Ahala (who slew the philanthropist Sp. Mælius with a dagger near this very spot), and which was encircled with a ghastly row of heads in the massacres under Sylla. This fountain was adorned by M. Aggrippa with a figure of a hydra. The right side of the Forum is now occupied for a considerable distance by the disinterred remains of the Basilica Julia, begun by Julius Cæsar, and finished by Augustus, who dedicated it in honour of his daughter. A basilica of this description was intended partly as a Law Court and partly as an Exchange. In this basilica the judges called Centumviri held their courts, which were four in number:
"Jam clamor, centumque viri, densumque coronæ
Vulgus: et infanti Julia tecta placent."
Martial, vi. Ep. 38.
Beyond the basilica are three beautiful columns which belong to a restoration of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, dedicated by Postumius, B.C. 484. Here costly sacrifices were always offered in the ides of July, at the anniversary of the battle of the Lake Regillus, after which the Roman knights, richly clothed, crowned with olive, and bearing their trophies, rode past it in military procession, starting from the temple of Mars outside the Porta Capena. The entablature which the three columns support is of great richness, and the whole fragment is considered to be one of the finest existing specimens of the Corinthian order. None of the Roman ruins have given rise to more discussion than this. It has perpetually changed its name. Bunsen and many other authorities considered it to belong to the temple of Minerva Chalcidica; but as it is known that the position of the now discovered Basilica Julia was exactly between the temple of Saturn and that of Castor, and a passage of Ovid describes the latter as being close to the site of the temple of Vesta, which is also ascertained, it seems almost certain now that it belonged to the temple of the Dioscuri. Dion-Cassius mentions that Caligula made this temple a vestibule to his house on the Palatine.
Here, on the right, branches off the Via dei Fienili, once the Vicus Tuscus, or Etruscan quarter (see Chap. V.), leading to the Circus Maximus. At its entrance was the bronze statue of Vertumnus, the god of Etruria, and patron of the quarter. The long trough-shaped fountain here, at which such picturesque groups of oxen and buffaloes are constantly standing, is a memorial of the Lake of Juturna the sister of Turnus, or as she was sometimes described, the wife of Janus the Sabine war-god. This fountain, for such it must have been, was dried up by Paul V.
"At quæ venturas præcedit sexta kalendas,
Hac sunt Ledæis templa dicata deis.
Fratribus illa deis fratres de gente deorum
Circa Juturnæ composuere lacus."
Ovid, Fast. i. 705.
Here, close under the Palatine, is the site of the famous Temple of Vesta, in which the sacred fire was preserved, with the palladium saved from Troy. On the altar of this temple, blood was sprinkled annually from the tail of the horse which was sacrificed to Mars in the Campus-Martius. The foundation of the temple was attributed to Numa, but the worship must have existed in Pelasgic times, as the mother of Romulus was a vestal. It was burnt down in the fire of Nero, rebuilt and again burnt down under Commodus, and probably restored for the last time by Heliogabalus. Here, during the consulate of the young Marius, the high priest Scævola was murdered, splashing the image of Vesta with his blood—and here (A.D. 68) Piso, the adopted son of Galba, was murdered in the sanctuary whither he had fled for refuge, and his head, being cut off, was affixed to the rostra. Behind the temple, along the lower ridge of the Palatine, stretched the sacred grove of Vesta, and the site of the Church of Sta. Maria Liberatrice was occupied by the Atrium Vestæ, a kind of convent for the vestal virgins. Here Numa Pompilius fixed his residence, hoping to conciliate both the Latins of the Palatine and the Sabines of the Capitoline by occupying a neutral ground between them.
"Quæris iter? dicam, vicinum Castora, canæ
Transibis Vestæ, virgineamque domum,
Inde sacro veneranda petes palatia Clivo."
Martial, i. Ep. 70.
"Hic focus est Vestæ, qui Pallada servat et ignem.
Hic fuit antiqui regia parva Numæ."
Ovid, Trist. iii. El. 1.
"Hic locus exiguus, qui sustinet atria Vestæ,
Tunc erat intonsi regia magna Numæ.
Forma tamen templi, quae nunc manet, ante fuisse
Dicitur; et formæ causa probanda subest.
Vesta eadem est, et Terra; subest vigil ignis utrique,
Significant sedem terra focusque suam.
Terra pilæ similis, nullo fulcimine nixa,
Aëre subjecto tam grave pendet onus.
Arte Syracosia suspensus in aëre clauso
Stat globus, immensi parva figura poli;
Et quantum a summis, tantum secessit ab imis
Terra. Quod ut fiat, forma rotunda facit.
Par facies templi: nullus procurrit ab illo
Angulus. A pluvio vindicat imbre tholus."
Ovid, Fast. vi. 263.
"Servat et Alba, Lares, et quorum lucet in aris
Ignis adhuc Phrygius, nullique adspecta virorum
Pallas, in abstruso pignus memorabile templo."
Lucan, ix. 992.
Close to the temple of Vesta was the Regia, where Julius Cæsar lived (as pontifex maximus)—where Pompeia his second wife admitted her lover Clodius in the disguise of a woman to the mysteries of the Bona Dea—whence Cæsar went forth to his death—and from which his last wife Calpurnia rushed forth with loud outcries to receive his dead body.
Somewhere in this part of the Forum was the famous Curtian Lake, so called from Mettus Curtius, a Sabine warrior, who with difficulty escaped from its quagmires to the Capitol after a battle between Romulus and Tatius.[52] Tradition declares that the quagmire afterwards became a gulf, which an oracle declared would never close until that which was most important to the Roman people was sacrificed to it. Then the young Marcus Curtius, equipped in full armour, leapt his horse into the abyss, exclaiming that nothing was more important to the Roman people than arms and courage; and the gulf was closed.[53] Two altars were afterwards erected on the site to the two heroes, and a vine and an olive tree grew there.[54]
"Hoc, ubi nunc fora sunt, udæ tenuere paludes:
Amne redundatis fossa madebat aquis.
Curtius ille lacus, siccas qui sustinet aras,
Nunc solida est tellus, sed lacus ante fuit."
Ovid, Fast. vi. 401.
Some fountain, like those of Servilius and Juturna, bearing the name of Lacus Curtius must have existed on this site to imperial times, for the Emperor Galba was murdered there.
"A single cohort still surrounded Galba, when the standard-bearer tore the Emperor's image from his spear-head, and dashed it on the ground. The soldiers were at once decided for Otho; swords were drawn, and every symptom of favour for Galba amongst the bystanders was repressed by menaces, till they dispersed and fled in horror from the Forum. At last, the bearers of the emperor's litter overturned it at the Curtian pool beneath the Capitol. In a few moments enemies swarmed around his body. A few words he muttered, which have been diversely reported: some said that they were abject and unbecoming; others affirmed that he presented his neck to the assassin's sword, and bade him strike 'if it were for the good of the republic;' but none listened, none perhaps heeded the words actually spoken; Galba's throat was pierced, but even the author of his mortal wound was not ascertained, while his breast being protected by the cuirass, his legs and arms were hacked with repeated gashes."—Merivale, vii. 73.
At the foot of the Clivus Capitolinus, on the left (looking towards the Arch of Titus) stood the Temple of Janus Quirinus, between the great Forum and the