Basilica Julia - History and Use

History and Use

The building burned shortly after its completion, but was repaired and rededicated in 12 AD. The Basilica was again reconstructed by the Emperor Diocletian after the fire of 283 AD.

The Basilica housed the civil law courts and tabernae (shops), and provided space for government offices and banking. In the 1st century, it also was used for sessions of the Centumviri (Court of the Hundred), who presided over matters of inheritance. In his Epistles, Pliny the Younger describes the scene as he pleaded for a woman whose 80-year-old husband had disinherited her within days of taking a new wife.

It was the favorite meeting place of the Roman people. This basilica houses public meeting places and shops, but it is used mainly as a law court. On the pavement of the portico, there are diagrams of games scratched into the white marble. One stone, on the upper tier of the side facing the Curia, is marked with an eight by eight square grid on which games similar to chess or checkers could have been played.

The building consists now only of a rectangular area, levelled off and raised about one metre above ground level, with jumbled blocks of stone lying within its area. A row of marble steps runs full length along the side of the basilica facing the Via Sacra, and there is also access from a taller flight of steps (the ground being lower here) at the end of the basilica facing the Temple of Castor and Pollux.