are always used in roads, from the cippus at the corner of the basilica
to keep off wagon wheels, from the fact that this piece of pavement is
in direct line from the central gate of the town, and last from the
inscription and its provenience, I conclude that we have in this
pavement a road leading directly from the Porta Triumphalis through the
forum, alongside the basilica, then turning back of it and continuing
round to the delubra and precinct of the temple of Fortuna Primigenia,
and that this road is the SACRA VIA of Praeneste.[141]

At the upper end of the forum under the south façade of the temple, an
excavation was made in April 1907,[142] which is of great interest and
importance in connection with the forum. In Plate V we see that there
are three steps of tufa,[143] and observe that the space in front of
them is not paved; also that the ascent to the right, which is the only
way out of the forum at this corner, is too steep to have been ever more
than for ascent on foot. But it is up this steep and narrow way[144]
that every one had to go to reach the terrace above the temple, unless
he went across to the west side of the city.

The steps just mentioned are not the beginning of an ascent to the
temple, for there were but three, and besides there was no entrance to
the temple on the south.[145] Nor was the earlier temple much lower than
the later one, for in either case the foundation was the rock surface of
the terrace and has not changed much. Although these steps are of an
older construction than the steps of the basilica, yet they were not
covered up in late imperial times as is shown by the brick construction
in the plate. One is tempted to believe that there was a Doric portico
below the engaged Corinthian columns of the south façade of the
temple.[146] But all the pieces of Doric columns found belong to the
portico of the basilica. Otherwise one might try to set up further