Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Forum
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich.
FORUM. In its original sense, implied the uncovered space of ground left in front of a tomb, and in which the same right of property existed as in the sepulchre itself. Festus, s. v. Cic. de Legg. ii. 24.
2. (ἀγορά). A market-place; consisting of a large open area in the centre, where the country people exhibited their produce for sale, surrounded by outbuildings and colonnades, under which the different trades erected stalls, and displayed their wares or merchandise. In small towns a single forum would suffice for different markets; but in large cities, like Rome, almost every class of provision dealers had a market of their own, distinguished by the name of the produce sold in it; as forum boarium, the cattle market; olitorium, the cabbage or vegetable market; both of which are represented in the annexed illustration (Forum/2.1), from an ancient painting, containing views of several sites in the city of Rome, with their names inscribed upon each. The illustration also shows distinctly the manner in which an ancient market-place was laid out and enclosed. Varro, L. L. v. 146.
3. The Forum; i. e. a large open area, of a nature somewhat similar to the last described; but laid out upon a much more magnificent scale, and intended as a place for holding public meetings in the open air, and for the transaction of judicial and commercial business, rather than a mere provision market. (Varro, R. R. v. 145.) It was surrounded by the principal public buildings and offices of state, courts of justice, basilicae, places of worship, and spacious colonnades of one or more stories, in which the merchants, bankers, and money dealers had their counting-houses, and transacted their business. (Vitruv. v. 1. 2.) Of the famous Roman forum nothing now remains but the ruins of some of the edifices which stood in or around it, still rising in solitary grandeur on the spot, or interspersed amongst the modern buildings which encumber the site. Its former level lies buried beneath a depth of twelve or fourteen feet of earth and rubbish, so that the very site it occupied, its bearings and dimensions, form one of the most disputed points of Roman topography. But the excavations of Pompeii have opened the Forum of that city, the remains of which are sufficiently circumstantial to enable us to trace the ground-plans (Forum/2.2) of the various edifices surrounding it, and to assign some probable use to each of them; and will thus afford a general notion of the usual appearance of these places, and of the manner in which they were laid out. The central area is paved with large square flags, on which the bases for many statues still remain, and surrounded by a Doric colonnade of two stories, backed by a range of spacious and lofty buildings all round. The principal entrance is through an archway (fornix) (A), on the left-hand corner of the plan, and by the side of a temple of the Corinthian order (B), supposed to have been dedicated to Jupiter. On the opposite flank of this temple is another entrance into the Forum, and by its side the public prison (carcer) (C), in which the bones of two men with fetters on their legs were found. Adjacent to this is a long shallow building (D), with several entrances from the colonnade, surmised by the Neapolitan antiquaries to have been a public granary (horreum). The next building is another temple of the Corinthian order (E), dedicated to Venus, as conjectured from an inscription found on the spot. It stands in an area, enclosed by a blank wall and peristyle, to which the principal entrance is in a side street, abutting on the Forum, and flanking the basilica (F), beyond which there are three private houses out of the precincts of the Forum. The further or southern side of the square is occupied by three public edifices (G, H, I), nearly similar to one another in their plans and dimensions. All these have been decorated with columns and statues, fragments of which still remain on the floor; but there are no sufficent grounds for deciding the uses for which they were destined. The first is merely conjectured to have been a council chamber (curia); the second, the treasury (aerarium); and the last, another curia. Beyond these is another street, opening on the Forum; and, turning the angle, are the remains of a square building (K), for which no satisfactory use can be suggested. The space behind is occupied by the sites of three private houses. The next object is a large plot of ground (L), surrounded by a colonnade (porticus) and a cloister (crypta), and decorated in front, where it faces the Forum, by a spacious entrance porch or vestibule (chalcidicum), all of which were constructed at the expense of a female named Eumachia. Beyond this is a small temple (M) upon a raised basement, attributed by some to Mercury, by others to Quirinus; and adjoining to it, an edifice (N), with a large semicircular tribune or absis at its further extremity, supposed to have been a meeting-hall for the Augustals, or a town-hall (senaculum) for the Pompeian senate. The rear of both these structures is covered by the premises belonging to a fuller's establishment (fullonica). The last structure (O) is a magnificent building, with various appurtenances behind it, commonly called the Pantheon, from twelve pedestals placed in a circle round an altar in their centre, supposed to have supported the statues of the Dii Magni, or twelve principal divinities; but the style of the decorations, and the subjects of the numerous paintings which ornamented its walls, afford considerable weight to another ingenious conjecture which has been hazarded, that it was a banquetting-hall belonging to the Augustals.
4. (Perhaps ὑπολήνιον). A particular part of the press-room, where wine or oil was made. Varro, i. 54. 2. Columell. xi. 2. 71. Id. xii. 18. 3. In all these passages, it is enumerated with the presses and other instruments and vessels employed in the operation; and the name would be well adapted to the parts marked H H on the plan of the press-room ecavated at Stabia, which illustrates the word TORCULARIUM.
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