Page 88 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

86  ROME AREA B Y AREA

of horsemanship Castor and
Pollux. During the battle of
Lake Regillus (499 BC) against
the ousted Tarquin kings, the
Roman dictator Postumius
promised to build a temple
to the twins if the Romans
were victorious. Some said
the twins appeared on the
battle field, helped the Romans
to victory, and then materialized
in the Forum – the temple
marks the spot – to announce
Remains of the Basilica Julia, a Roman court of civil law the news.
The temple, like most
7 Basilica Julia scratched into the steps are buildings in the Forum, was
checkerboards where they rebuilt many times. The three
See Visitors’ Checklist, p85.
played dice and other gamb ling surviving columns date from
This immense basilica, which games to while away the time the last occasion on which it
occupied the area between between cases. was rebuilt – by the future
the temple of Saturn and the Emperor Tiberius after a fire
temple of Castor and Pollux, in AD 6. For a long period, the
was begun by Julius Caesar in temple housed the city’s office
54 BC and completed after his of weights and measures, and
death by his great-nephew it was also used at times by a
Augustus. It was damaged number of bankers.
by fire almost immediately
afterward in 9 BC, but was
subsequently repaired and 9 Temple of Vesta
dedicated to the emperor’s See Visitors’ Checklist, p85.
grandsons, Gaius and Lucius.
After numerous sackings Corinthian columns of the Temple of The Forum’s most elegant
and pilferings, only the steps, Castor and Pollux temple, a circular building
pavement, and column stumps 8 Temple of Castor originally surrounded by
remain. Nevertheless, the a ring of 20 fine fluted columns,
ground plan is fairly clear. and Pollux dates from the 4th century AD,
The basilica had a central hall, See Visitors’ Checklist, p85. though there had been a
measuring 260 ft by 59 ft temple on the site for far
(80 m by 18 m), surrounded by The three slender fluted longer. It was partially
a double portico. The hall was columns of this temple form reconstructed in 1930.
on three floors, while the outer one of the Forum’s most The cult of the Vestals was
portico had only two. beautiful ruins. The first temple one of the oldest in Rome, and
The Basilica Julia was the here was probably dedicated centered on six Vestal Virgins,
seat of the centumviri, a body in 484 BC in honor of the who were required to
of 180 magistrates who tried mythical twins and patrons keep alight the sacred
civil law cases. They were flame of Vesta, the
split into four chambers of goddess
45 men, and unless a case of the
was particularly complicated, Cella (sacred hearth.
they would all sit separately. inner chamber)
The four courts were,
however, divided only by
screens or curtains, and the
voices of lawyers and cheers
and boos of spectators in the Sacred flame
upper galleries echoed through
the building. Lawyers hired
crowds of spectators, who
would applaud every time the Ring of Corinthian
lawyer who was paying them columns
made a point and jeer at his
opponents. The clappers and
booers must have had a good The Temple preserved the shape of an original primitive structure
deal of time on their hands: made of wooden posts with a thatched roof.

US_086-087_EW_Rome_US.indd 86 15/03/17 3:52 pm
Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
Catalogue template “UK” LAYER
(Source v1.9)
Date 20th August 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm