Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/806

 "86 ROMA. vilest of the Roman prostitutes. (Senec. Ben. vi. 32 ; Plin. xxi. 6.) The account given by Servius of this statue has been the' subject of much dis- cussion, into which the limits of this article will not permit us to enter. The whole question has been exhausted by Creuzer. (5<(«Z. ii. p. 282, seq.; cf. Savisjny, Gesch. des Riim. Keclits, i. 52.) Near the rostra were also the statues of the Three Sibyls (Plin. xxxiv. 11), which are apparently the same as the three Mo7pai or Fates, mentioned by Procopius. (5. Goth. i. 25.) These also were at the head of the forum, towards the temple of Janus, a position which points to the same result as the Duilian column with respect to the situation of the comitium. Livy's description of a great fire which broke out about the forum b. c. 2 1 1 affords some topo- graphical particulars : " Interrupit hos sermones nocte, quae pridie Quinquatrus fuit, pluribus simul locis circa forum incendium ortum. Eodem tem- pore septem Tabernae, quae postea quinque, et argentariae, quae nunc Novae appellantur, arsere. Comprehensa postea privata aedificia, neque enim turn basilicae erant : comprehensae Lautumiae, fo- rumque piscatorium, et atrium regium. Aedis Vestae vjx defensa est" (xxvi. 27). As the fire, wilfully occasioned, broke out in several places, and as the Curia Hostilia does not seem to have been en- dangered, we may perhaps conclude that the Septem Tabernae here mentioned were on the S. side of the forum. The argentariae afterwards called Novae were undoubtedly on the N. side, and, for the reasorj» just given, they perhaps lay to the E. of the curia, as the fire seems to have spread to the eastward. It was on the N. side that the greatest damage was done, as the fire here spread to the Lautumiae and Forum Piscatorium. The Septem Tabernae appear to h.ave been the property of the state, as they were rebuilt by the censors at the public expense, together with the fish-market and Atrium Regium (" Loca- verunt inde reficienda quae circa forum incendio consumpta erant, septem tabernas, macellum, atrium regium," Id xxvii. 11). This passage would seem to show that the reading quinque (tabernae) in that previously cited is corrupt. Bluretus has observed that one codex has " quae postea re<.," which in others was contracted into v., and thus taken for a numeral. (Becker, Ilandb. p. 297, notes). Hence we may infer that the Veteres Tabernae on the S. side of the forum were seven in number, and from the word postea applied to them, whilst nunc is used of the Novae, it might perhaps be inferred that the distinctive appellation of Veteres did not come into use till after this accident. It also appears from this passage, that there were no basilicae at Rome at this period. It was not long afterwards, however, namely b. C. 184, that the first of these buildings was founded by M. Por- cius Cato in bis censorship, and called after him Basilica Porclv. In order to procure the requisite ground, Cato purchased the houses of Maenius and Titius in the Lautumiae, and four tabernae. (Liv. xxxix 44.) Hence we may infer that the Lautu- miae lay close at the back of the forum; which also appears from the circumstance that JIaenius, when he sold his house, reserved for himself one of its columns, with a balcony on the top, in order that he and his posterity might be able to view from it the gladiatorial shows on the forum. (I's. Ascon. ad Cic. Div. in Caecil. 16; cf. Schol. ad Ilor. Sat. i. 3. 21.) This column mast not be confounded with ROMA. the monument called the Columna JIaenia, which stood on the forum. The Basilica Porcia must have stood close to the curia, since it was destroyed by the same fire which consumed the latter, when the body of Clodius was burnt in it (Ascon. ad Cic. pro Mil. Arg. p. 34, Orell.); but it must have been on the eastern side, as objects already described filled the space between the curia and the Capitoline hill. The Forum Piscatorium stood close behind it, since Plautus describes the unsavoury odours fiom that market as driving away the frequenters of the basilica into the forum : — " Tum piscatores, qui praebent populo pisces foetidos Qui advehuntur quadrupedanti crucianti canterio Quorum odos subbasilicanos omnes abigit in forum." {Capt. iv. 2. 33.) In the time of Cicero, the tribunes of the people held their assemblies in the Basilica Porcia. (I'lut. Cato Min. 5.) After its destruction by fire at the funeral of Clodius it does not appear to have been rebuilt; at all events we do not find any further mention of it. The state of the foram at this period is described in a remarkable passage of Plautus ; in which, as becomes a dramatist, he indicates the different loca- lities by the characters of the men who frequented them (^Curc. iv. 1): — " Qui perjunim convenire volt hominem mitto in comitium ; Qui mendacem etgloriosum, apud Cloacinae sacrum Ditis damnosos maritos sub basilica quaerito ; Ibidem erunt scorta exoleta, quique stipulari solent ; Symbolarum collatores apud Forum Piscarium ; In foro infimo boni homines atque dites ambulant ; In medio propter canalem, ibi ostentatores meri ; Confidantes garrulique et malevoli supra lacum. Qui alteri de nihilo audacter dicunt contumeliam Et qui ipsi sat habent, quod in se possit vere dicier. Sub Veteribus ibi sunt, qui dant quique accipiuut foenere ; Pone aedem Castoris ibi sunt, subito quibus credas male, In Tusco Vico ibi sunt homines, qui ipsi sese ven- ditant. In Velabro vel pistorem, vel lanium, vel aruspicem, Vel qui ipsi vortant, vel qui aliis ut vorsentur prae- beant. [Ditis damnosus maritos apud Leucadiam Oppiam]." This is such a picture as Greene might have drawn of Paul's, or Ben Jonson of Moor Fields. The good men walking quietly by themselves in the obscurest part of the forum, whilst the flash gentlemen without a denarius in their purses, are strutting conspicuously in the middle ; the gourmands gathering round the fishmarket and clubbing for a dinner ; the gentlemen near the Lacus Curtius, a regular set of scandal-mongers, so ready to speak ill of others, and so wholly unconscious that they live in glass-houses themselves ; the perjured witness prowling about the comitium, like the man in West- minster Hall in former days with a straw in his shoe; the tradesman in the Vicus Tuscus, whose spirit of trading is so in-bred that he would sell his very self ; all these sketches from life present a pic- ture of manners in " the good old times " of the Roman Republic, when Cato himself was censor, which shows that human nature is very much the same thing in all ages and countries. In a to- pographical point of view there is little here but I I