=235. The Basilica Æmilia: the Temple of Janus: the Senate House (_Curia_).=--But to return to the great buildings lining the Forum. The Basilica Æmilia on the north side was erected as early as 179 B.C., and, though often repaired, it is a substantial monument of the great days of the Republic. It is so like the greater Basilica Julia, however, that one description will do later for both. Directly by this court house stands the venerated Temple of Janus, a structure with many arches and sacred to the most characteristic if not the greatest of all the gods of Rome.[142] The gates of the shrine, one notices, are standing carefully open, as a token that some petty frontier wars are still raging. When absolute peace prevails these doors, however, will be carefully shut. The Romans are thrifty and practical people. Why waste good sacrificial victims and incense on the god when his help against the foe is not needed? It would be like paying a doctor when one is feeling entirely well. Leading away from the Forum and this Temple is a series of vaulted passages also called _janus_, which form a large part of the banking district. Here, because the Sacred Way is too limited, many great financiers have their offices; here countless clerks are busy with their account books; here great loans are negotiated or investments are placed hourly. It is almost a regular exchange and the scene of many speculations. Regularly one hears of fortunes made or lost “between the janus,” _i.e._ by the workings of high finance. Beside the Temple of Janus rises the magnificent porch of the _Curia_ (Senate House). The Conscript Fathers are not yet in session, and a visit to the interior can wait. The structure is very splendid, but it is not the grand old Curia Hostilia, built according to legend by King Tullus Hostilius, and the scene of nearly all those famous Senatorial debates across the long annals of the Republic. That ancient building was burned in 52 B.C. during the riots following the murder of the idol of the populace, the demagogue Clodius. Julius Cæsar, therefore, had a good excuse for building a stately new Senate House. This in turn was damaged in Nero’s great fire, but Domitian carefully repaired it--and with its fine pillars, bronze doors, and galaxy of statues, it forms a worthy meeting place for what is still a venerable and powerful body.