Basilica Julia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Basilica Julia" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Basilica Julia

Computer generated image
Basilica Julia Shown within Augustan Rome
Click on the map for a fullscreen view
Location	Regio VIII Forum Romanum
Coordinates	41°53′34″N 12°29′5″E / 41.89278°N 12.48472°E / 41.89278; 12.48472
Type	Basilica
History
Builder	Gaius Julius Caesar
Founded	46 BC

The Basilica Julia (Italian: Basilica Giulia) was a structure that once stood in the Roman Forum. It was a large, ornate, public building used for meetings and other official business during the Roman Empire. Its ruins have been excavated. What is left from its classical period are mostly foundations, floors, a small back corner wall with a few arches that are part of both the original building and later imperial reconstructions and a single column from its first building phase.

The Basilica Julia was built on the site of the earlier Basilica Sempronia (170 BC) along the south side of the Forum, opposite the Basilica Aemilia. It was initially dedicated in 46 BC by Julius Caesar, with building costs paid from the spoils of the Gallic War, and was completed by Augustus, who named the building after his adoptive father. The ruins which have been excavated date to a reconstruction of the Basilica by the Emperor Diocletian, after a fire in 283 AD destroyed the earlier structure.^[1]