DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61617#0161
I 20
POMPEII
the right leads into a narrow room containing a similar platform
opening on the colonnade of the Forum (2), and to all appear-
ances once accessible from it by steps; afterwards both the
steps and the tribune were walled up.
The purpose of these tribunes, and of the building as a whole,
is far from clear. An analogy, however, suggests itself. On
one side of the Roman Forum near the upper end was a small
rectangular open space called the Comitium, used in early
times as a voting place. Between the Forum and the Comitium
was originally a speaker’s platform, the Rostra, so placed that
orators by turning toward one side could address an audience
in the Comitium and facing about could harangue the Forum.
Though the later changes have obscured the original form of
our building, yet it is plain that at one time there must have
been two connected tribunes, one facing the Forum, the other
the enclosed open space ; we may at least hazard the conjecture
that the colonists of Sulla, taking the arrangements of the
Capitol as their pattern in all things, designed this place as
their Comitium.
The enclosure was too small to admit of its use for voting
according to the ancient fashion, but general elections in the
Comitium had long been a thing of the past; only the unim-
portant curiate elections were held there, at which each curia
was represented by a lictor, and at other times the place was
used for judicial proceedings. So our building was probably
used, if not for elections, for formalities preliminary to the
elections and for business connected with the courts.
POMPEII
the right leads into a narrow room containing a similar platform
opening on the colonnade of the Forum (2), and to all appear-
ances once accessible from it by steps; afterwards both the
steps and the tribune were walled up.
The purpose of these tribunes, and of the building as a whole,
is far from clear. An analogy, however, suggests itself. On
one side of the Roman Forum near the upper end was a small
rectangular open space called the Comitium, used in early
times as a voting place. Between the Forum and the Comitium
was originally a speaker’s platform, the Rostra, so placed that
orators by turning toward one side could address an audience
in the Comitium and facing about could harangue the Forum.
Though the later changes have obscured the original form of
our building, yet it is plain that at one time there must have
been two connected tribunes, one facing the Forum, the other
the enclosed open space ; we may at least hazard the conjecture
that the colonists of Sulla, taking the arrangements of the
Capitol as their pattern in all things, designed this place as
their Comitium.
The enclosure was too small to admit of its use for voting
according to the ancient fashion, but general elections in the
Comitium had long been a thing of the past; only the unim-
portant curiate elections were held there, at which each curia
was represented by a lictor, and at other times the place was
used for judicial proceedings. So our building was probably
used, if not for elections, for formalities preliminary to the
elections and for business connected with the courts.