iar to modern
mouths in the form of "the Mint." If you seek the place of this temple
now, you must look for it under the Church of Santa Maria in Ara
Coeli.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.--RUINS OF FORUM.]

[Illustration: Photo, Anderson. (Record Office in background with
modern building above.)]

Next, instead of looking up at the hill, glance to your left, and you
will see running along that side of the Forum, beside the Sacred Way,
a spacious public building known as the Basilica of Julius, that is to
say, of Julius Caesar. It is an edifice of a type familiar in cities
of the Roman world. You mount the steps from the Sacred Way and find
yourself under an outer two-storied arcade suitable for lounging or
promenading while discussing business or gossip with your friends.
Passing from this inwards you are in a building which consists of a
covered colonnade, or nave, about 270 feet in length, with a row of
pillars on either hand. On each side is a gallery, or upper floor,
from which spectators may look down upon the interior, or, from the
outer side, upon the open Forum. At the far end is a recess with a
raised tribunal, shut off, if necessary, by railings. In other
basilicas there may be an apse at this point, similarly enclosed. This
serves as a court of justice, round which the curious may stand, or
upon which listening spectators may gaze from the ends of the
galleries above. Meanwhile up and down the open space of the nave all
kinds of verbal business may be transacted by appointment, exactly as
such business used to be carried on in old St. Paul's Cathedral in
London or in churches elsewhere. In what may be called the inner
side-aisle are situated offices of various kinds, including those of
sundry public corporations, boards, or commissions. The whole of this
great hall is paved with coloured marbles; its pillars are coated with
marble; its ceiling is adorned with painting and gilt; it is
embellished with statues; and it is lighted from above by a
clerestory. Though the question has been debated, it is almost certain
that it was mainly from buildings like this, or from rooms similarly
constructed in palatial houses, that the early Church developed its
basilicas--with their nave, aisles, and clerestory, and with their
railed apse at the end, where was placed the chair of the bishop on
its dais. Across the Forum on the opposite side, to your right, lies
another structure of the same kind, in artistic respects more
ex