[Sidenote:  The Forum.] [Sidenote:  Its porticoes and statues.] [Sidenote:  Attractions of the Forum.]

It most not be supposed, however, that this popular power was shared by all the inhabitants of the city.  At one time, when the population of the city was about three millions the number of free citizens was only three hundred thousand.  The rest were laborers, artisans, and slaves, who had no voice in public affairs.  The free citizens held very frequent public assemblies.  There were various squares and open spaces in the city where such assemblies were convened, and where courts of justice were held.  The Roman name for such a square was forum.  There was one which was distinguished above all the rest, and was called emphatically The Forum.  It was a magnificent square, surrounded by splendid edifices, and ornamented by sculptures and statues without number.  There were ranges of porticoes along the sides, where the people were sheltered from the weather when necessary, though it is seldom that there is any necessity for shelter under an Italian sky.  In this area and under these porticoes the people held their assemblies, and here courts of justice were accustomed to sit.  The Forum was ornamented continually with new monuments, temples, statues, and columns by successful generals returning in triumph from foreign campaigns, and by proconsuls and praetors coming back enriched from their provinces, until it was fairly choked up with its architectural magnificence, and it had at last to be partially cleared again, as one would thin out too dense a forest, in order to make room for the assemblies which it was its main function to contain.

[Illustration:  A Roman forum]

[Sidenote:  Harangues and political discussions.]

The people of Rome had, of course, no printed books, and yet they were mentally cultivated and refined, and were qualified for a very high appreciation of intellectual pursuits and pleasures.  In the absence, therefore, of all facilities for private reading, the Forum became the great central point of attraction.  The same kind of interest which, in our day, finds its gratification in reading volumes of printed history quietly at home, or in silently perusing the columns of newspapers and magazines in libraries and reading-rooms, where a whisper is seldom heard, in Caesar’s day brought every body to the Forum, to listen to historical harangues, or political discussions, or forensic arguments in the midst of noisy crowds.  Here all tidings centered; here all questions were discussed and all great elections held.  Here were waged those ceaseless conflicts of ambition and struggles of power on which the fate of nations, and sometimes the welfare of almost half mankind depended.  Of course, every ambitious man who aspired to an ascendency over his fellow-men, wished to make his voice heard in the Forum.  To calm the boisterous tumult there, and to hold, as some of the Roman orators could do, the vast assemblies in silent and breathless attention, was a power as delightful in its exercise as it was glorious in its fame.  Caesar had felt this ambition, and had devoted himself very earnestly to the study of oratory.