Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/809

 EOJIA. Vespasian and ar!;ainst the wall of the Tubuluriuin, with a liandsoiiie though now ruined portico before them, from which there was an entrance into each separate chamber. From the fragments of the architrave an inscription could still be deciphered that it was dedicated to the twelve Dei Consentes. (Canina, Foro Rom. p. 207, Bullet, d. Inst. 1835.) This discovery tallies remarkably with the following passage in Varro: " Et quoniam (ut aiunt) Dei facientes adjuvant, prius invocabo eos ; nee ut Humerus et Ennius, Musas, sed xii. deos consentis; Deque tamen eos urbanos, quoitim imagines ad forum, auratae slant, sex mares et feminae totidem, sed illos XII. deos, qui maxime agricolaram duces sunt " (iZ. R. i. 1). We may, however, infer that the in- scription was posterior to the time of Varro, pro- bably after some restoration of the building; since in sDe Lingua Latina (viii. § 71) he asks: " Item quaerunt, si sit analngia, cur appellant omnes aedes Deum Consentum et non Dcorum Consentium?" whereas in the inscription in question we find it written " Consentium." We may further remark that the former of these passages would sanction the including of the whole Clivus Capitolinus under the appellation of " forum." With respect to the Jani on the forum, it seems rather problematical whether there were three of them. There appear to have been two Jani before the Basilica Paulli, to which the money-lenders chiefly resorted. (Sehol. ad Ilor. Ep. i. 1. 54.) But when Horace (^Sal. ii 3. 18) says — " postquam omnis res mea Jaimm Ad medium fracta est," he probably means, as we said before, the middle of the street, and not a Janus which lay between two others, as Becker thinks must necessarily follow from the use of the word medius. (^Handb. p. 327, note.) The Forum iinder the Empire. — The import- ant alteratio.ns made by Julius Caesar in the dis- position of the forum were the foundation of its subsequent appearance under the Empire. These changes were not mere caprices, but adaptations suited to the altered state of political society and to Caesar's own political views. But the dagger of the assassin terminated his life before they cuild be carried out, and most of them were left to be completed by his successor Augustus. One of the most important of these designs of Caesar's was the building of a new curia or senate-house, which was to bear ids name. Such a building would be the badge of the senate's servitude and the symbol of his own despotic power. The former senate-hou.se had been erected by one of the kings ; the new one would be the gift of the first of the emperors. We have mentioned the de.struction of the old curia by fire in the time of Sulla, and the rebuilding of it by his son Faustus; which structure Caesar caused to be pulled down under a pretence, never executed, of erecting on its site a temple of Felicitas. The curia founded by Fompey near his theatre in the Campus Martius — the building in which Caesar was assassinated — seems to have been that com- monly in use; and Ovid (J/e<. xv. 801), in describing that event, calls it simply Curia: — " neque cnim locus nllus in urbe Ad facinus diramque placet, nisi Curia, caedem." We may suppose that when Caesar attained to supreme ijower he was not well pleased to see the KO^IA. 7S9 meetings of the senate held in a building dedicated by his great rival. A new curia was voted a little before Cae.sar's death, but he did not live to found it ; and the Monumentum Ancyranum shows that it wjis both begun and completed by Octavianus. Respecting the site of the Cukia Julia the most discordant opinions have prevailed. Yet if we ac- ce])t the information of two writers who could not have been mistaken on such a subject, its position is not difficult to find. We learn from Pliny that it was erected on the comitium : " Idem (Augustus) in Curia quoque quam in Comitio consecrabat, duas tabulas impressit parieti" (xxxv. 10); and this site is confirmed by Dion Cassius: rh $ov- KiVTrjpiov rb 'lovAiou, onr' avTov kXtjO^v Trapa. Ttp Kn/uLiTiai wvo/j.ac/j.evuj wKoSofJLOvv, wtTTrep ei|(?j (fuffro (xlvii. 19). It is impossible to find any other spot for it on the comitium than that where the old curia stood. Besides the author last quoted expressly in- forms us that in consequence of some pro<ligies that occurred in the year before Caesar's murder it had been resolved to rebuild the Curia Hostilia (Kal 5m TovTO r6 T6 Pou(VTi]pLOV tJ» 'OtrriXiou avoiKo- So/xTidrivat if/ri(pi(7dr], Tb. xlv. 17.) At the time when this decree was made Caesar was himself pon- tifex maximus; it would have been a flagrant Ireach of religion to neglect a solemn vow of this description ; and we cannot therefore accept Becker's assertion that this vow was never accomphshed. {Ilandh. p. 331, note 608.) We cannot doubt that the curia erected by Augustus was in pursuance of this deciee, for Caesar did not live even to begin it ('' Curiam et continens ei Chalcidicum — feci," Mon. Ancyr); but though the senate-hon.se was rebuilt, it was no longer named Hostilia, but, after its new founder, Julia. Now what has Becker got to oppose to all this weight of testimony? Solely a passage in Gellius, — which, however, he misapprehends, — in which it is said, on the authority of Varro, that the new curia had to be inaugurated, which would not have been the case had it stood on the ancient spot (" Tum adscripsit (Varro) de locis in quibus senatus consultum fieri jure posset, docuitque confirmavitque, nisi in loco per augures constitute, quod templum appellaretur, senatusconsultum factum esset, justum id non fuisse. Propterea et in Curia Hostilia et in Pompeia. et post in Julia, cum profana ea loca fiiis- seiit, templa esse per augures constituta," xiv. 7. § 7.) But Becker has here taken only a half view of tlic>e augural rites. As a temple could not be built without being first inaugurated, so neither could it be pulled down without being first exaugurated. This is evident from the accounts of the exauguration of the fanes in order to make room for the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter. (" Et, ut libera a caeteris religionibns area esset tota Jovis templique ejus, quod inaedificaretur, exaugurare fana saccllaque statuit, quae aliquot ibi a Tario rege, consecreta inaugurataque postea fue- rant" Liv. i'. 55, cf. v. 54; Dion. Halic. iii. 69.) When Caesar, therefore, pulled down the curia of Faustus he first had it exaugurated, by which the site a<'ain became a locus projanus, and would of course'' require a fresh inauguration when a new temple was erected upon it. 'Ihe cun.i in use in the time of Propcrtius (iv. 1. II) must have been the Curia Julia; and the following lines seem to show that it had risen on the site of the ancient one:— " Curia praetexto quae nunc nilet alta Senatu Pullitos liabuit, ruslica corda, Pat res." 3 £ 3