Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the CampagnaBurn, Robert
History
Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna
Burn, Robert
Rome (Italy) -- Antiquities; Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
A second proof is derived from two inscriptions found during the process
of clearing the site, one of which records the repair of the Basilica
Julia, and the erection in it of a statue by Gabinius Vettius Probianus,
prefect of the city in A.D. 377, and the other the rebuilding of the
Basilica Julia under Maximian after the fire which destroyed it in the
time of Carinus and Numerian. This site is also assigned to the Basilica
on the Capitoline plan which may be seen on the staircase of the
Capitoline Museum. The outline given there, and marked by the name
Basilica Julia, agrees in proportion, and in the rows of columns with the
extant remains, and this shows that the present ruin is the same in its
main points with that which stood in the time of Severus, when the
Capitoline plan was made.[51] Seven steps lead up to the level of the
floor from the Forum level.
A great deal of legal business was transacted here, as may be seen from
the frequent mention of it in Pliny’s Epistles. There were four tribunals,
of which Quintilian speaks, at which four trials could be carried on at
the same time; but these tribunals were probably wooden and temporary
erections, and there is no trace of any semicircular apses, such as those
in the Basilica of Constantine. One of Caligula’s amusements, as we are
told by Suetonius, was to stand upon the roof of this basilica, and throw
money to the mob in the Forum to scramble for. Whether the basilica was
covered over in the centre is not certain, but it probably was so, with
two aisles open to the Forum. The row of arches standing at the north-west
corner is partly a restoration of the basilica by Canina, and partly
consists of some piers and a wall standing behind, which has not yet been
satisfactorily identified with any ancient building. The most probable
supposition is that they belonged to the Porticus Julia mentioned by Dion
Cassius, and were parts of an earlier edifice, in front of which and upon
which the basilica was placed by Augustus.
[Sidenote: Cloaca.]
Under the southern end of the floor of the Julian Basilica, an opening has
been made in which the arch of the main cloaca of the Forum valley can be
seen passing across the Forum towards the Subura. This is the drain of
which Juvenal speaks, when he says that the fish taken from the Crypta
Suburæ is the climax of indignity offered to the unhappy parasite Trebius
at his patron’s table.[52] The course of the drain runs from here under
the Via dei Fenili down to the Janus Quadrifrons in the Velabrum, where it
meets other branches and passes down to the Tiber. Between the eastern end
of the Basilica Julia and the temple of Castor ran the Vicus Tuscus, of
which the paving-stones may still be traced. At the western end the Vicus
Jugarius led towards the Velabrum, but this is buried under the present
Via della Consolazione, and cannot be seen.
[Sidenote: Arch of Tiberius.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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