BASILICA (Lat., from Gk. gacrOux7j, royal, soil. croci. Rton. porch). The large col onnaded building used by the Romans as part of tlieir forums for the transaction of .business and legal affairs: also the common type of the early Christian churches. The name seems to be Greek. but the earliest known examples are Roman. Vitruvius (q.v.) says: "Basilicas ought to be built in the warmest of the market places, in order that. in winter. the merchants assembling there may not be inconvenienced by hail weather:" and elsewhere he speaks of the tribunal projected like a hemicycle from the main building. so those who stand near the magistrates may not be disturbed by those doing business in the basilica." These buildings varied in proportions and arrangement. Vitruvius, who built one himself at Fannin. says that they should he oblong. their width being between one third and one-half of their length, and divided into three parts by two rows of columns, the central part being three times as wide as the two sides, which are called porticoes. A second story is made over the porticoes by a second series of shorter columns forming a gallery with a marble parapet, which usually extends also across the short ends, and was used for prom enaders and spectators. At one of the short ends a tribunal projects in the form of a semi circular or square apse. Here sits the judge, or pnetor. surrounded by his assessors or jurymen; it is often partly screened off from the main body of the building by smaller columns. and is on a higher level. On either side of it is a small room connected with it—cabinets or robing rooms. There are many variations from the three-aisled type described by Vitruvius. Some arc halls with a single nave, without porticoes or galleries, as at Aquino and Palestrina ; others —and these the most splendid—have as many as five aisles, with four rows of columns: e.g. the Basilicas Julia and Ulpia; others have two hentieycles, one at each end, as Trajan's Basilica Ulpia; others are virtually square in form, as at Otrieoli; others—and these are the majority —have no upper galleries; others, finally, have heavy piers and vaults in place of colonnades and wooden roof, as the colossal Basilica of Constantine. The tribunal end appears to have
bad a solid wall. but on the other three sides the building was open, with either a simple colon nade (Ulpia) or a mixed arcade with engaged columns and architrave (Julia) such as we are familiar with in the Coliseum. Some, however. were inclosed by walls on all sides; this was the case at Pompeii. For five hundred years the Romans built basilicas (c.200 B.c. to A.D. 300) as one of their most characteristic and sumptu ous monumental expressions, alongside of their memorial arches, aqueducts and thermx. Until B.C. 1S4 their commercial and judicial business had been mostly transacted in the open forum. But in that year the Basilica Portia was built (burned in n.c. 52) : in 179 the Fulvia ; in 169 the Sempronia; in 121 the Opimia: in 46 the Julia. Pliny calls the _Emilia and the Julia two of the four most superb monuments of Rome. They flanked the Forum on opposite sides and their ruins are recently being studied with great care. Everywhere that Roman colonies were established under the late Republic and the Empire, basilicas were built in connection with the forums. They were the necessary outward sign of the Roman law, the seat of justice. as well as of trade. The earliest basilica in good preservation is that at Pompeii, which has excited the greater interest because it may represent the original Greek type: it has an open porch, five doors. three naves. a portico across both ends, and a well preserved, raised, oblong tribunal at one end. Other examples exist: in the Orient. at Palmyra: in Germany, at Treves, In Rome itself the two most famous examples built under the Empire were the Ulpia. erected by Trajan in his forum. and that begun by Maxentius and finished by Constantine, unique for its immense vaulting of tunnel and groin vaults; for all other known basilicas appear to have had wooden roofs. It is a common error to suppose that they were not roofed at all over the central space. but only over their side aisles or porticoes.