. |