TEMPLE OF SATURN FROM THE PORTICO OF THE DII CONSENTES
One of the earliest monuments of Rome; originally built in the reign of the last of the Tarquins or the first years of the Republic, but twice reconstructed during the Empire. It served as the Treasury of Rome. The granite columns with marble capitals are of the Ionic order. See pages [30], [181].
A period when the influence of Greece predominated succeeded the first epoch in the building of Rome, and to this time must be ascribed the adoption of the Greek models for public buildings, for circuses, baths, and basilicas. Ionic, Corinthian, and Doric columns were imported into Rome, the latter undergoing some modification to suit the Romans' more florid taste. The temples became Hellenic in style. The small cella was built within an open court surrounded by arcades from which the people assisted at the sacrifices. The altar stood in the open court. Later, windows were introduced into the building, and the openings were filled in with a bronze grating similar to that still in perfect preservation over the door of the Pantheon, or with a perforated marble screen, fragments of coloured glass being inserted in the interstices of the pattern. By the third century there were 400 temples in Rome, but the simple form of the early buildings was hidden with excessive ornamentation, and frieze and cornice were loaded with carving and figures.
The basilica, or kingly hall of justice, was a rectangular building divided into a central portion or nave and side aisles by rows of columns under a horizontal architrave. The columns were in two tiers, the upper one enclosing a gallery which was reached by a flight of stairs springing either within or without the building. The entrances were at the sides, and one extremity, and in some cases both were extended to form a semicircular apse or tribune where stood the judge's seat. A marble screen, the cancellum, separated this portion from the rest of the building, and this constituted the bar to which the accused were brought; just beyond stood the altar, where incense burned; and here, during the persecutions, Christians were arraigned and bidden to throw incense on the fire as a sign of recantation.
These great buildings served as courts of justice and for the transaction of business, and those which stood upon the fora were in some instances so large that several cases could be conducted in them at once. Before the Empire the nave was probably unroofed or covered only with an awning, and the upper galleries were entirely open so that their occupants could at will attend to the proceedings within the basilica or watch the games and events without. Similarly a single rail or low partition only separated the open colonnades below from the Forum. Curtains could be drawn across these to shut out importunate onlookers and to muffle the sounds of street traffic, but it is evident that the basilica precincts were regarded as a place of familiar rendezvous by the idlers in the Forum, as the gaming tables scratched in the flooring of the Julian basilica testify.
A CORNER OF THE FORUM FROM THE BASE OF THE TEMPLE OF SATURN
The column of Phocas, erected in honour of the Byzantine emperor who was the contemporary of Gregory the Great, faces us, and to the right are the columns of the temple to Antoninus Pius and Faustina, now the façade of the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda. The columns are of cippolino marble. See page [32].
The era of thermae or public baths began with Agrippa in 27 b.c., and by the end of the third century eleven such existed in Rome exclusive of the smaller baths or balnae, of which there were 850. Nero, Titus, Trajan, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Diocletian, were all builders of thermae. These huge edifices were a great deal more than public baths. They were a Roman form of the gymnasia of the Greeks, and the colossal ruins that remain can give but the barest idea of what they must have been at their best. They included immense halls and courts for athletic displays, vestibules, concert rooms, picture galleries and libraries, pleasure grounds decorated with statues fountains and shrubs and surrounded by open porticoes. Feasts, concerts, and entertainments were provided, and pleasant hours could be whiled away within their walls by the gilded youth of Rome. The baths of Diocletian, of which the church of S. Maria degli Angeli is a magnificent fragment, could accommodate 3600 bathers at a time, those of Caracalla 2000. An army of slaves and attendants waited upon the bathers and sped upon their errands along underground passages from one end of the building to the other. Ruins of the thermae of Caracalla and of Titus are still standing. Out of the colossal vaults and walls of Diocletian's baths have been constructed two churches, a monastery, a large museum, and a variety of storehouses, warehouses, stables, and cellars.
Equally remarkable was the Roman system for supplying their city, their thermae, and their 1350 street fountains with pure water.
Appius Claudius was the first to collect the water from springs amongst the mountains in the neighbourhood of Rome and to bring it across the campagna. This was in 313 b.c., up to which date the inhabitants of the city had depended for their water supply upon the Tiber and upon sunken wells. Following in the steps of Claudius, fourteen aqueducts whose united length measured 360 miles were built at various times. They varied in length from 11 to 59 miles and their course lay sometimes under ground and sometimes 100 feet above it, while the amount of water they poured daily into Rome has been estimated at 54,000,000 cubic feet.