CHAPTER VII
_THE FORUM_
The Forum is usually approached from the west side by the short, steep street leading from the Porta Marina. Entering, we find ourselves near the lower end of an oblong open space (Plate I), at the upper end of which, toward Vesuvius, stands a high platform of masonry with the ruins of a temple--the temple of Jupiter; the remains of a colonnade are seen on each of the other three sides. Including the colonnade the Forum measures approximately 497 feet in length by 156 in breadth; without it the dimensions are 467 and 126 feet. The north side, at the left of the temple, is enclosed by a wall in which there are two openings, one at the end of the colonnade, the other between this and the temple; at the right the wall bounding the open space has been replaced by a stately commemorative arch, while the end of the colonnade is closed by a wall with a passageway. Another arch, of much simpler construction, stands at the left of the temple, in line with the facade; it cuts off the area between the temple and the colonnade from the rest of the Forum. A third arch once stood in a corresponding position at the right.
The colonnade is nowhere intersected by a street passable for vehicles. Even the entrances on the north side form no exception. At the left you descend to the area by several steps, at the right by one only; yet here the exclusion of carts and wagons was made doubly sure by placing three upright stones in the passageway. Only pedestrians could enter the Forum, and they, too, could easily be shut out by means of gates in the entrances; the places where the gates swung can still be seen in the pavement, and one of them is shown in a painting (Fig. 16). No private houses opened on this area; it was wholly given up to the public life of the city and was surrounded by temples, markets, and buildings devoted to the civic administration.
The colonnade was not uniform in character upon all the three sides. As will be seen from our plan (Plan II), on the south side, and on the adjoining portion of the east side as far as Abbondanza Street, it was constructed with two rows of columns and had a double depth. On the east side, north of this street, the porticos in front of four successive buildings (K, L, M, N) took its place. For the greater part of its extent the colonnade was built in two stories, the lower of the Doric, the upper of the Ionic order. The upper gallery was made accessible by three stairways, at the southeast and southwest corners of the Forum and at the middle of the west side; on the east side it did not extend beyond Abbondanza Street.
The portico in front of the first of the four buildings referred to, that of Eumachia, contained a double series of columns, one above the other, corresponding in style and dimensions with those of the colonnade; but there was no upper floor running back from the intervening entablature. The arrangement in front of the fourth building, the Macellum, was similar; as the remains of the porticos in front of the two intervening buildings have wholly disappeared, it is impossible to determine their character.
The area of the Forum was paved with rectangular flags of whitish limestone. In front of the colonnade, the pavement of which was about twenty inches above that of the open space, a broad step or ledge projected, covering a gutter for rain water; the water found its way into the gutter through semicircular openings in the outer edge of the step.
Of the many statues that once adorned the Forum not one has been found. As may be seen from the pedestals still in place, they were of three kinds, and varied greatly in size.
First, statues of citizens who had rendered distinguished services were placed in front of the colonnade on the ledge over the gutter. Four pedestals that once supported statues of this sort may be seen on the west side.
Then equestrian statues of life size were set up in front of the ledge, these also in honor of dignitaries of the city (Fig. 17). On one of the pedestals the veneering of colored marble is still preserved, with an inscription showing that the person represented was Quintus Sallustius, "Duumvir, Quinquennial Duumvir, Patron of the Colony."
Finally, on the south side, the life size equestrian statues, which seem at the outset to have been arranged symmetrically, were almost all removed in order to make room for four much larger statues, the pedestals of which still remain (Fig. 53, p. 122). These must have represented emperors, or members of the imperial families. The pedestal in the middle, which is in the form of an arch almost square at the base, is much the oldest. Upon it was probably placed a colossal statue of Augustus. It is incredible that during the long and successful reign of the first emperor no statue in his honor should have been erected in Pompeii; and this is the most suitable place. The other three pedestals are similar in construction, and clearly belong together. The one at the right (2 on the plan) supported a colossal equestrian statue; that at the left (3) a colossal standing figure; on the third, further forward (4), was a smaller equestrian statue. Here stood, then, emperor, empress, and crown prince--Claudius, Agrippina, Nero.
A fifth pedestal, for an equestrian statue of the same size as that of Nero, is seen further to the north, in front of the temple of Jupiter (5). While unquestionably later than the time of Augustus, it must on the other hand be older than the pedestals of members of the Claudian family; for aside from himself, no one belonging to Nero's time can be taken into consideration, and after his death the Forum lay in ruins in consequence of the earthquake of the year 63. Who stood here, however, can scarcely be even conjectured. Not necessarily an emperor; the younger Drusus, for instance, Tiberius's son, or Germanicus might have been thus honored if they had in any way come into relation with the Pompeians. But if an emperor, it must have been Caligula; another place was provided for the statue of Tiberius.
In the south side of the arch at the northeast corner of the Forum are two niches. It is highly probable that statues of the two oldest sons of Germanicus, Nero and Drusus, were placed in them; a fragment of an inscription referring to the former was found near by. These became presumptive heirs to the throne after the death of Tiberius's son Drusus, in 23 A.D.; but both afterwards fell victims to the morbid suspicions of the emperor and the plots of Sejanus, Nero in 29 A.D., Drusus four years later.
On the top of the arch an equestrian statue of Tiberius probably stood. That such a statue was placed here seems clear from analogy. North of this arch was another, almost in line with it, at the end of Mercury Street where it opens into Nola Street; and here the excavators found fragments of a bronze equestrian statue which were put together and set up in the Naples Museum. Whether this statue represented Caligula or Nero has been a matter of dispute, but the former is really excluded from consideration by the short, heavy figure, which is better suited to Nero. There is no decided resemblance to Nero either; but it is quite possible that, although as crown prince he had been honored with a statue in the Forum, the Pompeians thought it best to erect for him as emperor a more imposing monument.
Before leaving the area we may raise the question whether it contained a speakers' platform, like the Rostra in the Roman Forum. If we have reference to a special structure, probably not; no trace of a separate tribunal has been discovered. The orator who wished to address the people, however, could mount the broad platform in front of the temple of Jupiter, on which once an altar stood; before him the audience could gather in the open, on the only side of the Forum free from the colonnade. This place well suited the convenience of both speaker and hearers. It is possible that we should also identify as a tribune the platform in a recess at the southeast corner (p. 120).
On even a cursory inspection the Forum is seen to lack unity in the details of its plan and in its architecture; the fact soon becomes apparent that it reached its final form only as the result of a long period of development. It will be worth while briefly to trace this development, and to note at least the more important changes which followed one another in the course of the centuries.
In the earliest times the Forum was merely an open square bounded by four streets.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.--North end of the Forum, with the Temple of Jupiter, restored.]
The proof that this was the original form is in part based upon the orientation of the temple of Apollo. The sides of this temple have the same direction as the north and south streets in the northern part of the city, and must have been laid out parallel with a street that once ran between it and the Forum. The temple is, therefore, older than the colonnade of the Forum, which shows a marked deviation from the line of its axis; the divergence, as may be seen on our plan, was in part concealed by making a difference in the thickness of the pillars between the court of the temple and the Forum. It is obvious that the colonnade on the west side takes the place of an older street; the south side was probably defined by the prolongation of Abbondanza Street toward the southwest.
Near the southeast corner an inscription was found: _V[ibius] Popidius Ep[idii] f[ilius] q[uaestor] porticus faciendas coeravit_, 'Vibius Popidius, the son of Epidius, when quaestor caused this colonnade to be erected.' No clew to the date is given, but it must have been before the coming of the Roman colony, for after that time there was no office of quaestor in Pompeii. It must also have been before the Social War; in those years of tumult an extensive colonnade would not have been built, and when the national spirit was so vehemently asserting itself, we should expect to find inscriptions upon public works in the Oscan language, certainly not in Latin. But the use of Latin may very well date from the latter part of the period of alliance with Rome; we may then with much probability assign the inscription to the second half of the second century B.C.
Remains of the colonnade of Popidius are still to be seen on the south side, and on the adjoining part of the east side, extending just across Abbondanza Street; traces of it are found also on the west side, where it was afterward replaced by a new structure. On the east side north of Abbondanza Street no traces remain; the appearance of this part of the Forum was entirely changed when the four buildings (K, L, M, N) with their porticos were erected, but we can hardly doubt that the original colonnade extended here also. Our illustration (Fig. 14) shows the arrangement of the Doric columns in the lower story; of the Ionic columns above only scanty fragments have been recovered. The appearance of the whole may be suggested by our restoration (Fig. 13).
In style and construction this colonnade belongs to the Tufa Period (p. 40). While the forms are not those of the classical period, they nevertheless manifest Greek feeling. The low ratio in the proportions of the Doric columns, of which the height is equal to five diameters, well accords with their use as a support for an upper gallery; elsewhere in pre-Roman Pompeii more slender proportions are preferred, even for the Doric style. The shaft is well shaped, with a moderate swelling (_entasis_). Only the upper part is fluted; as the sharp edges of the flutings near the bottom might easily be marred, the divisions of the surface on the lower third of the shaft were left flat.
The architrave is relatively low, the result of an interesting peculiarity in the method of construction. Blocks of tufa long enough to span the intercolumniations were too weak to sustain the weight of the rest of the entablature. To meet this difficulty a line of thick planks was placed in old Italic fashion above the capitals of the columns, and on these were laid short tufa blocks. Thus in our illustration (Fig. 14), while the upper of the two bands of the architrave is seen to be of stone, the lower shows the modern timber supplied in the place of the ancient. That the planks were in reality no thicker than has been assumed in the reconstruction is proved beyond question by the later colonnade on the west side, which, although entirely of stone, corresponds throughout in its proportions with the older one; the architrave is equally narrow, and is likewise divided into two parts.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Remnant of the colonnade of Popidius, at the south end of the Forum.]
This explanation is curiously confirmed by an architectural painting on the garden wall of one of the finest houses of the Tufa Period, the house of the Faun. Here we find pilasters and entablature, except the architrave, painted white; but the architrave is painted in two bands, of which the lower is yellow, as if to represent wood. Nothing would have been easier than to leave the architrave, moulded in stucco, of one color as if it were all of one material; but special effort was made apparently to indicate the appearance of a lower division of timber. From this we may infer that in actual construction no pains was taken to conceal the lack of uniformity in structural materials by laying a coat of white or colored stucco over wood and stone alike; on the contrary, the difference was not only recognized in the decoration, but even accentuated, as the timber, whether retaining its original color or painted with a suitable tint, presented a marked contrast with the stone the surface of which was covered with white stucco. If the strip of timber in the architrave had been perceptibly thicker than that of stone above it, the effect would not have been good; as the earlier Greek polychrome decoration was now no longer in vogue, the stripe of color above the capitals made a pleasing variation from the prevailing whiteness of the structure.
The Basilica at the southwest corner and the temple of Jupiter both conform to the same variation from the direction of the early north and south street that we have noticed in the case of the colonnade of Popidius; they belong, therefore, to the same remodelling of the Forum. It is quite possible that the erection of the temple, by limiting the area of the Forum on the north side, caused its extension toward the south beyond the earlier boundary. Originally the temple was isolated, the north end of the Forum on either side being left open; later, but still in the time of the Republic, a high boundary wall with passageways was built on both sides of it. Later still the two arches were erected in a line with its facade; afterwards, in the time of Tiberius, the wall at the right of the temple was replaced by the commemorative arch (I), and the smaller arch near the facade at the right was removed in order that there might be an unimpeded view of the great arch from the area.
The colonnade of Popidius may have stood for more than a century; the necessity of making thoroughgoing repairs no doubt became urgent. In the meantime, however, the taste of the Pompeians had undergone a change, and instead of repairing the old colonnade they began to replace it by a new one, a part of which is shown in Fig. 15. Better material, the whitish limestone, was used, and the construction was more substantial; the blocks of the entablature were fitted together so as to form a flat arch. Though the new colonnade followed closely the proportions of the old, effective details, such as the fluting of the columns, and the triglyphs with the guttae underneath, were omitted. The refined sense of form characteristic of the earlier time was no longer manifest; all is coarse and inartistic, the swelling on the shafts of the columns, for example, being carried too high.
[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Part of the new colonnade, near the southwest corner of the Forum.]
The new colonnade had a second story of the Ionic order, of the columns of which (though not of the entablature) considerable fragments have been found. The stylobate on which the columns rested was renewed in limestone, and about the same time the Forum was paved and the ledge over the gutter was laid with flags of the same material.
This second remodelling of the Forum commenced in the early years of the Empire, the pavement having been laid before the pedestal of the monument to Augustus was built. It was never carried to completion. On the west side the new colonnade was almost finished when the earthquake of the year 63 threw it nearly all down. At the time of the eruption only the columns at the south end of this side, which had safely passed through the earthquake, were still standing with their entablature; they are shown in Fig. 15. The area was then strewn with blocks, which the stonecutters were engaged in making ready for the rebuilding.
The Forum of Pompeii, as of other ancient cities, was first of all a market place. Early in the morning the country folk gathered here with the products of the farm; here all day long tradespeople of every sort exhibited their wares. In later times the pressure of business led to the erection of separate buildings around the Forum to relieve the congestion; such were the Macellum, used as a provision market; the Eumachia building, erected to accommodate the clothing trade; the Basilica and the market house west of the temple of Jupiter, devoted to other branches of trade. Yet in a literal sense the Forum always remained the business centre of the city.
It served, too, as the favorite promenade and lounging place, where men met to discuss matters of mutual interest, or to indulge in gossip. Here idlers loitered and plied busier men with questions regarding public affairs, makers and dealers came together to talk over and settle points of difference, and young people pursued their romantic adventures. He can best form an idea of this bustling, ceaseless, varied activity who knows what the piazza means in the life of a modern Italian city, and stops to consider how much has been taken from the life of the piazza by the cafes and similar places of resort; modern squares, moreover, are usually not provided, as were the ancient, with inviting colonnades, affording protection against both sun and rain.
The life of the Forum seemed so interesting to one of the citizens of Pompeii that he devoted to the portrayal of it a series of paintings on the walls of a room. The pictures are light and sketchy, but they give a vivid representation of ancient life in a small city. First, in front of the equestrian statues near the colonnade we see dealers of every kind and description. There sits a seller of copper vessels and iron utensils (Fig. 16), so lost in thought that a friend is calling his attention to a possible purchaser who is just coming up. Next come two shoemakers, one waiting on women, another on men; then two cloth dealers. Further on a man is selling portions of warm food from a kettle; then we see a woman with fruit and vegetables, and a man selling bread. Another dealer in utensils is engaged in eager bargaining, while his son, squatting on the ground, mends a pot.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Scene in the Forum.
In the foreground, at the left, dealer in utensils; at the right, shoemaker waiting on four ladies. Wall painting.]
The scenes now change. A man sitting with a writing tablet and stylus listens closely to the words of another who stands near by; he reminds us of the scribes who, under the portico of the theatre of San Carlo, at Naples, write letters for those that have been denied the privilege of an education.
Then come men wearing tunics, engaged in some transaction, in the course of which they seem to pass judgment on the contents of bottles which they hold in their hands; their business perhaps involves the testing of wine. Beyond these, some men are taking a walk; a woman is giving alms to a beggar; and two children play hide and seek around a column. The following scene is not easy to understand, but apparently has reference to some legal process; a woman leads a little girl with a small tablet before her breast into the presence of two seated men who wear the toga.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Scene in the Forum.
Citizens reading a public notice. Wall painting.]
In the next scene (Fig. 17) four men are reading a notice posted on a long board, which is fastened to the pedestals of three equestrian statues. The sketchy character of the painting is especially obvious in the representations of the horses, which are nevertheless lifelike. It is also interesting to note that the heads of the men in these scenes are uncovered; in stormy weather pointed hoods (shown in a tavern scene, Fig. 234) were sometimes worn. The festoons suggest a trimming of the colonnade for some festal occasion.
The last scene is from school life. A pupil is to receive a flogging. He is mounted on the back of one of his schoolmates, while another holds him by the legs; a slave is about to lay on the lash, and the teacher stands near by with an air of composure. It would not be safe to infer from this, however, that there was a school in the Forum; the columns in this scene are different from those in the others and are further apart. Possibly a part of the small portico north of the court of the temple of Apollo was at one time let to a schoolmaster.
The most important religious festivals were celebrated in the Forum. Here naturally festal honors were paid to the highest of the gods--the whole area enclosed by the colonnade was the court of his temple; but we learn from an inscription, mentioned below, that celebrations were held here in honor of Apollo also, whose temple adjoined the Forum, and was at first even more closely connected with it than in later times.
Vitruvius informs us that in Greek towns the market place, _agora_, was laid out in the form of a square (a statement which is not confirmed by modern excavations), but that in the cities of Italy, on account of the gladiatorial combats, the Forum should have an oblong shape, the breadth being two thirds of the length. The purpose in giving a lengthened form to the Forum, as also to the Amphitheatre, was no doubt to secure, at the middle of the sides, a greater number of good seats, from which a spectacle could be witnessed. In the Pompeian Forum, as may be seen from the dimensions given at the beginning of this chapter, the breadth is less than one third of the length. However, there can be little doubt that gladiatorial exhibitions were frequently held there before the building of the Amphitheatre, which dates from the earlier years of the Roman colony. After this time the Forum was still used for games and contests of a less dangerous character. The epitaph of a certain A. Clodius Flaccus, which is now lost, but was copied by a scholar in the seventeenth century, tells us at length how in his first, and again in his second, duumvirate (he was duumvir for the third time in 3 B.C.), in connection with the festival of Apollo, he not only gave gladiatorial exhibitions in the Amphitheatre, but also provided bullfights and other spectacles, as well as musical entertainments and pantomimes, in the Forum.
Speaking of the Forum as a place for gladiatorial combats, Vitruvius adds that the spaces between the columns should be wide,--that the view of spectators might be as little as possible impeded,--and that the upper story of the colonnade should be arranged with reference to the collection of an admission fee. The latter suggestion is of special interest. As we know from other sources, at public games certain places were reserved for the officials and for the friends of him who gave the spectacle; others were free to the public, while for still others an admission fee was charged. If the exhibition was held in a market place, with lower and upper colonnades, the former would be open to the people; the latter in part reserved, in part accessible on payment of the price of admission.
It would be interesting to know whether on such occasions at Pompeii the gates of the Forum itself were shut, so that admission even to the free space could be regulated; perhaps they were in earlier times when, as at Rome, slaves were forbidden to witness the games. However, Cicero speaks of this time-honored regulation as in his day already a thing of the past; and so in Roman Pompeii the gates of the Forum may have remained open even on the days of the games. Their most important use was probably in connection with the voting.
The Forum had a part also in spectacles which were not presented there. We are safe in assuming that, at least in the earlier times, whenever a gladiatorial combat was given in the Amphitheatre, or a play in the Theatre, the city officials, including especially the official providing the entertainment, formed in procession with their retinue and proceeded in festal attire to the place of amusement. These processions could scarcely have formed anywhere else than in the Forum, and thence they must have started out.
The fact that the Forum was not accessible for vehicles suggests a significant point of difference between the festal processions of the colony and those of the capital. In the latter, vehicles had a prominent place. Thus at Rome the official who gave the games in the Circus entered the edifice with his retinue in chariots in the imposing circus parade, _pompa circensis_, and a similar usage prevailed in the case of other processions; priests, too, and priestesses were on many occasions allowed to ride. But even in Rome carriages were always considered a matter of luxury; and the municipal regulations promulgated by Caesar prohibited the use of vehicles, except those required for religious and civic processions, on the streets of the city from sunrise till the tenth hour, that is, till four o'clock in the afternoon.
In Pompeii, and without doubt also in other cities of Italy and the provinces, the closing of the Forum to vehicles made it necessary that religious and other processions should proceed on foot. We have no evidence of any exception to this rule. We ought perhaps to recognize in it one of those devices by means of which Rome maintained a position of dignified superiority over the provincial towns; to her processions was allowed an element of display which to theirs was denied. It was not permitted to name the two chief executive officers of a municipality consuls, though their functions, within limits, corresponded with those of the consuls at Rome; nor could the city council be called a senate, though the 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.
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