han the
actual Curia of Diocletian, though greatly altered and partly rebuilt
by Pope Honorius I. in the year 630--are some fragments of the
Basilica AEmilia. This court was erected on the site of the Basilica
Fulvia, and superseded by a more splendid building called the Basilica
Pauli, which was the Bourse or Exchange of ancient Rome. The building
of this last Basilica was interrupted for a long time by the disorders
consequent on the assassination of Caesar. When finished, it was
considered to be one of the most magnificent buildings in the world;
and was especially admired on account of its beautiful columns of
Phrygian marble. These were afterwards removed to decorate the church
of St. Paul outside the gate, where some of them that survived the
burning of the old edifice may be seen behind the high altar of the
new. Between the Curia and the Basilica AEmilia is supposed to have
stood the celebrated Temple of Janus, built according to Livy by Numa
Pompilius, the closing or opening of which was the signal of peace or
war. It was probably at first one of the ancient gates in a line of
fortifications uniting the Capitol with the Palatine; and afterwards
comprised, besides a passage-way through which a great part of the
traffic of Rome passed, a diminutive bronze temple containing a bronze
statue of the venerable deity of the Sabines, whose one face looked to
the east, and the other to the west. The bronze gates of the temple
were closed by Augustus for the third time after the battle of Actium,
and finally shut when Christianity became the religion of the empire.
Procopius saw the temple still standing in the sixth century; and he
tells us that, during the siege of the city by the Goths, when it was
defended by Belisarius, some of the adherents of the old pagan
superstition made a secret attempt to open the shrine and set the god
at liberty.

One gazes at the wall of earth and rubbish, fifteen feet deep, marking
the present limit of the excavations in this direction, with a
profound longing that the obstruction could be removed at once, and
the rich antiquarian treasures lying hid underneath brought to light.
Few things in Rome appealed more powerfully to my curiosity than this
huge bank of _debris_, behind and beneath which imagination was free
to picture all kinds of possibilities. On the part that has been
uncovered, we see a row of brick bases on which had stood monuments of
gilt bronze to some of the distinguished