Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/792

 bability that among a people like the Romans a public execution would take place at a public and conspicuous spot. The Centum Gradus, or Hundred Steps, were probably near it; but their exact

it is impossible to point out. The other objects on the Clivus and slopes of the hili will be described in the next section. 



PLAN OF THE FORUM DURING THE REPUBLIC.   IV. The Forum and its Environs.

The forum, the great centre of Roman life and business, is so intimately connected with the Capitol that we are naturally led to treat of it next. Its original site w.as a deep hollow, extending from the eastern foot of the Capitoline hill to the spot where the Velia begins to ascend, by the remains of the temple of Antoninus and Faustina. At the time of the battle between the Romans and Sabines this ground was in its rude and natural state, partly swampy and partly overgrown with wood. (Dionys. ii. 50.) It could, however, have been neither a thick wood nor an absolute swamp, or the battle could not have taken place. After the alliance between the Sabines and Romans this spot formed a sort of neutral ground or common meeting-place, and was improved by cutting down the wood and filling up the swampy parts with earth. We must not, indeed, look for anything like a regular forum before the reign of Tarquinius Priscus; yet some of the principal lines which marked its subsequent extent had been traced before that period. On the E. and W. these are marked by the nature of the ground; on the former by the ascent of the Velia, on the latter by the Capitoline hill. Its northern boundary was traced by the road called Sacra Via. It is only of late years, however, that these boundaries have been recognised. Among the earlier topographers views equally erroneous and discordant

prevailed upon the subject; some of them extending the forum lengthways from the Capitoline hill to the summit of the Velia, where the arch of Titus now stands ; whilst others, taking the space between the Capitoline and temple of Faustina to have been its breadth, drew its length in a southerly direction, so as to encroach upon the Velabrum. The latter theory was adopted by Nardini, and prevailed till very recently. Piale (Del Foro Rmnano, Roma, 1818, 1832) has the merit of having restored the correct general view of the forum, though his work is not always accurate in details. The proper limits of the forum were established by excavations made between the Capitol and Colosseum in 1827, and following years, when M. Fea saw opposite to the temple of Antoninus and Faustina, a piece of the pavement of the Sacra Via, similar to that which runs under the arch of Severus. (Bunsen, Le For. Rom. expliqué, p. 7.) A similar piece had been previously discovered during excavations made in the year 1742, before the church of S. Adriano, at the eastern comer of the Via Bonella, which Ficoroni (Vestigie di Roma antica, p. 75) rightly considered to belong to the Sacra Via. A line prolonged through these two pieces towards the arch of Severus will therefore give the direction of the street, and the boundary of the forum on that side. The southern side was no less satisfactorily determined by the excavations made in 1835, when the Basilica Julia was discovered; and in front of its