CHAPTER IV.
THE IMPERIAL FORA AND THE CAPITOLIUM.
Trajan’s Forum.
Ruin in the Salita del Grillo.
The whole space between the Quirinal and the Capitoline Hills was occupied by the immense Forum and public buildings which Trajan constructed. The Column of Trajan, with its wonderful spiral reliefs, still marks the site of this great mass of masonry; but the remainder, which included a basilica, two libraries, a temple, and two extensive porticoes, has disappeared with the exception of a fragmentary ruin in the Via della Salita del Grillo under the Quirinal. This ruin is the remains of a part of the great semicircular side of Trajan’s Forum under the Quirinal Hill. It consists of a brick building of two stories high, containing in the lower story small rooms measuring about ten feet square, probably shops or offices for notaries and lawyers’ clerks. The interior of three of the rooms is covered with plaster, and painted roughly. The floors were covered with mosaic pavement of a common kind, of which much still remains in situ. Above these rooms runs a corridor with arched windows, at the back of which a row of large and high chambers opens, resting upon the natural rock of the Quirinal Hill. The front is faced with brick pilasters on travertine basements, in a mixed Doric and Ionic style, and there were formerly pediments over the windows.
It will be seen by reference to the plan that a small portion of the Forum of Trajan can be now seen in the Piazza della Colonna Trajana. The arch from which the beautiful bas-reliefs on Constantine’s Arch were robbed, probably stood in the Via del Priorato at some distance from the Piazza.
The two double rows of bases now to be seen in the Piazza formed a part of the great Basilica Ulpia, part of the ground-plan of which is still preserved on two fragments of the Capitoline map. Many fragments are to be seen here of the columns which supported the roof of the basilica, among which those of grey granite, probably belonging to the outer rows of columns, are most conspicuous.
Column of Trajan.
The great Pillar with its well-known spiral bas-reliefs, perhaps the most interesting and instructive monument of antiquity in Rome, was surrounded when the buildings round it were complete with a narrow court not more than forty feet square. The south side of this was formed by the Basilica Ulpia, the eastern and western by the libraries, and on the north there was probably an open colonnade, the line of which can be traced leading to the structures beyond, where stood the temple dedicated to Trajan. Thus we discover a fact which seems at first somewhat surprising, that the pillar could not be viewed in its full height from any side, and that the upper part of it alone was visible from the Forum over the roof of the basilica. That it was intentionally thus enclosed is evident, for had the Greek architect Apollodorus of Damascus, who designed the Forum, wished it to be where the full colossal proportions could be seen, the open space of the Forum was close at hand, in the centre of which it might have been placed. But it is not unlikely that the sight of a column was almost inseparable in the Greek architectural ideas from an entablature and pediment. The Greeks did not place their statues on the top of columns, and probably had this reason for it, that a single column cannot form a whole by itself, and wears a forsaken and deserted aspect when viewed from any distance. An obelisk conveys a different meaning, and the use of a single column cannot be justified by it. The obelisk tapers upwards and completes itself, but a column instantly brings the idea of support with it. Obelisks, moreover, were never used singly by the Egyptians, but always placed in pairs. The intention of the architect was not that the column should be viewed as we now view it, as a whole, but that the colossal statue of the emperor might be raised on high above his splendid group of buildings, and also that the bas-reliefs should be conveniently viewed from the surrounding galleries.
