Our Basilica is undoubtedly of later date than the Basilica Porcia, but the Pompeians, who at the time when it was built were pupils of the Greeks in matters of art, found their model not in Rome but in a Greek city, perhaps Naples. Five entrances, separated by tufa pillars, lead from the colonnade of the Forum into the east end of the basilica. First comes a narrow entrance court (_a_), extending across the entire building and open to the sky. On the walls, as also on the outside of the building, are remains of a simple stucco decoration; below, a yellow base with a projecting red border along the upper edge; above, a plain white surface. At the left outside the entrance court is a cistern for rain water collected from the roof; the stairway close by (shown on the plan) had nothing to do with the Basilica, but was connected with the upper gallery of the colonnade about the Forum. [Illustration: Fig. 24.--View of the Basilica, looking toward the tribunal.] Mounting four steps of basalt we pass from the narrow court into the building. The five entrances here are separated by four columns. Those next to the two sides on the right and on the left were closed by a wall in which was a wide doorway; the three at the middle were left as open intercolumniations. The enclosed space before us measures 180⅓ English feet (200 Oscan feet) in length, 78¾ feet in breadth. Twenty-eight massive brick columns, 4 Oscan feet in diameter, separate the great central hall from the broad corridor running about it; only the lower part of the columns, built of small bricks evidently made specially for this purpose, is preserved (Fig. 24). Attached half-columns, with a diameter a little more than three fourths that of the others, project from the walls; the wall decoration, which imitates in stucco a veneering of colored marbles, is of the first style (p. 41). The columns of the entrance and those at the rear have the same diameter as the half-columns; part of the Ionic capitals belonging to them have been found, but the capitals of the large columns have wholly disappeared. There are only scanty remains of the floor, which consisted of bits of brick and tile mixed with fine mortar and pounded down (_opus Signinum_); it extended in a single level over the whole enclosed space, and from this level our estimates of height are reckoned. On three sides of the main hall near the base of the columns under the floor is a square water channel, indicated on our plan; eight rectangular basins lie along its course, but the purpose of it is not clear. The tribunal projects from the rear wall, its floor being six Oscan feet above that of the rest of the building.