=232. The Old Forum (_Forum Romanum_).=--We are now close upon the actual Forum. It can be entered by two methods: you can go between the Temple of Vesta and that of Cæsar, very likely walking through the triumphal arch of Augustus, in which case you will see the pillared façade of the stately Temple of Castor and Pollux (the divine helpers of Rome at the half legendary battle of Lake Regillus), and then across that busy shopping street, the Vicus Tuscus, before reaching the quieter portico of the great Basilica Julia; or you can take a better way by keeping on past the northern side of the Temple of Cæsar and coming out pretty directly upon the Forum. In so doing you will have the second great court house, the old but capacious Basilica Æmilia to the north on your right. Let tribunals and litigants, however, wait--before the visitor at last is opening one of the most famous areas in the entire world--the _Forum Romanum_. [Illustration: OLD FORUM: looking west towards the Capitol. Restoration by Nispi-Landi.] Of the Old Forum well may one say what Cicero declared of Athens, “On whatever spot we tread we awake a memory.” There is hardly an event connected with the long reaches of Roman history which is not also connected in one manner or another with this public square. The first impression, to be sure, may be one of disappointment: the whole open plaza barely measures 300 by 150 feet. It seems the more confined because a large part of the southern side is hemmed in by the huge Basilica Julia, while directly above the square rise the two hills of the Capitoline and the Palatine, their summits crowned with lofty and noble buildings looking down upon the Forum as a kind of common center. [Illustration: OLD FORUM, LOOKING TOWARDS CAPITOL FROM BEFORE THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR: the building on the left, with statues beneath its upper arches, is the Basilica Julia. Restoration after Von Falke.] As one advances, however, the impression deepens as to how earnestly the Romans have tried to concentrate their whole life around this beloved square. If statues abound elsewhere in the city, they seem here more numerous than even the surging throngs around their pedestals. Every kind of human activity is apparently going on simultaneously. Along the north side, as we have seen, are the offices of those great bankers who hold the nations in fee from the Euphrates to Hibernia, yet pedlers are now wandering about, almost under the feet of the consul’s lictors, hawking hot sausages, strings of garlic, and pots of eye salve, while a snake charmer has obtained the license to exhibit two stupid serpents on the actual steps to the Temple of Janus just beyond the Basilica Æmilia.