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Between these two monuments extended a platform, decorated with the bronze beaks of conquered vessels and hence called the Rostra, from which any citizen could speak who had aught to say concerning the commonweal. For it faced the Comitium or open space, which from earliest times had been the meeting place of the General Assembly of the people. It is true that the voice of the people was too often dominated by the Patrician class whose Curia or Senate House overlooked the Comitium; but the Comitium continued to represent, at least, the theory of Roman Government and to be the veritable nucleus of the Roman Forum.
Since the Forum embodied the ideals and the progress of Rome, its architectural aspects were continually changing throughout the more than one thousand years of Rome’s vicissitudes. But without attempting to follow these changes—many of which are shrouded in obscurity—let us try to picture the Forum in its general aspects and particularly as the embodiment of the Roman ideal.
The ancient citadel was the Capitoline Hill on which in early times had been erected the temple already mentioned to the three divinities of Male and Female Power and of Wisdom—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. It corresponded to the Acropolis of Athens and her Parthenon. But whereas the Parthenon was the nucleus of the Hellenic ideal, as embodied in architectural glory—the embodiment of an ideal, detached and lifted up above the common life—the formal grandeur of Rome descended from the Capitoline Hill and occupied the low ground that separated it from the Palatine, so that it might identify itself with the practical, everyday ideals of the city.
And, first, for the purely practical. The southern side of the Forum was in early times bordered with the tabernæ or wooden booths of the butchers and other produce merchants, while on the north were the shops of the gold-and silversmiths, and money changers. The Forum, in fact, was the central market of Rome and came to be its financial centre, and, as a necessary result, the centre also of legal and judicial procedure. In later times, as the volume and intricacies of business increased, the tabernæ were replaced by basilicas, which included halls of justice and of exchange for merchants. Meanwhile, let us try to picture the Forum as the embodiment of Roman ideals.
It was bounded on both sides by the Via Sacra, or Sacred Way; the two forks uniting near the foot of the Palatine Hill, around which the Sacred Way continued to its junction with the Appian Way. Its stones were sacred because they had been trod by the countless hosts of Rome’s victorious armies, returning in triumphal procession to pay their homage to the deities of Male and Female Power and of Wisdom upon the Capitol.
As the soldiers swept out of the Appian Way, they would skirt the spot, where in later times arose the Colosseum, and the roadway was spanned by the Arch of Constantine, and a little farther on by the Arch of Titus. From this the road advanced in an easterly direction and then turned north.
Then from earliest times two objects would greet the victors’ eyes. Upon the right stood the arch of two-headed Janus, god of gates and doors. It was all but a certainty that its two doors would be standing open; for, although this army was returning victorious, there were others almost continuously engaged on the frontiers of the empire. So the soldiers, glutted with fighting and hungry for the sight of their loved ones, would turn more eagerly to the left, where rose the circular temple of Vesta, guardian of the home and hearth. It was the symbol of the ideal of sane and simple home life, on which the greatness of Rome was founded, and as the Vestal Virgins thronged the steps of their convent or atrium, hard by the temple, the eagles would be lowered and every bronzed warrior would salute the maiden priestesses, who, in their absence, had kept perpetually alive the sacred fire.
Just beyond this spot in later times Cæsar Augustus erected a Triumphal Arch. Meanwhile, from Rome’s early days the victorious hosts would next defile past the Temple of Castor and Pollux, memorial of the victory gained at Lake Regillus with the help of these twin gods. Close by it came to be erected the Temple of Cæsar, in front of which the great Julius caused a rostrum to be placed, from the steps of which the oration over his dead body was spoken by Marc Antony.
At this spot the veterans would enter the Forum proper, welcomed by the cheers of the merchants; in old times, from the fronts of their booths and later from the porticoes of the Basilica Æmilia on the right and the Basilica Julia on the left. Then, both early and late in Rome’s history, would be reached the ancient Temple of Saturn, god of seed growing and the bounties of the soil, a god of meaning to the soldiers, for many a veteran had been left behind in distant lands, planted upon farms that were to consolidate the power and prosperity of the Empire. Moreover, in some of the chambers of the Temple, which formed the official Treasury of Rome, a part of their spoils of war would be deposited.
The procession by this time is filing past the Comitium, filled with enthusiastic crowds, while orators welcome it from the rostra and the Senators are ranged in ranks upon the steps of the Curia. The roar of welcome is still in the ears of the host as it begins the ascent of the Capitol, passing under the Arch of Septimus Severus, if the date be after A.D. 203. Midway of the ascent, it passes the Temple of Concord, memorial of the termination of the internecine struggle between the Patricians and the Plebs; skirts the Tabularium, wherein the archives of the Empire were preserved, and finally reaches the summit of the Capitol.
Let us take one glance back before the picture fades. The scene is superb but not without confusion. The Romans paid no attention to orientation; consequently there is little uniformity in the placing of the several structures. They vary not only in size and design, but also in the direction which they face. In the contracted space the various edifices seem crowded. Indeed, the conjectured restoration of the Roman Forum and vicinity suggests rather a medley of magnificence.
But even in this respect the character of this heart of Rome, lying between the Capitoline and Palatine hills, symbolised the magnificent variety of elements that composed the Empire. One may find some parallel to Rome’s confusion of appearances in the variety and, for the most part, lack of an organic lay-out in the modern London, the present mother-city of an Empire, founded, like the Roman, upon commerce, and like it in having grown, cell by cell, transcending it, however, not only in size but in grandeur. For the policy of the British Empire has gradually evolved beyond the Roman, substituting for the process of absorption the principle of free, self-governing dominions.
Courtesy A. S. Barnes & Co. from “A History of Art,” by William H. Goodyear
CONJECTURED RESTORATION OF THE FORUM ROMANUM
Looking N. E. to the Capitol. On Left, Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Basilica Julia. Right, the Curia. At the End, Temple of Vespasian
MAISON CARRÉE: NÎMES
Engaged Columns on Cella Wall (Pseudo-Peripteral) Columns Surmount the Podium. P. 169
ARCH OF CONSTANTINE
Entablature, Broken Round Columns. Note Decorative Use of Lettering. P. 178
PANTHEON, ROME
P. 171
SECTION OF PANTHEON
COLOSSEUM, ROME
P. 174
SECTION OF COLOSSEUM
Showing the System of Vaulting and Piers
BASILICA OF CONSTANTINE
Showing the Barrel-Vaulted Ceilings. P. 178
ROMAN VAULTING
From Baths of Diocletian. Note Absence of Transverse Rib and Doming. P. 166
GOTHIC VAULTING
From Salisbury Cathedral. Note Curve in Ridge Between Groins. P. 272
THEATRE OF ORANGE, FRANCE
Conjectured Restoration. Note Raised Stage, Architectural Scene and Ceiling Roof, Orchestra Reserved for Magistrates and Notables
PLAN OF THEATRE OF ORANGE
Conjectured Restoration. P. 176
PORTA AUREA
Golden Gate, Palace of Diocletian, Spalato, Dalmatia. P. 180
PONT-DU-GARD; AQUEDUCT NEAR NÎMES
P. 183
PERISTYLE AND COURT OF THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII
With Garden and Sculptured Objects Restored to Their Original Arrangement. P. 181
WALL PAINTINGS IN THE HOUSE OF THE VETTII
CHAPTER IVROMAN ARCHITECTURE
The Romans enlarged the scope of architecture in the direction of the art of the engineer. While Hellenic architecture had been an expression of the faculties of reasoning and of taste, co-operating in a singular harmony, Roman architecture was the product of reasoning stimulated by a practical sense and an extraordinary energy and audacity. In place of excessive refinement and sense of proportion, it is distinguished by variety, vastness of scale and exuberance of decorative detail. While every part of a Greek temple was constructional, having its distinct function in contributing to the stability as well as adornment of the whole structure, the Romans, as we have noted, had a uniform system of building in which they applied the structural details of the Greeks, very largely in the way of added embellishment.
Their aptitude for borrowing and adapting is apparent in their orders of columns and entablatures.
Roman Orders.—In the first place, they borrowed from the Etruscans the so-called Tuscan order. This had a rudimentary Doric form; the column being seven diameters in height; the shaft unfluted and tapering toward the capital, while the entablature was simpler, having no triglyphs, mutules, or guttæ.
In borrowing from the Hellenes, the Romans made little use of the Doric order. When it is used, as in the form of engaged columns in the Theatre of Marcellus, the height of the columns was increased in proportion to their diameters; the shafts were either smooth or channelled with semicircular, instead of the subtler, elliptic flutings, separated by narrow fillets; a base was added and modifications were made in the details of the capital. The architrave did not overhang the face of the column and was reduced in height; the triglyphs were used in the frieze only over the centre of the columns, even at the angles, while the cornice was lighter, with dentils sometimes taking the place of mutules. The Doric, in fact, did not appeal to the Roman taste for rich decoration, and, in so far as it was used, was degraded in style.
The same is true of the Roman adaptation of the Ionic order. Simpler and more commonplace curves replace the extreme refinement of the volutes and the fillet of the latter was carried invariably across the top of the echinus or cushion, while the ornamentation of the entablature was more profuse. The best use of this order is found in the upper story of the Theatre of Marcellus; the worst, on the eight remaining columns of the Temple of Saturn in the Forum Romanum.
The Corinthian order, of which no type sufficiently definite to constitute an order had been evolved by the Greeks, was fully worked out by the Romans, with the assistance of Greek artists, and became the favourite
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