(_Public Record Office._)
_Open every day from 10 till 3; fee, half lira._
We have now to speak of a building, the vast remains of which impress
us with the grandeur of the later republic. In the year of the city
675 (B.C. 78) a building was erected against the Capitoline Hill,
and facing the Forum, to contain the public records, which were
engraved on bronze plates. Before that time they had been kept in
various temples.
"A decree was made by the senate that the records should be kept in
the Temple of Ceres with the public ædiles"--A.U.C. 306--(Livy, iii.
55).
"Treaties (such as between Pyrrhus and Rome) were then usual, and the
ædiles had them in their keeping in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus,
engraved on plates of copper" (Polybius, iii.).
That this was the usual way of keeping the records we learn from the
same author, who saw and copied those which "Hannibal left at
Lacinium--engraved tablets or records on copper of the events of his
stay in Italy."
"The censors went up immediately to the Temple of Liberty, where they
sealed the books of the public records, shut up the office, and
dismissed the clerks, affirming that they should do no kind of public
business until the judgment of the people was passed on them"--A.U.C.
686--(Livy, xliii. 16).
We have no mention in classic history as to when this building was
erected, but fortunately an inscription has been handed down to us, in
which Quintus Lutatius Catulus (who dedicated the temple to Jupiter
Capitolinus) is expressly named, not only as the founder of the
Tabularium, but also of the substructions, the most difficult portion
of the whole, and which claim our fullest admiration.
Q . LVTATIVS . Q. F. Q. N. CATVLVS . COS . SVBSTRVCTIONEM . ET .
TABVLARIVM . EX . SEN . SENT . FACIENDVM . COERAVIT . EADEMQVE .
PROBAVIT .
The remains form the substructions of the present Capitol, or
senator's residence, consisting of a massive wall of Gabii stone 240
feet long and 37 feet high, supporting the portico on the side of the
Forum, which consisted of a series of arches, 23 feet by 15 feet,
ornamented with sixteen Doric columns. Below this portico or arcade
are a series of small chambers, with windows looking into the Forum,
opening out of one another, approached by a short flight of steps, and
probably used to store the records. At the back of the arcade are a
series of large vaulted rooms or offices. At one end a grand flight of
steps (repaired) leads up into what has been a grand arcade on the
side of the Area Capitolina: its piers now partly sustain the modern
building. At the farther end of this arcade is a flight of steep
travertine steps, sixty-seven in number, leading down into the Forum,
the exit to which has been blocked up by the Temple of Vespasian being
built against the entrance.
This building must have presented a grand front to the Forum in the
olden time, though now it only sustains the buildings of Michael
Angelo. In 1389-1394, Pope Boniface IX. first erected on the
Capitoline Hill, on the ruins of the Tabularium, a residence for the
senator and his assessors. The prospect was altered so that what was
the front became the back, and it faced on to what was anciently the
Area Capitolina, now the Piazza del Campidoglio, instead of the Forum.
The north side wall seems to have been cut down when the present
edifice was erected, as outside the present wall are the remains of
the ancient one; thus it was somewhat longer than we now see it. In
the sort of vestibule which gives admittance to the chambers under the
portico are remains of stairs, evidently leading up to some chambers
above the portico. These were probably not very lofty, so that the
view of the temples on the hill was not shut out from the Forum, or
perhaps they only led up to the flat roof above the arcade.
These old remains have been used as a prison and as a salt store,
which latter has eaten the stone away in a curious manner. It is now
used as a museum of fragments. The arches of the portico were filled
in when the great master utilized it. Although we know an arch is as
strong as a wall, it is feared to open them, and one only has been so
treated.
Suetonius tells us: "Vespasian undertook to restore the three thousand
tablets of brass which had been destroyed in the fire which consumed
the Capitol; searching in all quarters for copies of those curious and
ancient records, in which were contained the decrees of the senate
almost from the building of the city, as well as the acts of the
people relative to alliances, treaties, and privileges granted to any
person" (Vespasian, viii.).
Pliny (xxxiv. 21) says: "It is upon tablets of brass that our public
enactments are engraved."
_From the Tabularium a new iron stair leads up to_