. Rome and Pompeii; archaeological rambles. and altered, it has so many times changed its appearancethat those ancient memories have left very little traceon it. They only exist for us in the texts of the oldwriters who tell us of them. But those texts, althoughobscure and rare, have been interpreted with so muchsagacity by a learned criticism, that we are now able,without great trouble and with sufficient probability,to replace those poor monuments of Eomes earliesttimes upon the ground encumbered with buildings ofanother age.^ The aspect and natural configuration of the place 1 For the bette
. Rome and Pompeii; archaeological rambles. and altered, it has so many times changed its appearancethat those ancient memories have left very little traceon it. They only exist for us in the texts of the oldwriters who tell us of them. But those texts, althoughobscure and rare, have been interpreted with so muchsagacity by a learned criticism, that we are now able,without great trouble and with sufficient probability,to replace those poor monuments of Eomes earliesttimes upon the ground encumbered with buildings ofanother age.^ The aspect and natural configuration of the place 1 For the better understanding of what follows, I have reproduced, witha few slight modifications, the map given by M. Detlessen at the end ofhis work on the Comitium, in les Annales de VInstitut de correspondencearcMologique (1860). Although only the primitive Forum is here inquestion, it was not possible to make the sites of the more ancientmonuments intelligible without marking those of the following epoch, THE FORUM in tKe first years of the Republic. TEMPLVMVESTAE ?Sto. Ifancx^ J^tbertxtrice- After Detlefsen TPIE FORUM. 35 greatly help us in this. We have seen that, accordingto Deuys of Halicarnassus, Eomulus and Tatius usedto meet in a certain part of the Forum in order toconfer, and that at this spot, since called the Comitium(gachering), the citizens thenceforth held their assem-blies. But where was the site of the Comitium to belooked for ? For a long time it was customary to locateit a little everywhere—even in the lowest parts of theplain. Good sense, however, tells us that it must havebeen in a high place, safe from floods. The Forum inits primitive state, was a Tarquin, by buildingthe great drain discovered under the portico of theBasilica Julia, caused the stagnant waters of the Tiberto How off, and first rendered the bottom of the placepracticable. Before his time, there could have been noquestion of establishing a place for public meetingsthere. We must therefore put
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1896
