Pompeii, Its Life and Art. August 1840-1909 Mau
Roman writers did not hesitate to apply this term to corresponding bodies in states and cities outside of Rome's jurisdiction. For like reasons, it would seem that on public occasions officials and priests of a provincial town were not permitted, as were those in Rome, to ride. Was this humiliating restriction laid upon the Pompeians when the Roman colony came, or previously when the city was in name the ally of Rome, but in reality already subject? The evidence is almost conclusive for the latter alternative; for the colonnade of Popidius, which as we have seen was erected in the period of autonomy, left no entrance for vehicles, though in other ways it added greatly to the attractiveness and convenience of the Forum as a place for civic and religious celebrations.
No record of events has survived to help us form a picture of the Forum as the seat of deliberative and judicial functions, the centre of the city's political life; yet stirring scenes present themselves to the imagination as we recall the critical periods in the history of the city.
In the Forum, about 400 B.C., the valiant Samnite mountaineers, having taken the city by storm, assembled and established their civic organization; here, in later times, without doubt amid conflicts similar to those at Rome, the polity was put to the test and underwent transformation. Fierce enough the strifes may have been during the Samnite wars, and again in the time of Hannibal—after the battle of Cannae—when the aristocrats who favored Rome contended with the national party for the mastery. Here, on the platform in front of the temple of Jupiter, the leaders of the national party stood in 90 B.C., and with flaming words roused the people to revolt, to join the movement which, starting in Asculum, had spread like wildfire over Southern Italy.
Then ten years of bloody war—siege, campaigns, surrender—and again the scene changes. Roman soldiers stand thick in serried ranks upon the area. They are the veterans of Sulla. An officer bearing a civil commission, the nephew of the Dictator, appears before them. Standing in front of the temple of Jupiter, he makes a proclamation regarding the founding and administration of the colony. The citizens crowd back timidly into the colonnade. Many of the best of the Pompeians have fallen in battle; of the rest, a part at least will be dispossessed of house and home to make room for the intruders, whose arrogance they will be compelled submissively to endure.
This is the last tragic act in the Pompeian Forum. After this time, there will be disputes regarding the rights of the old residents and the colonists, public questions of many kinds will call for settlement; the elections will come each year, and the ardent southern temperament may assert itself in violent scenes. Yet all these disturbances will be only as the ripples on the surface; the depths will remain undisturbed. The life of Pompeii has become an integral part of the life of the Roman world.
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL VIEW OF THE BUILDINGS ABOUT THE FORUM—THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER
The Forum was to the ancient city what the atrium was to the early Italic house; it was used for every purpose for which a special place was not provided elsewhere. And as sleeping rooms, dining rooms, and storerooms were grouped about the atrium and opened into it, so around the Forum lay the edifices which served the requirements of the public life—the most important temples, the municipal buildings, and market houses or exchanges for different branches of business.
Three temples adjoined the Forum at Pompeii. In addition, there was a sanctuary of the City Lares; and the temples of Venus Pompeiana and Fortuna Augusta were but a short distance away. These religious edifices are representative of the different periods in the history of the city.
In very early times the Oscans of Pompeii received from the Greeks who had settled on the coast the cult of Apollo, and built for the Hellenic god a large, fine temple (C, in Plan II) adjoining the Forum on the west side.
Several centuries later, the divinities of the Capitol—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva—were enthroned in the temple that on the north side towered above the area (H).
On the east or right side followed, in Roman times, the edifices erected for the worship of the emperors. The oldest is the unroofed building, with a broad, open front, dedicated to the Lares of the City and to the Genius of Augustus (L). Further north, in the first block at the right beyond the Forum, is the temple of Fortuna Augusta, the goddess who guarded the fortunes of Augustus, erected in 3 B.C. A chapel for the worship of Claudius and his family was placed in the Macellum (K, 5); this seems to have sufficed also for the worship of Nero. After Nero's death and after the brief Civil War, a temple (M) was built close to the shrine of the Lares in honor of Vespasian, the restorer of peace, the new Augustus. This was the last temple erected in Pompeii; it was not entirely finished at the time of the eruption.
Three buildings at the south end of the Forum were used for city offices (P-R). They were much alike, each containing a single large hall. They were seemingly built in the early years of the Empire, and repaired after the earthquake of the year 63. There is also a structure at the southeast corner, south of Abbondanza Street, which we may identify as the voting place, the Comitium (O). At the northwest corner was apparently the city treasury, built in the latest years of Pompeii, perhaps on the site of an earlier structure of the same kind (F).
At a comparatively early period the area was found to be too small for the increasing volume of business; and the demand for roofed space made itself felt. In the second century B.C. the large and splendid Basilica (B), serving the double purpose of a court and an exchange, was built at the southwest corner.
Diagonally opposite, near the temple of Jupiter, a provision market, the Macellum (K), was constructed; this also at an early date. It was entirely rebuilt in the time of the Empire, perhaps in the reign of Claudius. Previous to this rebuilding, the priestess Eumachia had erected an exchange for the fullers on the same side of the Forum, further south (N).
On the west side, from pre-Roman times, stood a small colonnade in two stories, with its rear against the rear of the colonnade on the north side of the court of the temple of Apollo; only the first story, of the Doric order, has been preserved. Probably this structure and the small open space in front were at first used as a market; later, in the imperial period, shops (D') were built upon the open space, and the colonnade was made over into closed rooms, the purpose of which, except in the case of one, is unknown (6, 7, 7). In the last years of the city, a large market building (D) was erected between this small place and the Forum. It was connected both with the city treasury and with a latrina.
Fig. 18.—Plan of the temple of Jupiter.
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1. Speaker's platform.
2. Portico.
3. Cella.
The temple of Jupiter dominates the Forum, and more than any other structure gives it character. As we have seen, its orientation accords with that of the colonnade of Popidius. It probably dates from the pre-Roman period, the columns being of tufa covered with white stucco. The earthquake of the year 63 left the temple in ruins, and at the time of the eruption the work of rebuilding had not yet commenced. In the meantime, it was used as a workshop for stonecutters. The journal of the excavations reports the finding here of the torso of a colossal statue out of which a smaller statue was being carved. A place for the worship of the divinities of the temple must temporarily have been provided elsewhere.
The temple stands on a podium 10 Roman feet high, and including the steps, 125 Roman feet long (Fig. 18). Very nearly a half of the whole length is given to the cella; of the other half, a little more than two thirds is occupied by the portico, leaving about a third (20 Roman feet) for the steps. The pediment was sustained by six Corinthian columns about 28 feet high. This arrangement—a deep portico in front of the cella—is Etruscan, though the canon