THE ROSTRA.
The original Rostra was first called the Suggestum or Pulpit, but in A.U.C. 416 the name was changed into Rostra (beaks).
"The prows from the six ships captured from the Antiates were ordered to be placed as decorations on the Suggestum in the Forum, which was hence called Rostra" (Livy, viii. 14; Florus, i. 11; Pliny, xxiv. 11).
"The Rostra stood on the Comitium in front of the Curia" (Varro), from which the orators harangued the people assembled in the open air; and it was evidently only a temporary structure, probably of wood, and not a building like the other two Rostra. It stood upon a circular basement, but the top was square; on the outside were fixed the brazen beaks which belonged to the captive vessels of the Antiates. About the Rostra were placed the statues of the ambassadors put to death by Lar Tolumnius, king of Veii, and others who suffered on similar occasions; the three Fates, Horatius Cocles, Camillus, Hercules, the father of Vitellius, and others who deserved well of their country.
"When Caius Gracchus brought in his bill to regulate the courts of judicature, there was one thing very remarkable: whereas the orators before him, in all addresses to the people, stood with their faces towards the Senate House and the Comitium, he then, for the first time, turned the other way,—that is to say, towards the Forum,—and continued to speak in that position ever after. By this he intimated that the people ought to be addressed, and not the senate" (Plutarch).
Suetonius tells us that on the death of Augustus "two funeral orations were pronounced in his praise, one before the Temple of Julius by Tiberius, and the other before the Rostra, under the old shops, by Drusus." Some read this passage, "from the old Rostra;" but our rendering is more correct, though in either case he is referring to the Rostra that stood in front of the Curia.
The first time Cicero spoke from the Rostra was when he delivered his oration for the Manilian Law, A.U.C. 687, when in his forty-first year. After his assassination, the head and hands of Cicero were placed upon this Rostra, from where he had so often addressed the Romans—"that very Rostra, which he had made his own; nor was there a less concourse to see him there than had formerly been to hear him" (Florus, iv. 6). "That everybody might see them in the very place where he had formerly harangued with so much vehemence" (Dion Cassius, "Augustus").
THE ROSTRA.
The form of this Rostra is preserved to us, being represented on a coin.
There is an important passage in Pliny which shows the exact site of the Rostra, as it was used to mark the hour of noon. When the summoner caught sight of the sun passing the edge of the Rostra, he declared the hour of noon. A man standing on this site will roughly represent the Rostra, and as the gun fires at mid-day the edge of the sun can be seen coming past him by a person standing by the pedestal at the bank in front of S. Adriano, who will roughly represent the summoner. We have tried this numerous times with our audience, and it is the only spot on the Forum where it answers.
"The accensus of the consuls proclaiming mid-day aloud, as soon as, from the Senate House, he caught sight of the sun between the Rostra and the Græcostasis: he also proclaimed the last hour, when the sun had gone off the Mænian Column to the Prison" (Pliny, vii. 60).
THE MONUMENT OF MARCUS AURELIUS.[5]
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In excavating the open space of the Comitium upon the Forum in the summer of 1872, an interesting discovery was made of two marble screens or balustrades sculptured on each side, the one being some historic scene, the other representing animals. At the time, and since their discovery, many suggestions have been offered as to their signification and use, but none seemed satisfactory, at least to us. After considerable thought, examination of the ground, and putting this and that together, we have arrived at an estimate of their use and meaning entirely different from the hitherto received opinion; in which we are supported by their construction and the classic passages relating to them. They are in situ as found, but a new piece of marble has been put under them.
From this it will be seen that we have made an important discovery bearing upon the topography of the Forum, which will be of interest not only to classical students, but to every one interested in the word Rome.
We have discovered that the reliefs on the screens upon the Comitium in the Forum portray scenes from the life of Marcus Aurelius, showing in their backgrounds the buildings occupying two sides of the Forum—from the Temple of Concord to the Arch of Fabius—and that these marble balustrades led up to the statue of that emperor. The space where it stood can be plainly traced upon the pavement; and that is why these pictures refer to epochs of his life. The statue is still existing, and now stands in the square of the Capitol, where it was erected by Michael Angelo, who brought it from the Lateran in 1538, where it had been placed about 1187, when it was removed from the Forum, near the Column of Phocas, where it had long been looked upon as a statue of Constantine, and is so called in the Regiona Catalogue; hence its preservation.
The whole group was evidently erected in honour of Marcus Aurelius, and in commemoration of the important events in his life depicted on the screens, as recorded by Dion Cassius.
The first relief represents a scene upon the Forum between the old Rostra Marsyas and the fig-tree—burning the forty-six years' arrears of debts which Marcus Aurelius had forgiven the people.
"After that he remitted all that had been due to the Public and Imperial Treasuries for the course of forty-six years, without including therein Hadrian's reign, and ordered all the papers of claims to be burned in the Forum" (Dion Cassius, "Marcus Aurelius").
This was on the marriage of his son Commodus with Crispina.
It will be noticed that the relief is to the right of the fig-tree and Marsyas. Now, if we go round to the other relief, we have the same tree and Marsyas in the same relative positions; but the relief is to the left, and the scenes are taking place between the Rostra Julia, the fig-tree, and Marsyas:—
Giving the donation of eight pieces of gold.
Roma, or perhaps Faustina, thanking him for the Puellæ Faustinianæ.
"After he had come back to Rome, as he was one day haranguing the people, and speaking of the number of years he had spent abroad in his expeditions, the citizens with a loud voice cried out, 'Eight,' at the same time extending their hands to receive as many pieces of gold. The emperor, smiling, repeated, 'Eight,' and ordered every Roman eight pieces, which was so considerable a sum, that so great a one was never given before by any emperor" (Dion Cassius, "Marcus Aurelius").
It will be noticed that two men are holding up their hands with fingers extended, one five, the other three—eight.
The other scene on this relief represents a female figure advancing to the seated figure of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, leading a child and carrying another, to thank him for the orphan schools he founded in Rome in memory of his wife after her death, and which he named after her. "New Faustinian schools he instituted in honour of his dead wife" (Julius Capitolinus, "M. Antoninus," xxvi.).