§ 106. ARCHITECTUEAL 8TYXE. THE BASILICAS. 558
caudle buildings, of simple, but beautiful structure, In the form of a long rectangle, consisting of a main hall, oi main nave, two, often four, side naves,' which were separated bj colonnades from the central space, and were somewhat lower. Here the people assembled for business and amusement. At the end of the hall opposite the entrance, stood a semicircular, somewhat elevated niche (apsis, tribune), arched over wdth a jialf-dome, where were the seats of the judges and advocates, and where judicial business was transacted. Under the floor of the tribunal was sometimes a cellar-like place of confinement for accused criminals.
In the history of architecture, too, there is a Nemesis. As the cross became changed from a sign of weakness to a sign of honor and victory, so must the basilica in which Christ and innumerable martyrs were condemned to death, become a place for the worship of the crucified One. The judicial trib une became the altar ; the seat of the praetor behind it became the bishop's chair; the bencbes of the jurymen became the seats of presbyters ; the hall of business and trade became a place of devotion for the faithful people; the subterranean jail became a crypt or burial place, the superterrene birth-place, of a Christian martyr. To these were added other changes, especially the introduction of a cross-nave between the apse and the main nave, giving to the basilica the symbolical form of the once despised, but now glorious cross, and forming, set to speak, a recumbent crucilix. The cross with equal arms is called the Greek ^ that with unequal arms, in which the ti'aiisept is shorter than the main nave from the entrance to the
the i.px'^v fiacrtXivs, who held court in these buildings. In the church this designation was very naturally transferred to Christ, as the supreme King and Judge. Though of Greek origin, the basilicas first reached their full development in Rome, and, properly speaking, arose from the forum Romanum. They were strictly fora for the people, but roofed, and so protected from rain and heat. The city of Rome flad ten of them : the Bas. JuUa, Ulpia, Porcia, Marciana, &c. Zestermanu, however, denies the connection of the Roman basilica with the Athenian (jtoo. ^aaiXdo^, and derives it from the later times of Roman luxury, when the name basilicus wm applied to everything grand and costly.
' Basilicas with a single nave are very rare. The pagan basilica of Trier is ac instance, and the small church of St. Balbina in Rome, said to have been built bj Gregory I. in the beginning of the seventh century.
554 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
altar, tlie Latin. Towers, which express the heavenward apirit of the Christian religion, were not introduced till tiie ninth century, and were tlien built primarily for bells.
This style found rapid acceptance in the course of the fourth century with East and West ; most of all in Kome, wliere a considerable number of basilicas, some in their ancient venerable simplicity, some with later alterations, are still preserved. The chui'ch of St. Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline hill affords the best view of an ancient basilica; the oldest principal church of Rome — S. Giovanni in Laterano (so named from the Roman patrician family of the Laterans), dedicated to the Evangelist John and to John the Baptist; the church of St. Paul, outside the city on the way to Ostia, which was burnt in 1S23, but afterwards rebuilt splendidly in the same style, and consecrated by the pope in December, 1854; also S. Clemente, S. Agnese, and S. Lorenzo, outside the walls — are examples. The old church of St. Peter (Basilica Yaticana), M'hich was built on the spot of this apostle's martyrdom, the Neronian circus, and was torn down in the fifteenth century (the last remnant did not fall till 1606), surpassed all other churches of Rome in splendor and wealth, and was rebuilt, not in the same style, but, as is well known, in the Italian style of the sixteenth century.
Next to Rome, Ravenna is rich in old church buildings, among which the great basilica of S. Apollinare in Classe (in the port town, three miles from the main city, and built about the middle of the sixth century) is the most notable. The transept, as in all the churches of this city, is wanting.
In the East Roman empire there appeared even under.Oonstantine sundry de]iartures and transitions toward the Byzantine style. The oldest buildings there, which follow more or less the style of the Roman basilica, are the church at Tyre, begun in 813, desti'oyed in the middle ages, but known to us from the description of the historian Eusebius ; ' the original St. Sophia of Constantine in Constantinople ; and the churches in the Holy Land, built likewise by him and his mother Helena, at Mamre or Uebr< n, at Bethlehem over the birth
' In the panegyric addressed t> Pauliuus, bishop of Tyre, Hist. Eccl. x. c. 4.