CHAP. Janus, a street. terrace having cancelli and two images upon it, with the letters CLOACIN. These are probably the signa mentioned by Pliny. 660 Between the Basilica Aemilia and the Tabernae Novae was a street leading from the Regia and the arch of Augustus to the Curia. This road was known in the time of the decadence by a Tria Fata. name derived from the Three Sibyls or Fates, whose statues stood upon the edge of it. In earlier days it appears to have been called Janus. Before the end of the Republic this part of the Forum had become the special resort of the money-dealers, who probably found shelter in the Basilica Paulli.1 Hence Janus (in the sense of a street) or the middle of Janus, Ianus medius, appears in the writings of Cicero and Horace as the Bourse or Exchange of Rome. Cicero, upon the subject of the getting and investment of money, refers his readers to the worthy persons who sit at the middle of Janus; and in one of his Philippics, alluding to a statue of L. Antonius, upon which he was described as patron of the Mid Janus, he asks derisively, whether in all that Janus a single man could be found who would lend Antonius a thousand sesterces.2 Horace Ianus medius. 660 See before, p. 79. 1 Quia omnes ad Ianum in basilica stabant feneratores. Porph. ad Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 18. 2 Sed toto hoc de genere, de quaerenda, de collocanda pecunia, etiam de utenda, commodius a quibusdam optimis viris ad medium VI. also speaks of the lessons as to the value of CHAP. money which were to be learnt in Janus from top to bottom. O cives, cives, quaerenda pecunia primum est, Virtus post nummos. Haec Ianus summus ab imo And Damasippus, in one of Horace's satires, Postquam omnis res mea Ianum Ad medium fracta est, aliena negotia curo, summus, imus. One of the older commentators on Horace, Ianus, strangely misunderstanding his language, thought medius et that, in the passages just cited, the poet spoke of three statues of the god, a summus Ianus, a medius Ianus, and an imus Ianus, which other scholiasts concluded must have stood at the two ends, and in the middle of the Forum. Bentley 4 Ianum sedentibus, quam ab ullis philosophis ulla in schola disputatur. Cic. Off. ii. 25. L. Antonio Iani Medio Patrono. Itane, Ianus medius in L. Antonii clientela sit? Quis unquam in illo Iano inventus est, qui L. Antonio mille nummum ferret expensum? Cic. Phil. vi. 5. 663 Hor. Ep. i. 1, 52; Sat. ii. 3, 8. 4 Duo lani ante basilicam Pauli steterunt, ubi locus erat feneratorum. Ianus dicebatur locus in quo solebant convenire feneratores. Acro ad Hor. Ep. i. 1, 52. Ad Ianos eos, qui sunt in regione basilicae Pauli, feneratores consistunt. . . Unus enim illic Ianus in summo, alius in imo est, quos hic inducit monere. Porphyrio ad Hor. ib. Duo Iani ante basilicam Pauli steterunt, ubi locus erat feneratorum. Ianus autem hic platea dicitur, ubi mercatores et feneratores sortis causa convenire solebant. Schol. Cruq. ib. R VI. 664 CHAP. pointed out how groundless these interpretations were. But modern critics and antiquaries have refined upon the assumption of the scholiasts, and supposed that there were three iani or gateways, instead of three statues of the god. This supposition has no foundation whatever. Ovid's allusion to the multitude of iani," which, assuming the existence of three iani of the Forum, might seem to refer to them, is easily explained when we consider that every gateway in Rome was, in this sense of the word, a ianus. Becker, who has adopted the notion of three iani on the north side of the Forum, between the Arch of Severus and the Faustina temple, pictures them as capacious archways with chambers above, serving as shelter for the money dealers. He argues that Janus cannot have been the name of a street, because the site of Ianus medius was beyond all question sub Novis. This difficulty is founded on an inaccurate idea of the locality to which this Iani statuae tres erant; ad unam illarum solebant convenire creditores et feneratores, alii ad reddendum alii ad locandum fenus. Acro ad Hor. Sat. ii. 3, 18. Iani autem statuae tres erant ; una in ingressu fori, altera in medio, ubi erat eius templum prope basilicam Paulli, vel pro Rostris. Huc concurrebant et potissimum suas stationes habebant feneratores, alii ad reddendum fenus alii ad accipiendum. Tertia autem statua erat ad exitum fori. Schol. Cruq. ib. 664 Falluntur qui Ianos tres hinc sibi fingunt, summum, medium, imum; cum unus fuerit vicus Iani nomine insignitus . . . Ergo Ianus summus ab imo, est, totus, universus. Bentl. ad Hor. Ep. i. i. 54. 5 Ovid. Fast. i. 257. (Note 614.) • Becker, Handbuch, i. 326, note 600. latter name was applied. The Novae Tabernae stood, as we have seen, at a short distance in front of the Basilica Aemilia. The sunny side of the Tabernae was, as we know from Cicero, called sub Novis. The street running on the north of the Tabernae, between them and the basilica, was Janus. 667 See before, p. 55. CHAP. VI. CHAPTER VII. VII. THE ARGILETUM AND THE IMPERIAL FORA. CHAP. THE preceding chapter closes our study of the monuments included within the limits of the Roman Forum. In those that follow it is proposed to discuss with less detail the history of some of the localities most intimately associated with it. Argiletum. 668 The Argiletum has been already mentioned in connection with the Temple of Janus, which was situated at the end of it. In the poem of Virgil, Evander shows Aeneas the sacred grove of Argiletum, and tells him the story of the Argive stranger, whose death gave a name to the spot. Varro supplies two conjectures as to the etymology of the word, one connecting it with Argos and the burial of an Argive hero there, the other deriving it from the argillaceous soil. The latter derivation is also adopted by Servius.70 668 9 Necnon et sacri monstrat nemus Argileti, Testaturque locum, et letum docet hospitis Argi. Virg. Aen. viii. 345. Argiletum sunt qui scripserunt ab Argola, seu quod is huc vene rit ibique sit sepultus, alii ab argilla, quod ibi id genus terrae. Varro, L. L. v. 32 (44). TO Servius ad Aen, viii. 345. |