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Rh the three Capitoline divinities was then carried on in the so called temple of Zeus Milichius. On each side of it were two arches, affording an entrance into the forum, but capable of being closed by gates. On the east side of the forum were four edifices; all of them are of a public character, but their names and attribution have been the subject of much controversy. The first (proceeding from the north), once known as the Pantheon, is generally regarded as a macellum or meat-market, consisting of a rectangular court surrounded by a colonnade, with a twelve sided roofed building (tholus) in the centre. On the south side were shops, and in the centre of the east side a chapel for the worship of the imperial house. Next to this comes the sanctuary of the Lares of the city, a square room with a large apse; and beyond this, as Mau proves, the small temple of Vespasian. Beyond this again, bounded on the south by the street known as the Strada dell' Abbondanza, is a large and spacious edifice, which, as we learn from an extant inscription, was erected by a priestess named Eumachia. Its purpose is uncertain—possibly a cloth-exchange, as the fullers set up a statue to Eumachia here. It is an open court, oblong, surrounded on all four sides by a colonnade; in front is a portico facing the forum, and on the other three sides there is a corridor behind the colonnade with windows opening on it. On the south side of the Strada dell Abbondanza was a building which Mau conjectures to have been the Comitium. At the south end of the forum are three halls side by side, similar in plan with a common façade—the central one, the curia or council chamber, the others the offices respectively of the duumvirs and aediles, the principal officials of the city; while the greater part of the west side is occupied by two large buildings—a basilica, which is the largest edifice in Pompeii, and the temple of Apollo, which presents its side to the forum, and hence fills up a large portion of the surrounding space. The former, as we learn from an inscription scratched on its walls, was anterior in date to the consulship of M. Lepidus and Q. Catulus (78 ), and therefore belongs to the Oscan period of the city, before the introduction of the Roman colony. It was an oblong edifice divided by columns into a central hall and a corridor running round all the four sides with a tribunal opposite the main entrance; and, unlike the usual basilica, it had, instead of a clerestory, openings in the walls of the corridor through which light was admitted, it being almost as lofty as the nave. The temple was an extensive edifice, having a comparatively small cella, raised upon a podium, and standing in the midst of a wide space surrounded by a portico of columns,

(Redrawn by permission from Baedeker's Southern Italy.)

outside which again is a wall, bounding the sacred enclosure. Between this temple and the basilica the Via Marina. leads off direct to the Porta Marina.

Besides the temples which surrounded the forum, the remains of five others have been discovered, three of which are situated in the immediate neighbourhood of the theatres. Of these by far the most interesting, though the least perfect, is one which is commonly known as the temple of Hercules (an appellation wholly without foundation), and which is not only by far the most ancient edifice in Pompeii, but presents us with all the characters of a true Greek temple, resembling in its proportions that of the earliest temple of Selinus, and probably of as remote antiquity (6th century B.C.). Unfortunately only the foundation and a few Doric capitals and other architectural fragments remain; they were coated with stucco which was brightly painted. In front of the temple is a monument which seems to have been the tomb of the founder or founders of the city; so that for a time this must have been the most important temple. The period of its destruction is unknown, for it appears certain that it cannot be ascribed wholly to the earthquake of 63. On the other hand the reverence attached to it in the later periods of the city is evidenced by its being left standing in the midst of a triangular space adjoining the great theatre, which is surrounded by a portico, so as to constitute a kind of forum (the so-called Foro