The Osceola times., 1882-07-15
THE ROMAN FORUM.
Progress Of tho Excavations-Laying Bare
the Interesting Place.

the Interesting Place.
Boston Advertiser Rome Letter.
The forum excavations are attracting
naturally a great deal OF attention. In a
few months there will be no mysterious
mounds of earth TO provoke the specula
tions of the learned tourist. The whole
space is to be uncovered from the Basili
ca Julia TO the Arch of Titus. Bacelli,
Minister of Public instruction, spushing
the work on, not with the quiet delibera-
ton of an archaologist, but with the fe-
verish impatience of public Official who
knows that his hold on his position and
power is very frail and who wishes to
give to his term of Office the stamp of a
great public work. The Pantheon exca
vations were finished and opened to the
crowd on the birthday of Rome-the 2lst
of April. clapbered up the little mar
row wooden staircase that leads from the
subterraneans to the remains OF the rooms
at the summit in company with true
Roman crowd that made the frail stair
way tremble-soldiers. boys, learned
looking priests. men and women of the
lower and middle classes, mothers with
Young babes in their arms and string
of little ones hanging onto their p> tticoats
all gazing and peering about cunously
al the almost incomprehenslb ten great
counterfort walls; the remains Of rooms
betwe these huge walls; at the gigantic
bit of marble cornice that has been lifted
up to the height of the ancient frieze
There are nipe of these cornice blocks
that measure united twenty meters,
beautifully sculptured in acanthu-leaves,
shells. tridents and dolphins. They are
to be lifted up to their original places
then we will be able to form some idea
of that supposed salone. which was forty
meters long, twenty wide, with great
niche; that niche we see now; in it stood
probably the bronze Apoxyomenos or
Man with Strygil, so dear to the ancient
Romans. a copy of which in marble is at
the head of the Braccio Nuovo Vatican.
This grand salone, it is conjecturec, was
used for gymnsstic exercises and also as
a gallery on rainy days for the bathers.
There are vestiges of its great walls in
the subterraneans of the Ecclesiastical
Academy Palace opposite that end OF the
Pantheon.
In my next letter l hope to tell You
something more definite about the fas
cinating Roman Forum. The discoveries
of February-April, 1882, are already most
interesting:
|. Fragments of the famous Fornix
Fabianus have been found, the Arch OF
Triumph that was the entrance to the
forum from the Arch of Titus end. G.
Fabius Maximus, to whom it was erected,
conquered Savoy "a far as Geneva.
9. The porticus Margaritaria has been
discovered where the shops OF gems and
Jewels were, the Margaritaria Of the Sacra
Via.
3. The Regia has also been found, the
official residence of the Pontifex Max
linus.
4. A fragment of the stone plan OF
Rome has been found. This plan was
cut in marble in the year 2ll, A. ID. The
piece found gives the Topography of the
space comprised between the temple OF
Castor and Pollux and the northeast angle
of the Palatine.
5. A magnificent door has been dis
covered, with beautiful inscription o.
the Augustan epoch. The inscription
says that door was made by the Senate
and the Roman people, with the public
money.
These items give you some idea of the
value of these excavations. Ispend many
hours in that enchanting spot watching
the workmen, hoping TO be present al
some great discovery; then, when grow
tired of pick axe and spade and the slow
digging out of the sluggish earth, gC
over to the Basilica Of Peace, sit down
under its vast arches, read in Ovid, Pliny
or Horace, and try to recreate this fa
nous forum in the middle Of all the con
fusion caused by medieval constructions
and ruthless destruction of past ages.