[ * 3 ® ] 
Bafilicae : and the Christian writers took this word for 
their churches. 
Though this be the common ufe of the word, it is 
not the primary. It fignifies, I fay, originally and 
principally, as it does in this infcription, a portico or 
colonnade, which being very large and confiderable 
in places built for courts of juftice, for public audi- 
tories and meetings of merchants, it came to pafs, 
that the name of the principal was funk in the ad - 
jun£i ; and all thefe places called alike hafilicre , from 
the colonnade, which attended, and perhaps fome- 
times encom palled them: 
Bafilicarum loca, adjunSla foris, quam calidifiimis 
partibus oportet conftitui, ut per hyemem fine mo- 
leftia tempeftatum fe conferre in eas negociatores pof- 
fent. Vitruv. V. i. 
In the law-books I find them fometimes diftin- 
guilhed : 
Sacram vel religiofam rem vel ufibus publicis in 
perpetuum reli&am, ut forum , aut bafilicam , aut ho- 
minem liberum, inutiliter fiipulor. L. 83. § 3. D. 
dc V. O. 
And fo likewife Afconius upon Cic. Orat. pro Mi- 
lone : 
Quo igne & ipfa quoque curia flagravit, & item 
Porcia bajilica , quae erat eijundla, atnbufta eft. 
In Capitolinus I meet with bafilica centenaria , ba - 
plica pedum quingentorum . And in the lame light we 
muft certainly view the words of Vopifcus in the 
life of Aurelian : 
Miliarenlem deniqueporticum in hortis Salluftiis or- 
tiavit, in qua quotidie et equos et fe fatigabat. 
Which paflage will explain the words of Juvenal, 
Sat. IV. init*. Quid 
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