BASILICA. The Romans gave the name of Basilicre to those public buildings with spa cious halls, often surrounded with wide porti coes, many of which were built at different times in the various Fora of Rome. They were usually called after the person who caused them to be built.
The principal feature of the Basilica was a largerroofed building, supported on columns. The roof, which was called the testudo, rose high above the other part of the structure, which consisted of two galleries, called porticos placed one above the other, and round the in ternal sides of the central building. The porticus was covered with a lean-to roof, the upper part of which commenced below the capitals of the columns which supported the testudo. The light was admitted between the spaces formed by the under line of the archi trave of the testndo, the upper line of the lean-to roof, and the perpendicular lines of the columns. At the end of the central part of the interior a raised platform formed the tribunal for a magistrate.
It is probable that Rome possessed Basilica in all the different Fora of the city. Of these the Basilica Ulpia, which formed a part of the Forum Trajanum is the only one of which there are considerable remains left. Another Basilica, of the Corinthian order, was dis covered on the Palatine Hill. A large edifice in the Forum, called the Temple of Peace, has also been named the Basilica of Constan tine.
The most perfect Basilica of antiquity exists in Pompeii, constructed on the south-west, and consequently the warm side of the Forum. This edifice is 220 feet by 80. The qestudo rose to the height of about GO feet, judging from the diameter of the portions of the co. lumns still remaining.
The early Christian churches of Rome may be considered as the best resemblances of the Roman Basilicte. Not only the apsis, but the general form of the nave and aisles, of our ancient cathedrals is evidently borrowed from the Italian church Basilica.