The fact that a statue was to be set up (ve)l ante curiam vel in porticibus for(i) would seem to imply that the curia was in the lower Forum. The inscription shows that these two places were undoubtedly the most desirable places that a statue could have. There is a possibility that the curia may be the basilica on the Corso terrace of the city. It has been shown that an open space existed in front of the basilica, and that in it there is at least one basis for a statue. Excavations[136] at the ruins which were once thought to be the curia of ancient Praeneste showed instead of a hemicycle, a straight wall built on remains of a more ancient construction of rectangular blocks of tufa with three layers of pavement 4-1/2 feet below the level of the ground, under which was a tomb of brick construction, and lower still a wall of opus quadratum of tufa, certainly none of the remains belonging to a curia. [Illustration: PLATE IV. The Sacra Via, and its turn round the upper end of the Basilica.] FORUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3015. The most ancient forum of Praeneste was inside the city walls. It was in this forum that the statue of M. Anicius, the famous praetor, was set up.[137] The writers hitherto, however, have been entirely mistaken, in my opinion, as to the extent of the ancient forum. For the old forum was not an open space which is now represented by the Piazza Savoia of the modern town, as is generally accepted, but the ancient forum of Praeneste was that piazza and the piazza Garibaldi and the space between them, now built over with houses, all combined. At the present time one goes down some steps in front of the cathedral, which was the basilica, to the Piazza Garibaldi, and it has been supposed that this open space belonged to a terrace below the Corso. But there was no lower terrace there. The upper part of the forum simply has been more deeply buried in debris than the lower part.