The name Basilica means "King's House." It was the ancient Law Court. It usually had a portico, was oblong in form, and ended in an apse for ornament. The Christians adopted it for their places of worship because it was the largest type of building then known. They also adopted the names of the different parts of the pagan basilica, as the Confessional, from the _Confession_, the bar of justice at which the criminal was placed,--the Tribune, from the _Tribunal_ of the Judge, &c. A chapel and sacristy added on either side produced the form of the cross. The _Basilica_ here is of great width. A leg of the emperor's chair actually remains _in situ_ upon the tribunal, and part of the richly wrought bar of the Confession still exists. This was the bar at which St. Laurence and many other Christian martyrs were judged. The basilica in the palace of the Cæsars was also the scene of the trial of Valerius Asiaticus in the time of Claudius (see Chap. II.), when the Empress Messalina, who was seated near the emperor upon the tribunal, was so overcome by the touching eloquence of the innocent man, that she was obliged to leave the hall to conceal her emotion,--but characteristically whispered as she went out, that the accused must nevertheless on no account be suffered to escape with his life,[108]--that she might take possession of his Pincian Garden, which was as Naboth's Vineyard in her eyes. An account is extant which describes how it was necessary to increase the width of the seat upon the tribunal at this period, in consequence of a change in the fashion of dress among the Roman ladies. This basilica, though perhaps not then itself in existence, will always have peculiar interest as showing the form and character of that earlier basilica in the Palace of the Cæsars, in which St. Paul was tried before Nero. But it is quite possible that it may be the same actual basilica itself,--and that the palace of Nero which overran the whole of the hill, may have had its basilica on this site, where it was preserved by Vespasian in his later and more contracted palace.