The original temple was built by Tarquin, and was supposed to mark the site of the ancient Sabine altar of the god and the limit of the wood of refuge mentioned by Virgil.

9. Just below the Temple of Saturn is the site of the _Arch of Tiberius_, erected, according to Tacitus, upon the recovery by Germanicus of the standards which Varus had lost.

10. The remains of the _Milliarium Aureum_, which formed the upper extremity of a wall faced with marbles, ending near the arch of Severus in a small conical pyramid. Distances without the walls were inscribed upon the Milliarium Aureum, as distances within the walls were upon the pyramid (from which in this case they were also measured) which bore the name of _Umbilicus Romae_. The Via Sacra, which is still visible, descended from the Capitol between the temples of Saturn and Vespasian,--being known here as the Clivus Capitolinus, and passed to the left of--

11. The _Arch of Septimius Severus_, which was erected by the senate A.D. 205, in honour of that emperor and his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. It is adorned with bas-reliefs relating his victories in the east,--his entry into Babylon and the tower of the temple of Belus are represented. A curious memorial of imperial history may be observed in the inscription, where we may still discern the erasure made by Caracalla after he had put his brother Geta to death in A.D. 213, for the sake of obliterating his memory. The added words are OPTIMIS FORTISSIMISQVE PRINCIPIBUS--but the ancient inscription P. SEPT. LVC.

FIL. GETae. NOBILISS. CaeSARI, has been made out by painstaking decipherers. In one of the piers is a staircase leading to the top of the arch which was formerly (as seen from coins of Severus and Caracalla) adorned by a car drawn by six horses abreast, and containing figures of Severus and his sons. It was in front of this arch that the statue of Marcus Aurelius stood, which is now at the Capitol.

"Les proportions de l'arc de Septime-Severe sont encore belles.

L'aspect en est imposant; il est solide sans etre lourd. La grande inscription ou se lisent les epithetes victorieuses qui rappellent les succes militaires de l'empereur, Parthique, Dacique, Adiabenique, se deploie sur une vaste surface et donne a l'entablement un air de majeste qu'admirent les artistes. Cette inscription est doublement historique; elle rappelle les campagnes de Severe et la tragedie domestique qui apres lui ensanglanta sa famille, le meurtre d'un de ses fils immole par l'autre, et l'acharnement de celui-ci a poursuivre la memoire du frere qu'il avait fait assassiner. Le nom de Geta a ete visiblement efface par Caracalla. La meme chose se remarque dans une inscription sur bronze qu'on voit au Capitale et sur le petit arc du Marche aux bufs dont j'ai parle, ou l'image de Geta a ete effacee comme son nom. Caracalla ne permit pas meme a ce nom proscrit de se cacher parmi les hieroglyphes. En Egypte, ceux qui composaient le nom de Geta ont ete grattes sur les monuments."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii.

278.

(The excavations in the Forum are open to the public on the same days as the Palace of the Caesars--Thursdays and Sundays.)

The platform on which we have been standing leads to the Via della Consolazione, occupying the site of the ancient _Vicus Jugarius_, where Augustus erected an altar to Ceres, and another to Ops Augusta, the goddess of wealth. (In this street, on the left, is a good cinque-cento doorway.) Where this street leaves the Forum was the so-called _Lacus Servilius_, a basin which probably derived its name from Servilius Ahala (who slew the philanthropist Sp. Maelius with a dagger near this very spot), and which was encircled with a ghastly row of heads in the massacres under Sylla. This fountain was adorned by M. Aggrippa with a figure of a hydra. The right side of the Forum is now occupied for a considerable distance by the disinterred remains of the _Basilica Julia_, begun by Julius Caesar, and finished by Augustus, who dedicated it in honour of his daughter. A basilica of this description was intended partly as a Law Court and partly as an Exchange. In this basilica the judges called Centumviri held their courts, which were four in number:

"Jam clamor, centumque viri, densumque coronae Vulgus: et infanti Julia tecta placent."

_Martial_, vi. _Ep._ 38.

Beyond the basilica are three beautiful columns which belong to a restoration of the _Temple of Castor and Pollux_, dedicated by Postumius, B.C. 484. Here costly sacrifices were always offered in the ides of July, at the anniversary of the battle of the Lake Regillus, after which the Roman knights, richly clothed, crowned with olive, and bearing their trophies, rode past it in military procession, starting from the temple of Mars outside the Porta Capena. The entablature which the three columns support is of great richness, and the whole fragment is considered to be one of the finest existing specimens of the Corinthian order. None of the Roman ruins have given rise to more discussion than this. It has perpetually changed its name. Bunsen and many other authorities considered it to belong to the temple of Minerva Chalcidica; but as it is known that the position of the now discovered Basilica Julia was exactly between the temple of Saturn and that of Castor, and a passage of Ovid describes the latter as being close to the site of the temple of Vesta, which is also ascertained, it seems almost certain now that it belonged to the temple of the Dioscuri. Dion-Cassius mentions that Caligula made this temple a vestibule to his house on the Palatine.

Here, on the right, branches off the Via dei Fienili, once the _Vicus Tuscus_, or Etruscan quarter (see Chap. V.), leading to the Circus Maximus. At its entrance was the bronze statue of Vertumnus, the god of Etruria, and patron of the quarter. The long trough-shaped fountain here, at which such picturesque groups of oxen and buffaloes are constantly standing, is a memorial of the _Lake of Juturna_ the sister of Turnus, or as she was sometimes described, the wife of Janus the Sabine war-god. This fountain, for such it must have been, was dried up by Paul V.

"At quae venturas praecedit sexta kalendas, Hac sunt Ledaeis templa dicata deis.

Fratribus illa deis fratres de gente deorum Circa Juturnae composuere lacus."

_Ovid, Fast._ i. 705.

Here, close under the Palatine, is the site of the famous _Temple of Vesta_, in which the sacred fire was preserved, with the palladium saved from Troy. On the altar of this temple, blood was sprinkled annually from the tail of the horse which was sacrificed to Mars in the Campus-Martius. The foundation of the temple was attributed to Numa, but the worship must have existed in Pelasgic times, as the mother of Romulus was a vestal. It was burnt down in the fire of Nero, rebuilt and again burnt down under Commodus, and probably restored for the last time by Heliogabalus. Here, during the consulate of the young Marius, the high priest Scaevola was murdered, splashing the image of Vesta with his blood,--and here (A.D. 68) Piso, the adopted son of Galba, was murdered in the sanctuary whither he had fled for refuge, and his head, being cut off, was affixed to the rostra. Behind the temple, along the lower ridge of the Palatine, stretched the sacred grove of Vesta, and the site of the Church of Sta. Maria Liberatrice was occupied by the _Atrium Vestae_, a kind of convent for the vestal virgins. Here Numa Pompilius fixed his residence, hoping to conciliate both the Latins of the Palatine and the Sabines of the Capitoline by occupying a neutral ground between them.

"Quaeris iter? dicam, vicinum Castora, canae Transibis Vestae, virgineamque domum, Inde sacro veneranda petes palatia Clivo."

_Martial_, i. _Ep._ 70.

"Hic focus est Vestae, qui Pallada servat et ignem.

Hic fuit antiqui regia parva Numae."

_Ovid, Trist._ iii. _El._ 1.

"Hic locus exiguus, qui sustinet atria Vestae, Tunc erat intonsi regia magna Numae.

Forma tamen templi, quae nunc manet, ante fuisse Dicitur; et formae causa probanda subest.

Vesta eadem est, et Terra; subest vigil ignis utrique, Significant sedem terra focusque suam.

Terra pilae similis, nullo fulcimine nixa, Aere subjecto tam grave pendet onus.

Arte Syracosia suspensus in aere clauso Stat globus, immensi parva figura poli; Et quantum a summis, tantum secessit ab imis Terra. Quod ut fiat, forma rotunda facit.

Par facies templi: nullus procurrit ab illo Angulus. A pluvio vindicat imbre tholus."

_Ovid, Fast._ vi. 263.

"Servat et Alba, Lares, et quorum lucet in aris Ignis adhuc Phrygius, nullique adspecta virorum Pallas, in abstruso pignus memorabile templo."

_Lucan_, ix. 992.

Close to the temple of Vesta was the _Regia_, where Julius Caesar lived (as pontifex maximus)--where Pompeia his second wife admitted her lover Clodius in the disguise of a woman to the mysteries of the Bona Dea--whence Caesar went forth to his death--and from which his last wife Calpurnia rushed forth with loud outcries to receive his dead body.

Somewhere in this part of the Forum was the famous _Curtian Lake_, so called from Mettus Curtius, a Sabine warrior, who with difficulty escaped from its quagmires to the Capitol after a battle between Romulus and Tatius.[52] Tradition declares that the quagmire afterwards became a gulf, which an oracle declared would never close until that which was most important to the Roman people was sacrificed to it. Then the young Marcus Curtius, equipped in full armour, leapt his horse into the abyss, exclaiming that nothing was more important to the Roman people than arms and courage; and the gulf was closed.[53] Two altars were afterwards erected on the site to the two heroes, and a vine and an olive tree grew there.[54]

"Hoc, ubi nunc fora sunt, udae tenuere paludes: Amne redundatis fossa madebat aquis.

Curtius ille lacus, siccas qui sustinet aras, Nunc solida est tellus, sed lacus ante fuit."

_Ovid, Fast._ vi. 401.

Some fountain, like those of Servilius and Juturna, bearing the name of Lacus Curtius must have existed on this site to imperial times, for the Emperor Galba was murdered there.

"A single cohort still surrounded Galba, when the standard-bearer tore the Emperor's image from his spear-head, and dashed it on the ground. The soldiers were at once decided for Otho; swords were drawn, and every symptom of favour for Galba amongst the bystanders was repressed by menaces, till they dispersed and fled in horror from the Forum. At last, the bearers of the emperor's litter overturned it at the Curtian pool beneath the Capitol. In a few moments enemies swarmed around his body. A few words he muttered, which have been diversely reported: some said that they were abject and unbecoming; others affirmed that he presented his neck to the assassin's sword, and bade him strike 'if it were for the good of the republic;' but none listened, none perhaps heeded the words actually spoken; Galba's throat was pierced, but even the author of his mortal wound was not ascertained, while his breast being protected by the cuirass, his legs and arms were hacked with repeated gashes."--_Merivale_, vii. 73.

At the foot of the Clivus Capitolinus, on the left (looking towards the Arch of Titus) stood the _Temple of Janus Quirinus_, between the great Forum and the Forum of Julius Caesar, and near the ascent to the Porta Janualis, by which Tarpeia admitted the Sabines to the Capitol.

Procopius, in the sixth century, saw the little bronze temple of Janus still standing. This was one of many temples of the great Sabine god.

"Quum tot sint Jani; cur stas sacratus in uno, Hic ubi juncta foris templa duobus habes?"

_Ovid, Fast._ i. 257.

This was the temple which was the famous index of peace and war, closed by Augustus for the third time from its foundation after the victory of Actium.[55]

" ...et vacuum duellis Janum Quirini clausit, et ordinem Rectum, et vaganti fraena licentiae Injecit."

_Horace_, Ode iv. 15.

Besides this temple there were three arches, whose sites are unknown, dedicated to Janus in different parts of the Forum.

" ...Haec Janus summus ab imo Perdocet----"

_Horace, Ep._ i. 1, 54.

The central arch was the resort of brokers and money-lenders.[56]

" ...Postquam omnis res mea Janum Ad medium fracta est."

_Hor. Sat._ ii. 3, 18.

Along this side of the Forum stood the _Tabernae Argentariae_, the silversmiths' shops, and beyond them--probably in front of S.

Adriano--were the Tabernae Novae, where Virginia was stabbed by her father with a butcher's knife, which he had seized from one of the stalls, saying, "This, my child, is the only way to keep thee free," as he plunged it into her heart.[57] Near this also was the statue of Venus Cloacina.[58]

The front of the Church of S. Adriano is a fragment of the _Basilica of aemilius Paulus_, built with part of 1500 talents which Caesar had sent from Gaul to win him over to his party. This basilica occupied the site of the famous _Curia_ of Tullus Hostilius.

"La se reunit, pour la premiere fois sous un toit, le conseil des anciens rois que le savant Properce, avec un sentiment vrai des antiquites romaines, nous montre tel qu'il etait dans l'origine, se rassemblant au son de la trompe pastorale dans un pre, comme le peuple dans certains petits cantons de la Suisse."--_Ampere, Hist.

Rom._ ii. 310.

The Curia was capable of containing six hundred senators, their number in the time of the Gracchi. It had no tribune,--each speaker rose in turn and spoke in his place. Here was "the hall of assembly in which the fate of the world was decided." The Curia was destroyed by fire, which it caught from the funeral pyre of Clodius. Around the Curia stood many statues of Romans who had rendered especial service to the state. The Curia Julia occupied the site of the Curia Hostilia in the early part of the reign of Augustus. Close by the old Curia was the _Basilica Porcia_, built by Cato the Censor, which was likewise burnt down at the funeral of Clodius. Near this, the base of the rostral column, _Colonna Duilia_, has been found.