BASIL´ICA
BASIL´ICA (also
regia, Stat.
Silv. 1.1, 30;
Suet. Aug.
31 ; in the Greek writers who speak of the Roman
basilicae,
στοὰ βασιλική or
στοά), a building which served as a court
of law and an exchange, or place of meeting for merchants and men of
business. The two uses are so mixed up together that it is not always easy
to say which was the principal. Thus the basilica at Fanum, of which
Vitruvius (
5.1,
6--10)
himself was the architect, was entirely devoted to business, and the courts
were held in a small building attached to it--the temple of Augustus. A
basilica then was an adjunct to the market-place, affording shelter and
comparative freedom from interruption. Its special architectural
peculiarities were division into nave and aisles, and clerestory lighting.
Phylander (
Comment. in Vitruv.) derives the term from
βασιλεύς, in reference to early times,
when the king was judge; but those who hold that the Roman basilica was of
Athenian origin derive the word from the title of the
ἄρχων βασιλεύς, whose court was called
ἡ βασίλειος στοά, or
ἡ
τοῦ βασιλέως στοά. (
Paus. 1.3,
1; Demosth. i.
Aristog. p.
776.23.) The plan of this building is unknown to us, nor are we acquainted
with that of the court of the Hellanodicae in the old
agora of Elis. (
Paus. 6.24,
3.) The evidence then for tracing the Roman
basilica from the Athenian
στοὰ βασίλειος
lies simply in the resemblance of the names, which is not complete; while
the adjective
basilicus was not unknown to the
Latin tongue of the age when the first basilica was built at Rome. (Plaut.
Capt. 4.2, 31;
Trin. 4.3,
23.) M. Viollet le Duc (
Lectures on Architecture, 1.147, Eng.
trans.) thinks the word came from Asia, that this kind of building
originated with the successors of Alexander, and that it was probably their
Divan, the place where they administered justice. He sees
(p. 154) as differences between the Greek basilicas (such as those at
Thoricus and Paestum) and the Roman ones, (1) the Greek basilicas were not
closed with side walls, the Romans were,--which is, however, a very disputed
point (see below); (2) the Greek had not a place for the tribunal which
appears in all Roman basilicas.
The first edifice of this description was not erected until B.C. 184 (
Liv. 39.44,
7); for it
is expressly stated by the historian, that there were no basilicas at the
time of the fire which destroyed so many buildings in the Forum, during the
consulate of Marcellus and Laevinus, B.C. 210. (
Liv.
26.27,
3.) It was situated in the
forum adjoining the Curia, and was denominated Basilica Porcia, in
commemoration of its founder, M. Porcius Cato. This basilica was destroyed
by the fire at Clodius' funeral, 52 B.C. (Ascon.
Arg. ad Cic.
pro Mil. § 8.) Besides this, there were twenty
others, erected at different periods, within the city of Rome (Pitisc.
Lex. Ant., s. v.
Basilica),
of which the following are the most frequently alluded to by the ancient
authors :--1.
Basilica Sempronia, constructed
by Titus Sempronius, B.C. 171 (
Liv. 44.16); and
supposed, by Donati and Nardini, to have been between the Vicus Tuscus and
the Velabrum. 2.
Basilica Opimia, which was
above the Comitium, built 155 B.C. (Varro,
L. L. 5.156;
Cic. Sest. 67,
140.) 3.
Basilica Pauli Aemilii, or
Basilica Aemilia, called also
Regia Pauli by Statius (
l.c.). Cicero (
Cic. Att. 4.16,
14) mentions two basilicas of this name, of
which one was built, and the other only restored, by Paulus Aemilius. The
original basilica called
Aemilia et Fulvia
(Varro,
L. L. 6.4) had been built in 179 B.C. by the censors
M. Fulvius and M. Aemilius Lepidus. It stood behind the bankers' offices on
the north-east side of the Forum (
Liv. 40.51,
4). Both these edifices were in the Forum,
and one was celebrated for its open peristyle of Phrygian columns. A
representation of this one is given below from a coin of the Aemilia gens.
(
D. C. 49.42;
Plin. Nat. 36.102; Appian,
App. BC
2.26;
Plut. Caes. 29.) The position
of these two basilicas has given rise to much controversy, a brief account
of which is given in the
Dict. of Biog. vol. ii. p. 766. 4.
Basilica Pompeii, called also
regia (
Suet. Aug.
31), near the theatre of Pompey. 5.
Basilica
Julia, erected by Julius Caesar, in the Forum, and opposite to
the Basilica Aemilia. (Suet.
Calig. 37.) The
Basilica Julia was begun and almost finished by
Julius Caesar, afterwards completed by Augustus; shortly after, however, it
was burnt down, was restored by Augustus on a larger scale, and then bore
the title of his two sons, Caius and Lucius (
Mon. Ancyr.
4.12, and Mommsen, p. 85). “It was a large double
porticus with two tiers of columns one over the
[p. 1.288]other: open on three sides, and having a range
of rooms two or three stories high on the southwest side. . . . The
large central space appears to have been without a roof, as the space is
too great to admit of one” (J. H. Middleton,
Ancient Rome
in 1885, pp. 171-2, where see particulars as to the materials it
was built of). We learn from Quintilian (12.5, 6) that all four companies of
the
centumviri sometimes met at once in the
Basilica Julia. 6. The
Basilica Flavia is the
best preserved example of that special form of classical basilica which is
supposed to have been the model of the Christian churches. It is
rectangular, ending in a semicircular apse. It has a nave and two narrow
aisles formed by five Corinthian columns decorated with metal ornaments;
over these columns an entablature and upper gallery. The gallery was
approached by steps starting from the colonnade. The apse was screened off
from the nave by
cancelli, as was the chancel
in the Christian churches. The emperor's judgment-seat was in the apse
(Middleton,
op. cit. p. 121). 7.
Basilica Ulpia, or
Trajani, in the forum of
Trajan. 8.
Basilica Constantini, also called
the Basilica of Maxentius, as it was begun by him, erected by the Emperor
Constantine, supposed to be the ruin now remaining on the Via Sacra, near
the
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Basilica Ulpia. (From medal in British Museum.)
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temple of Rome and Venus, and commonly called the Temple of Peace.
Of all these magnificent edifices nothing now remains beyond the ground-plan
of the
Basilica Julia, and the ground-plan,
with the bases and some portion of the columns and superstructure, of the
others. The basilica at Pompeii is in better preservation; the external
walls, ranges of columns, and tribunal of the judges being still tolerably
perfect on the ground-floor.
The forum, or, where there was more than one, the one which was in the most
frequented and central part of the city, was always selected for the site of
a basilica; and hence it is that the classic writers not unfrequently use
the terms
forum and
basilica synonymously, as in the passage of Claudian (
de
Sexto Cons. Honor. 645): “Desuetaque cingit Regius auratis
fora fascibus Ulpia lictor,” where the forum is not meant, but
the basilica which was in it, and which was surrounded by the lictors who
stood
in the forum. (Pitisc.
Lex.
Ant. l.c.; Nard.
Rom. Ant. 5.9.)
Vitruvius (
5.1) directs that the most sheltered
part of the forum should be selected for the site of a basilica, in order
that during winter the business men may resort thither without suffering
from the inclemency of the weather. It is hard to decide whether the
basilicas were closed or not. For the latter view it is urged that we hear
of people passing through a basilica (
Plin. Ep.
2.14,
8), that there is no trace
of front walls whatsoever in the Basilica Ulpia, that the passage of
Vitruvius quoted above points to an open building, and that the Basilica
Aemilia, if we can trust the annexed representation (Cohen,
Monnaies
de la République romaine, pl. 1,
gens Aemilia, No. 8), was open. On the other hand, we hear
of parietes in the basilica at Fanum (
Vitr. 6.1,
6; cf. Quint.
10.5, 18; Henzen, 6591), a very strong argument. Most probably it was a
development on the early open form when the porticoes came to be bounded on
the open side by a wall,
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Basilica Aemilia. (From. medal in British Museum.)
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the central space enclosed by the three porticoes being left open;
and it thus formed a transition step between the open colonnade and the
completely roofed--in building.
The ground-plan of all these buildings is rectangular, and their width not
more than half nor less than one-third of the length (Vitruv.
l.c.); but if the area on which the edifice was to
be raised was not proportionally long, small chambers (
chalcidica) were cut off from one of the ends (Vitruv.
l.c.), which serve as offices for the judges or
merchants. This area was divided into three parts, consisting of a central
nave (
media porticus) and two side aisles, each
separated from the centre by a single row of columns--a mode of construction
particularly adapted to buildings intended for the reception of a large
concourse of people. At one end of the centre aisle was the tribunal of the
judge, in form either rectangular or circular, and sometimes cut off from
the length of the grand nave (as is seen in the annexed plan of the basilica
at Pompeii, which also affords an example of the chambers of the judices, or
chalcidica, abovementioned), or otherwise thrown out from the hinder wall of
the building, like the tribune of some of the most ancient churches in Rome,
and then called the hemicycle. But the Basilica Ulpia and that of
Constantine deserve a special notice, as the former is the finest specimen
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Plan of Basilica at Pompeii. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. (From
Fergusson.)
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of the basilica with wooden roof, and the latter of the vaulted
class; besides, they are widely different as to their style of structure,
and so are important in the development of Roman architecture.
The
Basilica Ulpia was a rectangle about 370
feet long by 180 broad. It has a nave 87 feet wide, and four aisles, each 23
feet 4 inches wide, divided by four rows of columns, each column being 35
feet high. Above the side aisles was a gallery, the roof of which was
[p. 1.289]supported by an upper row of columns, and from
these columns sprang the arches of the nave. This roof, 120 feet high, was
of wood, and was richly adorned with gilt plates. At one end, not at both,
was a semicircular apse, the back part raised and approached by steps: in
the centre of this platform was the raised seat of the presiding magistrate,
and on the steps were places for the judges or others engaged in the special
business in hand (cf.
Plin. Ep. 6.33). On
the north-west side of the basilica were two large libraries, one for Greek
and the other for Latin MSS. It must be observed that in the fragment of the
Capitoline plan on which a part of the ground-plan of this basilica is
represented, the apse is marked LIBERTATIS. So we
have seen in. the basilica at Fanum a temple of Augustus was attached to the
basilica, and was used as a court of justice. For further details see
Middleton,
op. cit. 270-271, and his plan, p. 272;
also Viollet le Due,
op. cit. 1.154, who finds (p.
155) the key
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Plan of Trajan's Basilica at Rome. Scale, 100 ft. to 1 in. The
part shaded darker is all that is uncovered. (From
Fergusson.)
|
to such buildings in those Persian palaces, all of which exhibit
in one of the sides of the courts, surrounded by porticoes, a hemicycle of
large relative dimension covered by a vault in the form of a quarter sphere.
For a ground-plan of the Basilica Ulpia see the preceding cut, taken from
Fergusson (
Hist. of Architecture, 1874, fig. 198).
The
Basilica of Constantine (or of Maxentius, for it was he
who commenced it), commonly called the Temple of Peace, was 195 feet broad
by 270 feet long. The centre aisle was 83 feet wide, and the height 120
feet. “In this building,” says Mr. Fergusson (
op. cit. 1.318-20), “no pillars were used,
with the exception of eight great columns in front of the piers,
employed merely as ornaments or as vaulting shafts were in Gothic
cathedrals, to support in appearance, though not in construction, the
springing of the vaults. The side aisles were roofed with three great
arches, each 72 feet in span, and the centre by an immense intersecting
vault in three
[p. 1.290]compartments. The form will be
understood from the annexed sections, one taken longitudinally, the
other across the building. As will be seen from them all, the thrusts
are
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Plan of Basilica of Maxentius. Scale, 100 ft. to 1 in. (From
Fergusson.)
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collected to a point, and a buttress placed there to receive
them; indeed almost all the peculiarties afterwards found in Gothic
vaults are here employed on a far grander and more
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Longitudinal Section of Basilica of Maxentius. Scale, 100 ft.
to 1 in. (From Fergusson.)
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gigantic scale than the Gothic architects ever
attempted.”
The transition between these two styles of buildings may be seen in the
Praetorium at
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Transverse Section of Basilica of Maxentius. Scale, 100 ft. to 1
in. (From Fergusson.)
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Mousmieh (De Vogüé,
Syrie
Centrale, Pl. 7), built about 165 A.D. The aisles are arched
longitudinally, the nave arched transversely. The arches of the nave and
aisles are coupled
[p. 1.291]and supported by Corinthian
columns, four on each side. The basilica at Chaqqa (Pl. 16), which De
Vogüé considers the most complete type of the ancient
basilica, has the aisles arched longitudinally and transversely, the
different thrusts meeting in a buttress, which is very strong. The basilica
at Tafkha, which is practically similar to the foregoing, is a Christian
building of the 5th cent. at latest, and in it we can trace, says De
Vogüé (p. 57), the transition from the Christian
basilica to the Christian church. Another good example of the transitional
style is the basilica of Soueideh (Pl. 19).
The next important basilica at Rome which was built after that of Constantine
(or Maxentius) was Constantine's St. Peter's. But it was a Christian church;
and for an account of this and subsequent basilican churches the reader is
referred to Smith's
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, art.
Church.
As to the provincial basilicas of the Romans, few remain, as most were
converted into churches, and afterwards modified; but that of
Trèves survives. As the annexed cut shows, it was a little more
than twice as long as broad (85 feet broad). The walls were 100 feet high,
with two rows of windows; but whether there was a gallery between them is
not certain. The semicircular apse was 60 feet in diameter, and raised above
the level of the rest of the floor of the building (Fergusson,
op. cit. 1.321). The basilica at Pompeii is
elaborately discussed by Overbeck (
Pompeii, pp.
121-127). It was built about 93 B.C. It most probably had a gallery, and was
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Plan of the Basilica at Trèves. Scale, 100 ft. to 1 in.
(From Fergusson.)
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almost certainly not roofed in the centre. It is highly noticeable
that the place for the tribunal is rectangular, and not a semi-circular
apse. The basilica at Fanum, built and described by Vitruvius (
5.1,
6-
10), is fully treated of, with beautiful
illustrations, by M. Viollet le Duc (
op. cit. 1.150
foll.); and the basilica of Otricoli is slightly touched on by Guhl and
Koner (fig. 426, ed. 4, 1876), who give a plan of it from Hirt
(
Geschichte der Baukunst, Taf. 11, fig. 12).
The coin of Lepidus, figured p. 288, gives indications of a sloping external
roof. The more magnificent basilicas, at any rate, were decorated both in
the interior and the exterior with statues and other works of art, and
marbles and precious materials. (
Gel. 13.24,
1 ;
Plin. Nat.
35.13;
Cic. Att. 4.1. 6,
14;
Tac. Ann.
3.72; Donaldson,
Archit. Numism. 66, p. 152.)
Basilicas did not always agree with Vitruvius' ideal; his own structure at
Fanum, which he describes (5.1, 6-10), shows some variations from it. Again,
the nave of the
Basilica Julia was surrounded
on all sides by a double arcaded corridor, and the arcades were supported by
solid piers of masonry with pilasters; the basilicas of Praeneste and
Aquinum show only a single nave. The basilica of Constantine presents great
peculiarities, both in its extremely
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Ground-plan of the Basilica of Constantine.
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ponderous vaulted roof, of which a considerable portion is still
standing, and in its general plan, which, as may be seen from the
accompanying woodcut, consists of a nave and two aisles, all three being
divided into three bays; besides, the apse at the head of the nave is a
lateral one, which has been supposed, like the openings opposite to it, to
date from the time when the basilica was applied to Christian uses.
The name of
basilica was in course of time
applied to other public halls of all sorts, such as those attached to
temples, theatres, or baths (
Plin. Ep.
10.33,
3; Orelli, 3696; Henzen,
1626); also to halls of audience in palaces and villas, like that of which
ruins exist on the Palatine and the three in the villa of the Gordiani on
the
via Praenestina, which were each 100 ft.
long (Capit.
Gord. 32, 3); and, lastly, to any large covered
building, even to a riding school (
basilica equestris exercitatoria:
Bulletin de l'Académie des Inscriptions, 1869, p.
280). There are still existing some remains of the private basilica of
Domitian which Plutarch (
Poplic. 15) mentions as being so
splendid; from these remains we can gather that it was a rectangular
building with a semicircular apse at one of its extremities, very similar in
shape to the basilica at Trèves, but of smaller dimensions.
The internal tribune was probably the original construction, when the
basilica was simply used as a court of justice; but when those spacious
halls were erected for the convenience of traders as well as loungers, then
the semicircular and external tribune was adopted, in order that the noise
and confusion in the basilica might not interrupt the proceedings of the
magistrates. (Vitruv.
l.c.) In the centre of this
tribune was placed the curule chair of the praetor and seats for the
judices, who sometimes amounted to the number of 180 (
Plin. Ep. 6.33,
3), and the advocates;
[p. 1.292]and round the sides
of the hemicycle, called the wings (
cornua),
were seats for persons of distinction, and for the parties engaged in the
proceedings. It, was in the wing of the tribune that Tiberius sat to overawe
the judgment at the trial of Granius Marcellus. (Tacit.
Ann.
i, 75.) The two side aisles, as has been said, were separated from the
centre one by a row of columns, behind each of which was placed a square
pier or pilaster (
parastata, Vitruv.
l.c.), which supported the flooring of an upper
portico, similar to the gallery of a modern church. The upper gallery was in
like manner decorated with columns of smaller dimensions than those below;
and these served to support the roof, and were connected with one another by
a parapet-wall or balustrade (
pluteus, Vitruv.
l.c.), which served as a defence against the
danger of falling over, and screened the crowd of loiterers above (
subbasilicani, Plaut.
Capt. 4.2, 35)
from the people of business in the area below. (Vitruv.
l.c.) This gallery reached entirely round the inside of the
building, and was frequented by women as well as men, the women on one side
and the men on the other, who went to hear and see what was going on. (Plin.
l.c.) The staircase which led to the upper
portico can be recognised in the Flavian basilica (Middleton,
op. cit. p. 121); it is similarly situated in the
basilica of Constantine: but what is supposed to be the staircase in the
Pompeian basilica is really not so (Overbeck,
op.
cit. 124). The whole area of these magnificent structures was covered
in with three separate ceilings, of the kind called
testudinatum, like a tortoise-shell; in technical language
now denominated
coved, an expression used to
distinguish a ceiling which has the general appearance of a vault, the
central part of which is, however, flat, while the margins incline by a
cylindrical shell from each of the four sides of the central square to the
side walls; in which form the ancients imagined a resemblance to the shell
of a tortoise.
From the description which has been given, it will be evident how much these
edifices were adapted in their general form and construction to the uses of
a Christian church; to which purpose many of them were, in fact, converted
in the time of Constantine. Hence the later writers of the Empire apply the
term
basilica to all churches built after the
model just described; and such were the earliest edifices dedicated to
Christian worship, which, with their original designation, continue to this
day, being still called at Rome
basiliche. It is
generally supposed that the origin of the Christian church is the Roman
basilica. But the earliest type of the Christian church was a courtyard with
a house for prayer at the end. Such virtually are some of the earliest
Christian basilicas, as San Clemente and Constantine's St. Peter's. In fact
it is rather the Roman
house than the Roman forensic
basilica that is the original type of the church. See this view advocated in
an interesting article by M. Salomon Reinach in the
Bulletin de
Correspondance hellénique, Avril, 1886, pp. 334-5,
and compare also J. P. Richter,
Der Ursprung der
abendländischen Kirchengebäude, 1878, who
appears to find the original of the meeting-places in the
oeci of the private houses. In a highly-important work,
From Schola to Cathedral, 1886, by Prof. Baldwin Brown,
of the University of Edinburgh, it is urged that the early Christian church
was a schola enlarged, not a basilica simplified. The true germ, he says
(pp. 196-7, cf. p. 129), of the Christian church was an oblong interior
terminated by an apse. The Pagan basilica had not essentially the apse (pp.
123 foll.), though it is found in the basilica of Maxentius, and, as we saw,
in others also. Prof. Kraus of Freiburg (in the
Realencyklopädie der christlichen
Alterthümer) shows that the forensic basilica had no one
determinate shape,--it had sometimes an apse and sometimes not; but the
Christian basilica, keeping to the form of the crypt, had always an apse,
and was always entered from the side opposite the apse. It has been by some
supposed that the basilicas in private houses (cf.
Vitr.
6.8,
2) which had a semicircular
tribunal were the originals of the churches, but they cannot have been
sufficiently numerous, as Professor Brown points out (p. 127), to have
influenced the form of the churches. See too his discussion in Appendix,
Note 1, “The Pagan Basilica and the Christian Church,” directed
against Dr. Konrad Lange, of Halle (
Haus und Halle, 1885),
who upholds the old theory of the acquisition of Pagan basilicas by the
Christians in the age of Constantine.
A Christian basilica consisted of four principal parts:--1.
Πρόναος, the vestibule of entrance. 2.
Ναῦς, and sometimes
gremium, the nave or centre aisle, which was divided from the two
side ones by a row of columns on each of its sides. Here the people
assembled for the purposes of worship. 3.
Ἄμβων (from
ἀναβαίνειν, to
ascend),
chorus (the choir), and
suggestum, a part of the lower extremity of the nave
raised above the general level of the floor by a flight of steps. 4.
Ἱερατεῖον, ἱερὸν βῆμα,
sanctuarium, which answered to the tribune of
the ancient basilica. In the centre of this sanctuary was placed the high
altar, under a tabernacle or canopy, such as still remains in the basilica
of St. John Lateran, at Rome, at which the priest officiated with his face
turned towards the people. Around this altar, and in the wings of the
sanctuarium, were seats for the assistant clergy, with an elevated chair for
the bishop at the bottom of the circle in the centre. (See, besides the
books cited in the text,
Theatr. Basil. Pisan. cura Joseph.
Marl. Canon. iii. p. 8; Ciamp.
Vet. Men. i. ii.
et De
Sacr. Ed. ; Stieglitz,
Archäol. d.
Baukunst, vol. iii. pp. 19, &c.; Hirt,
Lehre d.
Gebäude, pp. 180, &c.; Bunsen,
Die
Basiliken des christlichen Roms, Munich, 1844; Zestermann,
Antike und christl. Basiliken, Leipzig, 1847;
Weingärtner,
Ursprung und Entwickelung des christlichen
Kirchengebäudes, Leipzig, 1858; Guhl and Koner,
Das Leben der Griechen und Römer, ed. 4, pp.
508-514, Berlin, 1876; H. Jordan,
Forma urbis
Romae, iv., Berlin, 1874.)
[
J.H.F] [
L.C.P]
