The, let's begin in fact with the forum because the
forum was begun itself during the time of the Samnites.
You'll see from your monument list, that I've given you a date of
the second half of the second century BC for the forum at Pompeii.
And, again, that indicates to us, because of the chronology of the city,
of the history of the city, that it was begun in samonite times.
You see here
on the screen a, an excellent plan of the forum as it was and as it grew over time.
As buildings were added over time.
This plan is from the text, one of your textbooks from Ward
Perkins, and I think it it, it, it deserves you know, careful study.
we're, let's describe it together today.
We see that the central part of the forum, which was again,
the, essentially the main meeting and marketplace of the forum is a, very
elongated rectangle with the temple, a
Capitolium, a Temple to Jupiter, located
on one of the short ends and you should be immediately, your minds eye
should go immediately to the sanctuary designs that we saw last time.
Think for example of the
sanctuary of Hercules Victor at Tivoli.
Where we saw that the temple was pushed up against
one of the back walls, in that case the long wall.
And dominated the space in front of it.
We see the same kind of scheme here, where we see this rectangular space
with the temple pushed up, in this case on one of the short walls.
Pushed up against the back wall and then dominating the space in front of it.
The forum itself is surrounded by columns, a colonnade, as you can see here.
And and it is open to the sky.
Open to the sky.
Then deployed around it all the other important
buildings that needed to be in a forum.
The curia or senate house over here. The basilica or law court over here.
Another temple, in this case the Temple
of Apollo.
And then the series of buildings that were added later on the right side.
A wonderful building of a woman that we're
not going to be talking about this semester called Eumachia.
Who, and it gives you some sense that women could wield power.
It wasn't easy.
They couldn't vote. They couldn't hold public office.
But they could sometimes wield power, and this particular woman did.
In Pompeii, a very large building that was for her and for her trade guild.
A lararium or a place, a shrine, a market, or marcellum.
Up there.
Some of these added later. But the ones that are particularly
critical to our understand of the Samnite city are the Capitolium and are the
basilica, which both date to the second century B.C. Here is a view of,
oh I am sorry I did want to say something about the Google Earth image on the on
the left.
This is a Google Earth, Earth image which I tried to take in such a
way that one could, can see it almost
exactly the same vantage point as the plan.
And you can see everything here that I've already pointed out.
The open rectangular space, the colonnade.
The temple pushed up against the back wall, the Temple of Jupiter.
The basilica, over here.
The Temple of Apollo, Eumachia's building here.
The senate house
over here, and so on. And, this again, underscores the value of
Google Earth as one can, can look down on these buildings and compare
what one sees to the master plan. This is a view of the colonnade.
It's a two story colonnade at the Forum of Pompeii.
And you can see the same thing that we saw
happening in the Theater of Marcellus in Rome, That the columns
they have used have looked at the Greek the Greek orders.
Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.
And they have selected here to use the Doric for
the first story and the Ionic for the second story.
This colonnade does not date to the Samnite period.
We believe that it was put up later. But it it's made out of white limestone.
