FORUM 



2275 



FOSSIL 



and here the devout gathered to worship the 

 gods. At first everything connected with the 

 Forum was largely informal it was merely 

 an open gathering-place, often unpleasantly 

 marshy. But as the city grew the Forum was 

 leveled and drained by the great sewer known 

 as Cloaca Maxima; shops were built about 

 the edges, and temples began to spring up. 

 Later the shops were banished to new market- 

 places, and the Forum assumed an added dig- 

 nity. The emperors delighted to ornament it 



DIAGRAM OF 



(1) Column of Phocas 



(2) Bases of Honorary 



Statues 



(3) Rostrum 



( 4 ) Arch of Septimius 



Severus 



(5) Curia, or Senate 



House 



(6) Comitium 



(7) Temple of Concord 



( 8 ) Temple of Ves- 



pasian 



(9) Tabularium, or 



Office of Records 



THE FORUM 



(10) Temple of Saturn 



(11) Basilica Julia 



(12) Temple of Castor 



(13) Atrium Vestae 



(House of the 

 Vestals) 



(14) Temple of Vesta 



(15) Arch of Augustus 



(16) Temple of Julius 



(17) Temple of Antoni- 



nus and Faustina 



(18) Arch of Favius 



(19) Via Sacra 



with buildings, arches and statuary, and in 

 the days of the empire it was an imposing 

 sight, with its pillared temples, its gleaming 

 columns and its shaded walks. The illustra- 

 tion shows the location of the most prominent 

 buildings. 



It was not the architecture, however, which 

 made the Foijum the wonder of the ancient 

 world,, but the teeming life which flowed 

 through it. Stately Romans in their flowing 

 togas walked beneath its arches; dignified Sen- 

 ators hastened to it, intent on measures which 

 might save or disrupt the empire; there was 

 the echo of clashing arms from its walls, as 

 soldiers returning victorious from some far 

 province marched through it; and many a 

 conquered enemy of royal rank was led cap- 

 tive under its arches. Here, in the Senate 

 House, Cicero delivered those renowned 

 speeches which overthrew Catiline ; here Brutus 

 made his defense after the death of Caesar, 

 and here Mark Antony swayed the passions of 



the mob to vengeance and violence. The his- 

 tory of the world of that day was largely 

 made here, for Rome was the all-important 

 part of the world in those days of splendor. 



When the barbarians poured into Rome in 

 the fifth century they spared the Forum, but 

 later centuries were not so kind, and all during 

 the Middle Ages the Forum was little more 

 than a desolate waste, its buildings tumbled 

 in ruins or buried under rubbish. Its condition 

 is plainly shown by the fact that it was called 

 Cow Plain. In recent years clearances and 

 excavations have been undertaken, and some 

 valuable relics have been unearthed. 



Other Forums. The word forum means 

 simply out-of-doors, or market-place, and was 

 by no means restricted to the one open-air 

 place described above. Rome itself had many 

 more, several of the emperors setting aside 

 and beautifying forums in their own honor. 

 Julius Caesar began the custom, and Augustus, 

 Vespasian, Domitian, Nerva and Trajan fol- 

 lowed his example. Some of these had archi- 

 tectural beauties as great as those of the old 

 Forum, but they never took the same part in 

 the city's life, and it alone bore the title of 

 Forum Romanum. Practically every Roman 

 city, whether in Italy or in the colonies, had 

 at least one forum, and no study of the life 

 of ancient times is complete which does not 

 give much attention to these great unifying, 

 civilizing agencies. See ROME. A.MCC. 



Consult Hiilsen-Carter's The Roman Forum; 

 Platner's The Topography and Monuments of 

 Ancient Rome. 



FOSSIL, fos'il. We sometimes find pieces 

 of shell in a rock and look upon them as 

 great curiosities. If we examine the rock more 

 closely by using a magnifying glass, we may 

 discover that it contains the remains of tiny 

 animals that have turned to stone, that is, 

 have petrified. These remains of plants and 

 animals that have turned to stone are fossils. 

 We may well look upon them as curiosities, 

 for they tell us of the animals and plants that 

 lived in the past geologic ages, long before 

 man came upon the earth. 



Fossils are of the greatest importance to the 

 geologist, for it is by studying them that he 

 is able to tell the order in which the different 

 rock systems were formed. For instance, the 

 rocks that contain no fossils must have been 

 formed before either plants or animals could 

 live on the earth. Again, it is reasonable to 

 suppose that the simplest forms of life ap- 

 peared first, hence the rocks in which fossils 



