The Basilica of Pompeii presents to the Forum six pillars, between which five portals slid along grooves which are still visible. A vestibule, or sort of chalcidicum extends between these five entrances and five others, indicated by two columns and four pillars. The vestibule once crossed, the edifice appears in its truly Roman grandeur; at first glance the eye reconstructs the broad brick columns, regularly truncated in shape (they might be considered unfinished), which are still erect on their bases and which, crowned with Ionic volutes, were to form a monumental portico along the four sides of this majestic area paved with marble. Half columns fixed in the lateral walls supported the gallery; they joined each other in the angles; the middle space must have been uncovered. Fragments of statues and even of mounted figures proclaim the magnificence of this monument, at the extremity of which there rose, at the height of some six feet above the soil, a tribune adorned with half a dozen Corinthian columns and probably destined for the use of the duumvirs. The middle columns stood more widely apart in order that the magistrates might, from their seats, command a view of the entire Basilica. Under this tribune was concealed a mysterious cellar with barred windows. Some antiquaries affirm that there was the place where prisoners were tortured. They forget that in Rome, in the antique time, cases were adjudged publicly before the free people. Some of the walls of the Basilica were covered with _graphites_, that is to say, with inscriptions scratched with the point of a nail or of a knife by loungers on the way. I do not here copy the thousand and one insignificant inscriptions which I find in my rambles. They would teach us nothing but the names of the Pompeian magistrates who had constructed or reconstructed this or that monument or such-and-such a portion of an edifice with the public money. But the graphites of the Basilica merit a moment's attention. Sometimes, these are verses of Ovid or of Virgil or Propertius (never of Horace, singular to say), and frequently with curious variations. Thus, for example: "Quid pote durum _Saxso_ aut quid mollius unda? Dura tamen molli _Saxsa_ cavantur aqua." (_Ovid_.) Notice the _s_ in the _saxo_ and the _quid pote_ instead of _quid magis_; it is a Greekism. Elsewhere were written these two lines: "Quisquis amator erit Scythiæ licet ambulet oris: Nemo adeo ut feriat barbarus esse volet." Propertius had put this distich in an elegy in which he narrated a nocturnal promenade between Rome and Tibur. Observe the word _Scythiæ_ instead of _Scythicis_, and especially, _feriat_, which is the true reading,--the printed texts say _noceat_. Thus an excellent correction has been preserved for us by Vesuvius. Here are other lines, the origin of which is unknown: "Scribenti mi dictat Amor, monstrat que Cupido Ah peream, sine te si Deus esse velim!"