Until the time of Julius Caesar there was but one of the latter kind, termed by way of distinction Forum Romanum, or simply Forum. It lay between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills: it was eight hundred feet wide, and adorned on all sides with porticoes, shops, and other edifices, on the erection of which large sums had been expended, and the appearance of which was very imposing, especially as it was much enhanced by numerous statues. In the centre of the Forum was the plain called the Curtian Lake, where Curtius is said to have cast himself into a chasm or gulf, which closed on him, and so he saved his country. On one side were the elevated seats or suggestus, a sort of pulpits from which magistrates and orators addressed the people, usually called Rostra, because adorned with the beaks of ships which had been taken in a sea-fight from the inhabitants of Antium. Near by was the part of the Forum called the Comitium, where were held the assemblies of the people called Comitia Curiata. The celebrated temple, bearing the name of Capitol, of which there remain only a few vestiges, stood on the Capitoline Hill, the highest of the seven: it was square in form, each side extending about two hundred feet, and the ascent to it was by a flight of one hundred steps. It was one of the oldest, largest, and grandest edifices in the city. Founded by Tarquinius Priscus, it was at several times enlarged and embellished. Its gates were of brass, and it was adorned with costly gildings: whence it is termed "golden" and "glittering," aurea, fulgens. It enclosed three structures, the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the centre, the temple of Minerva on the right, and the temple of Juno on the left. The Capitol also included some minor temples or chapels, and the Casa Romuly, or Romulus, covered with straw. Near the ascent to the Capitol was the asylum (Cities of refuge). We also mention the Basilicae, since some of them were afterwards turned to the purposes of Christian worship. They were originally buildings of great splendour, being appropriated to meetings of the senate, and to judicial purposes. Here counsellors received their clients, and bankers transacted their business. The earliest churches, bearing the name of Basilicae, were erected under Constantine the Great. He gave his own palace on the Caelian Hill as a site for a Christian temple. Next in antiquity was the church of St. Peter, on the Vatican Hill, built A.D. 324, on the site and with the ruins of temples consecrated to Apollo and Mars. It stood about twelve centuries, at the end of which it was superseded by the modern church bearing the same name.