"Quum tot sint Jani; cur stas sacratus in uno,
Hic ubi juncta foris templa duobus habes?"
Ovid, Fast. i. 257.
This was the temple which was the famous index of peace and war, closed by Augustus for the third time from its foundation after the victory of Actium.[55]
" ...et vacuum duellis
Janum Quirini clausit, et ordinem
Rectum, et vaganti fræna licentiæ
Injecit."
Horace, Ode iv. 15.
Besides this temple there were three arches, whose sites are unknown, dedicated to Janus in different parts of the Forum.
" ...Hæc Janus summus ab imo
Perdocet——"
Horace, Ep. i. 1, 54.
The central arch was the resort of brokers and money-lenders.[56]
" ...Postquam omnis res mea Janum
Ad medium fracta est."
Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 18.
Along this side of the Forum stood the Tabernæ Argentariæ, the silversmiths' shops, and beyond them—probably in front of S. Adriano—were the Tabernæ Novæ, where Virginia was stabbed by her father with a butcher's knife, which he had seized from one of the stalls, saying, "This, my child, is the only way to keep thee free," as he plunged it into her heart.[57] Near this also was the statue of Venus Cloacina.[58]
The front of the Church of S. Adriano is a fragment of the Basilica of Æmilius Paulus, built with part of 1500 talents which Cæsar had sent from Gaul to win him over to his party. This basilica occupied the site of the famous Curia of Tullus Hostilius.
"Là se réunit, pour la première fois sous un toit, le conseil des anciens rois que le savant Properce, avec un sentiment vrai des antiquités romaines, nous montre tel qu'il était dans l'origine, se rassemblant au son de la trompe pastorale dans un pré, comme le peuple dans certains petits cantons de la Suisse."—Ampère, Hist. Rom. ii. 310.