DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55699#0230
184
THE LANDSCAPE ANNUAL.
the site of many of the celebrated buildings with which
it is known to have been filled. Besides the temples,
columns, and arches which once rose proudly from its
surface, it contained porticos and shops, thus forming a
sort of market-place for the people. That, in the time
of the decemvirs, a portion of the Forum was occupied
with shops, we learn from the graphic pages of Livy.
We are told that Virginius “ seducit filiam ac nutricem
prope Cloacinee ad tabernas, quibus nunc Novis est no-
men, atque ibi ab lanio, cultro arrepto, Hoc te uno, quo
possum, ait, mo do filia in libertatem vindico."
In traversing the Forum, the stranger looks in vain for
some traces of the gulf of Curtius ■, though, as it is said
to have closed upon the hero, it is scarcely to be expected
that we should find it still yawning. That some par-
ticular spot in the Forum retained the name of the Lake
of Curtius appears from the account given by Tacitus of
the death of Galba, who is said to have perished there.
Mr. Forsyth was so fortunate as to have all doubts as to
the locality of the Lake of Curtius cleared away by his
valet de place. “ On my first visit to the Campo Vac-
cino, I asked my valet de place where the Lake of
Curtius was supposed to have been. ‘Behold it!’ he
cried, striking with his cane an immense granite basin,
called here a Iago. ‘ Was this, then, the middle of the
Forum ?’ ‘ Certainly.’ ‘ Does the Cloaca Maxima run
beneath ?’ ‘ Certainly.’ ‘ And was this really the
Iago where the ancients threw the money?’ ‘ Cer-
tainly.’ Thus was the lacus of some ancient fountain
(probably one of those which M. Agrippa had distri-
buted through the streets) transformed by a cicerone’s
THE LANDSCAPE ANNUAL.
the site of many of the celebrated buildings with which
it is known to have been filled. Besides the temples,
columns, and arches which once rose proudly from its
surface, it contained porticos and shops, thus forming a
sort of market-place for the people. That, in the time
of the decemvirs, a portion of the Forum was occupied
with shops, we learn from the graphic pages of Livy.
We are told that Virginius “ seducit filiam ac nutricem
prope Cloacinee ad tabernas, quibus nunc Novis est no-
men, atque ibi ab lanio, cultro arrepto, Hoc te uno, quo
possum, ait, mo do filia in libertatem vindico."
In traversing the Forum, the stranger looks in vain for
some traces of the gulf of Curtius ■, though, as it is said
to have closed upon the hero, it is scarcely to be expected
that we should find it still yawning. That some par-
ticular spot in the Forum retained the name of the Lake
of Curtius appears from the account given by Tacitus of
the death of Galba, who is said to have perished there.
Mr. Forsyth was so fortunate as to have all doubts as to
the locality of the Lake of Curtius cleared away by his
valet de place. “ On my first visit to the Campo Vac-
cino, I asked my valet de place where the Lake of
Curtius was supposed to have been. ‘Behold it!’ he
cried, striking with his cane an immense granite basin,
called here a Iago. ‘ Was this, then, the middle of the
Forum ?’ ‘ Certainly.’ ‘ Does the Cloaca Maxima run
beneath ?’ ‘ Certainly.’ ‘ And was this really the
Iago where the ancients threw the money?’ ‘ Cer-
tainly.’ Thus was the lacus of some ancient fountain
(probably one of those which M. Agrippa had distri-
buted through the streets) transformed by a cicerone’s