ROMAN- EXCAVATIONS. 



203 



too calm, too cold for them. To arouse their in- 

 terest, there was needed at Rome some personal 

 question ; and hence the importance attached to 

 the political trials. The latter were as frequent 

 at Rome as at Athens, and politicians were con- 

 stantly engaged in defending themselves, or in 

 bringing charges against their opponents. Politi- 

 cal parties had no other means of attack but this. 

 It was a spectacle of high dramatic interest to see 

 a great man surrounded by his weeping family, his 

 clients, and his friends, standing up in the Forum 

 to defend his fortune and his honor, and crowds 

 would come to witness it. No less numerously 

 attended were the meetings called by magistrates 

 for the purpose of addressing the people. The 

 democracy is everywhere very exacting and full 

 of suspicion ; at Rome, as elsewhere, they desired 

 those to whom they had intrusted the public 

 offices to render an account of their doings, and 

 this duty no magistrate neglected to discharge 

 who wished to continue in favor with the people. 

 Cato, one of the most perfect types of the popu- 

 lar magistrate, always maintained relations with 

 his constituency. He was ever calling meetings 

 for the purpose of setting forth in detail what he 

 had done ; he would express his opinion on every 

 subject with that broad humor that so pleases 

 the multitude ; he would talk about himself and 

 others, never sparing his opponents, whom he 

 scrupled not to describe as debauchees and 

 knaves, while he never tired of bragging of his own 

 sobriety of life and his disinterestedness. The 

 people were delighted with this sort of address, 

 which made them feel that they were the sovereigns. 

 In seasons of public excitement, when it was 

 known that a tribune was about to speak against 

 the Senate, or to discuss more all-absorbing ques- 

 tion, artisans would quit their work, the shops 

 would be shut, and the people flocked from all 

 quarters to the Forum. On such occasions the 

 Forum, being packed with people, must have ap- 

 peared rather small. But the crowding was still 

 greater at the legislative assemblies of which we 

 spoke above. Then certain precautions had to 

 be taken for regulating the voting : the place 

 was divided into thirty -five separate compart- 

 ments for the different tribes, and narrow pas- 

 sages, called bridges, were constructed, through 

 which the citizens could pass only one by one to 

 deposit their ballots in the baskets. When we 

 cast our eyes over the Forum as it now is, and 

 see what a small area it embraces, it is hard in- 

 deed to understand how it ever sufficed for all 

 those complex operations, and how it ever could 

 hold the Roman people assembled. 



True, this place which we now see is not the 

 Forum of the republic, but only that of the em- 

 pire. We are told that it was not narrowed down 

 to its present limited area till the time of the 

 empire, when there was no need of a larger 

 Forum, inasmuch as the people no longer passed 

 upon laws ; but this hypothesis is erroneous. 

 There doubtless was a time during the early cen- 

 turies of the republic when the Forum was not 

 so tilled with buildings as it now is. With the 

 exception of a few temples which are as old as 

 the city itself, it then contained only miserable 

 shops, the public schools, and butchers'-stalls. 

 But from the time when Cato built the first ba- 

 silica, monuments of every kind were constantly 

 erected. Nearly every monument that is still to 

 be seen was built under the republic ; all that 

 the empire did was to repair them. These monu- 

 ments, therefore, did not hinder the meeting of 

 the popular assemblies in the Forum. The place 

 was very nearly what it is now about Ctesar's 

 time, when Clodius and Milo had their regular 

 battles here, and when Cicero here thundered 

 against Catiline or Antony. There is another 

 reason for holding .that the Forum could never 

 have been so extensive as we picture it in imagi- 

 nation, and this is, that it must have been possi- 

 ble for orators to make their voices heard. Now ? 

 however strong we may suppose the lungs of a 

 Cicero or a Demosthenes to have been, we could 

 never think of them delivering speeches in the 

 Place de la Concorde. 



The republics of ancient times found them- 

 selves in great straits when they had to lay out 

 their public places : they had to make them large 

 enough to hold an entire people, and at the same 

 time so small that the voice of the orators would 

 not be lost. Inasmuch as the Roman Forum was 

 for many centuries the ordinary place for holding 

 public assemblies, we must suppose that it ful- 

 filled these two conditions. This is a fact, and 

 we must accept it, even though we may be unable 

 to account for it. Hence we are forced to believe 

 that the orators could be heard here ; that, even 

 when their words were not very distinctly heard, 

 their voices could still control those noisy meetings 

 which have been compared to the waves of the 

 stormy sea. Perhaps the situation of the Forum 

 will enable us to understand what at first appears 

 to be absolutely unaccountable. It occupies low 

 grounds, surrounded by steep declivities. On 

 the side toward the Capitol there is actually a 

 precipice ; the incline is more gradual at the op- 

 posite extremity toward the Arch of Titus, but 

 still rather steep. One " went down " to the 



