The first question here is as to the distinction between the Forum and the _Comitium_. In the earliest times they were as different as the populus was from the plebs: the Comitium being the place of assembly for the curiae (patricians), and the Forum the original market-place, in which, however, the plebeians met for the purpose of voting. The Comitium has been the subject of endless discussions and controversies, but most of the opinions about it are quite foolish. Things went so far that Nardini gained immense applause from the _imperiti_ when he declared that the Comitium was the building of which three pillars are still standing: but these pillars belong to the Curia Julia. The Comitium was no building at all, it was nothing but an open place, and a part of the Forum in its wider sense. Both the Forum and the Comitium are parts of the same plain; at a later time the Comitium, in every-day language, was included in the word Forum, and there can be no doubt that the portico surrounding the Forum also inclosed the Comitium. The _rostra_ formed the separation between the two. It is difficult to give you an accurate idea of the rostra, for we have no word conveying an adequate notion. Imagine a _suggestum_ about twelve feet in breadth and at least thirty in length; imagine this to be of the height of a full-grown man, perhaps even somewhat higher, and on both sides steps leading up to it. I should never have been able to form a correct notion of it, had it not been for the fortunate accident, that just during my residence at Rome the new rostra were excavated. No person recognised it or understood what it was; I was not inclined to enter into a dispute, but only took my friend, De Serre, the greatest orator of the present time, to see the spot, where if he had lived in ancient times, he would have achieved as great a reputation as any other. The inner kernel only remains, which is constructed of beautiful bricks and cement. The outside was probably, or I may say certainly, covered with marble, and the beaks of the ships (_rostra navium Antiatum_ or _Antiatium_) were walled in in the front. So long as I had no correct notion of the rostra, I could not understand the meaning of the words _statuae in rostris positae_; it is only on such an extensive platform that they could be set up. Such a space is quite natural if we bear in mind the animated character of southern oratory, in which the speaker is in constant communication with those around him. One may still see this. There was at Rome a highly respectable monk who preached every Sunday, and during Lent, daily, in the Colosseum. He stood in the open air, and walked up and down as if he were conversing with his hearers. I think I never heard a sermon that made a deeper impression: sometimes he stood still, and sometimes he went from one to another of his hearers, without, however, calling any one by his name. It is this active communication with the audience that produced