showed instead of a hemicycle, a straight wall built on remains of a
more ancient construction of rectangular blocks of tufa with three
layers of pavement 4-1/2 feet below the level of the ground, under which
was a tomb of brick construction, and lower still a wall of opus
quadratum of tufa, certainly none of the remains belonging to a curia.

[Illustration: PLATE IV. The Sacra Via, and its turn round the upper end
of the Basilica.]

FORUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3015.

The most ancient forum of Praeneste was inside the city walls. It was in
this forum that the statue of M. Anicius, the famous praetor, was set
up.[137] The writers hitherto, however, have been entirely mistaken, in
my opinion, as to the extent of the ancient forum. For the old forum was
not an open space which is now represented by the Piazza Savoia of the
modern town, as is generally accepted, but the ancient forum of
Praeneste was that piazza and the piazza Garibaldi and the space between
them, now built over with houses, all combined. At the present time one
goes down some steps in front of the cathedral, which was the basilica,
to the Piazza Garibaldi, and it has been supposed that this open space
belonged to a terrace below the Corso. But there was no lower terrace
there. The upper part of the forum simply has been more deeply buried in
debris than the lower part.

One needs only to see the new excavations at the upper end of the Piazza
Savoia to realize that the present ground level of the piazza is nearly
nine feet higher than the pavement of the old forum. The accompanying
illustration (plate IV) shows the pavement, which is limestone, not
lava, that comes up the slope along the east side of the basilica,[138]