Pompeii - Basilica

Basilica looking towards tribunal

Pompeii! I have wanted to go to Pompeii since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I finally got my chance on a rather wet, foggy day in December.

The Basilica in Pompeii was built sometime in the late second early first century BC. From what I have read it started out as a covered market and it was only in the Imperial era (probably under Augustus) that itbecame the city’s law court.

I don’t know whether the center aisle was actually covered or not. There don’t appear to be any windows, but then again not much of the upper wall has remained either. This was really our first stop in Pompeii after the Porta Marina, and the first to really give a glimpse of the really magnificent architecture that existed here before the eruption.

The building is divided into three aisles with the center one being the widest. The columns framing this center aisle were monumental in scale, as were their stumpy ruins. Though like most things in Pompeii they were made out of brick covered with stucco then painted to resemble marble. The truncated columns remaining show that each layer of brickwork was made up of many different brick shapes (diamonds, squares, concave, convex) fitted together to form the fluted columns. Tried to count them all and then realized that each layer also had different sizes as they got taller.

Basilica looking towards forum (the white columns)

The tribunal on the western end of the basilica is a two story affair where the magistrates would mete out justice (or lack of justice). The tribunal was added in the first century AD and the Corinthian columns have a delicate grace that is lacking in the engaged ionic columns on the walls of the structure. Must have been an impressive sight though, especially if you were quaking in your boots waiting to be sentenced, or just told whether you had won your lawsuit.

Directly in front of the tribunal is a rectangular plinth of ruble and brick that still has a few pieces of the marble covering attached. Most of the reconstructions I have seen show this topped off with an equestrian statue of Augustus. Most likely, though it really could have been any one of the Caesars by AD 79.

Up close and personal with the tribunal