Then ten years of bloody war,--siege, campaigns, surrender,--and again
the scene changes. Roman soldiers stand thick in serried ranks upon
the area. They are the veterans of Sulla. An officer bearing a civil
commission, the nephew of the Dictator, appears before them. Standing
in front of the temple of Jupiter, he makes a proclamation regarding
the founding and administration of the colony. The citizens crowd back
timidly into the colonnade. Many of the best of the Pompeians have
fallen in battle; of the rest, a part at least will be dispossessed of
house and home to make room for the intruders, whose arrogance they
will be compelled submissively to endure.
This is the last tragic act in the Pompeian Forum. After this time,
there will be disputes regarding the rights of the old residents and
the colonists, public questions of many kinds will call for
settlement; the elections will come each year, and the ardent southern
temperament may assert itself in violent scenes. Yet all these
disturbances will be only as the ripples on the surface; the depths
will remain undisturbed. The life of Pompeii has become an integral
part of the life of the Roman world.
CHAPTER VIII
_GENERAL VIEW OF THE BUILDINGS ABOUT THE FORUM--THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER_
The Forum was to the ancient city what the atrium was to the early
Italic house; it was used for every purpose for which a special place
was not provided elsewhere. And as sleeping rooms, dining rooms, and
storerooms were grouped about the atrium and opened into it, so around
the Forum lay the edifices which served the requirements of the public
life,--the most important temples, the municipal buildings, and market
houses or exchanges for different branches of business.
Three temples adjoined the Forum at Pompeii. In addition, there was a
sanctuary of the City Lares; and the temples of Venus Pompeiana and
Fortuna Augusta were but a short distance away. These religious
edifices are representative of the different periods in the history of
the city.
In very early times the Oscans of Pompeii received from the Greeks who
had settled on the coast the cult of Apollo, and built for the
Hellenic god a large, fine temple (C, in Plan II) adjoining the Forum
on the west side.
Several centuries later, the divinities of the Capitol--Jupiter, Juno,
and Minerva--were enthroned in the temple that on the north side
towered above the area (H).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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