It is a question whether the ancient forum was entirely paved.  The paving can be seen along the basilica, and it has been seen back of it,[139] but this pavement belongs to another hitherto unknown part of Praenestine topography, namely, a sacra via.  An inscription to an aurufex de sacra via[140] makes certain that there was a road in Praeneste to which this name was given.  The inscription was found in the courtyard of the Seminary, which was the precinct of the temple of Fortuna.  From the fact that this pavement is laid with blocks such as 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 facade 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 facade 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 argument for a portico, and even claim that here was the place that the statue was set up, ante curiam vel in por ticibus fori.[147] Again, these steps run far past the temple to the east, otherwise we might conclude that they were to mark the extent of temple property.  The fact, however, that a road, the Sacra Via, goes round back of the basilica only to the left, forces us to conclude that these steps belong to the city, not to the temple in any way, and that they mark the north side of the ancient forum.