Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/793

 steps another paved street, enclosing the area of the forum, which was distinguishable by its being paved with slabs of the ordinary silex. This street continued eastwards, past the ruin of the three columns or temple of Castor, as was shown by a similar piece of street pavement having been discovered in front of them From this spot it must Lave proceeded eastwards, past the church of Sta. Maria Liberatrice, till it met that portion of the

Sacra Via which ran in a southerly direction opposite the temple of Faustina (S. Loernzo in Miranda), and formed the eastern boundary of the forum. Hence, according to the opinion now generally received, the forum presented an oblong or rather trapezoidal figure, 671 English feet in length, by 202 at its greatest breadth under the Capitol, and 117 at its eastern extremity. (Bunsen, Les Forum de Rome, p. 15.) 



THE FORUM IN ITS PRESENT STATE. Sacra Via. — The Sacra Via was thus intimately connected with the forum; and as it was both one of the most ancient and one of the most important streets of Rome. It will demand a particular description. Its origin is lost in obscurity. According to some accounts it must have been already in existence when the battle before alluded to was fought, since it is said to have derived its name of the "Sacred Way" from the treaty concluded upon it between Romulus and Tatius. (Dionys. ii. 46; Festus, p. 290, Miill.) This, however, seems highly improbable; not only because the road could hardly have existed at so early a period, when the site of the forum itself was in so rude a state, but also because a public highway is not altogether the place in which we should expect a treaty of peace to be concluded. The name of the comitium has also been derived, perhaps with no greater probability, from the same event. It is more likely that the road took its origin at a rather later period, when the Sabine and Roman cities had become consolidated. Its name of Sacra Via seems to have been derived from the sacred purposes for which it was used. Thus we learn

from Varro (X. L. § 47, Miill.) that it began at the sacellum of the goddess Strenia, in the Carinae; that it proceeded thence as far as the arx, or citadel on the Capitoline hill; and that certain sacred offerings, namely, the white sheep or lamb (ovis idulis), which was sacrificed every ides to Jove (Ovid, F. i. 56; Macrob. S. i. 1.5; Paul. Diac. p. 104, Jliill.), were borne along it monthly to the arx. It was also the road by which the augurs descended from the arx when, after taking the auguries, they proceeded to inaugurate anything in the city below. It likewise appears that Titus Tatius instituted the custom that on every new year's day the augurs should bring him presents of verbenae from the grove of Strenia, or Strenua, to his dwelling on the arx ("ab exortu poene urbis Martiae Strcniarum usus adolevit, auctoritate regis Tatii, qui verbenas felicis arboris ex luco Strenuae anni novi auspicia primus accepit," Symm. Epist. x. 3.5). This custom seems to have been retained in later times in that known as the augurium salutis. (Cic. Leg. ii. 8; Tac. Ann. xii. 23; Lucian, Pseudol. 8.) Hence perhaps the appellation of 'sacra;" though the

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