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Sclerus, whom the eunuch deposed from his post of general in the BASIL (Russ. VASILY), the name of four grand-dukes of East. He belonged to the powerful landed aristocracy of Asia Moscow and tsars of Muscovy. Minor, whose pretensions were a perpetual menace to the throne. BASIL I. DMITREVICH (1371-1425), son of Dmitri (Demetrius) He made himself master of the Asiatic provinces and threatened Donskoi, whom he succeeded in 1389, married Sophia, the Constantinople. To oppose him, Bardas Phocas, another general daughter of Vitovt, grand-duke of Lithuania. In his reign who had revolted in the previous reign and been interned in a the grand-duchy of Muscovy became practically hereditary, monastery, was recalled. Defeated in two battles, he was vic- and asserted its supremacy over all the surrounding princitorious in a third and the revolt was suppressed (979). Phocas palities. Nevertheless Basil received his yarluik, or investiture, remained general in the East till 987, when he rebelled and was from the Golden Horde and was compelled to pay tribute proclaimed emperor by his troops. It seems that the minister to the grand khan, Tokhtamuish. He annexed the princiBasileios was privy to this act, and the cause was dissatisfaction pality of Suzdal to Moscovy, together with Murom, Kozelsk at the energy which was displayed by the emperor, who showed Peremyshl, and other places; reduced the grand-duchy of Rostov that he was determined to take the administration into his own to a state of vassalage; and acquired territory from the republic hands and personally to control the army. Phocas advanced to of Great Novgorod by treaty. In his reign occurred the invasion the Hellespont and besieged Abydos. Basil obtained timely aid, of Timur (1395), who ruined the Volgan regions, but did not in the shape of Varangian mercenaries, front his brother-in-law penetrate so far as Moscow. Indeed Timur's

raid was of service Vladimir, the Russian prince of Kiev, and marched to Abydos. to the Russian prince as it all but wiped out the Golden Horde, The two armies were facing each other, when Basil galloped which for the next twelve years was in a state of anarchy. During forward, seeking a personal combat with the usurper who was the whole of this time no tribute was paid to the khan, though riding in front of his lines. Phocas, just as he prepared to fare him, vast sums of money were collected in the Moscow treasury for fell from his horse and was found to be dead." This ended the military purposes. In 1408 the Mirza Edigei ravaged Muscovite rebellion.

territory, but was unable to take Moscow. In 1412, however, The fall of Basileios followed; he was punished with exile and Basil found it necessary to pay the long-deferred visit of subthe confiscation of his enormous property. Basil made ruthless mission to the Horde. The most important ecclesiastical event war upon the system of immense estates which had grown up in of the reign was the elevation of the Bulgarian, Gregory Tsamblak, Asia Minor and which his predecessor, Romanus I., had en- to the metropolitan see of Kiev (1425) by Vitovt, grand-duke of deavoured to check. (For this evil and the legislation which was Lithuania; the immediate political consequence of which was aimed at it see ROMAN EMPIRE, LATER.) He sought to protect the weakening of the hold of Muscovy on the south-western the lower and middle classes.

Russian states. During Basil's reign a terrible visitation of the Basil gained some successes against the Saracens (995); but "Black Death" decimated the population. his most important work in the East was the annexation of the See T. Schiemann, Russland bis ins 17. Jahrhundert (Gotha, principalities of Armenia. He created in those highlands a 1885–1887). strongly fortified frontier, which, if his successors had been BASIL II., called TEMNY (“the BLIND ") (1415-1462), son of capable, should have proved an effective barrier against the the preceding, succeeded his father as grand-duke of Moscow in invasions of the Seljuk Turks. The greatest achievement of the 1425. He was a man of small ability and unusual timidity, reign was the subjugation of Bulgaria. After the death of though not without tenacity of purpose. Nevertheless, during Tzimisces (who had reduced only the eastern part of the Bulgarian his reign Moscow steadily increased in power, as if to show that kingdom), the power of Bulgaria was restored by the Tsar the personality of the grand-dukes had become quite a suborSamuel, in whom Basil found a worthy foe. The emperor's first dinate factor in its development. In 1430 Basil was seized by efforts against him were unsuccessful (981), and the war was not his uncle, George of Halicz, and sent a prisoner to Kostroma; resumed till 996, Samuel in the meantime extending his rule along but the nation, dissatisfied with George, released Basil and in the Adriatic coast and imposing his lordship on Servia. Eastern 1433 he returned in triumph to Moscow. George, however, took Bulgaria was finally recovered in 1000; but the war continued the field against him and Basil fled to Novgorod. On the death with varying successes till 1014, when the Bulgarian army suffered of George, Basil was at constant variance with George's children, an overwhelming defeat. Basil blinded 15.000 prisoners, leaving one of whom, Basil, he had blinded; but in 1445 the grand-duke a one-eyed man to every hundred to lead them to their tsar, who fell into the hands of blind Basil's brother, Shemyak, and was fainted at the sight and died two days later. The last sparks of himself deprived of his sight and banished to Uglich (1445). resistance were extinguished in 1918, and the great Slavonic realm The clergy and people, however, being devoted to the grand-duke, lay in the dust. The power of Byzantium controlled once more assisted him not only to recover his throne a second time, but to the Illyrian peninsula. Basil died in December 1025 in the midst put Shemyak to flight, and to seize Halicz, his patrimony. of preparations to send a naval expedition to recover Sicily from During the remainder of Basil II.'s reign he slowly and unthe Saracens.

obtrusively added district after district to the grand-duchy of Basil's reign marks the highest point of the power of the Muscovy, so that, in fine, only the republics of Novgorod and Eastern empire since Justinian 1. Part of the credit is due to Pskov and the principalities of Tver and Vereya remained his predecessors Nicephorus and Tzimisces, but the greater independent of Moscow. Yet all this time the realm was overrun part belongs to him. He dedicated himself unsparingly to the continually by the Tatars and Lithuanians, and suffered severely laborious duties of ruling, and he had to reckon throughout with from their depredations. Basil's reign saw the foundation of the ill-will of a rich and powerful section of his subjects. He was the Solovetsk monastery and the rise of the khanate of the hard and cruel, without any refinement or interest in culture. In Crimea! In 1448 the north Russian Church became virtually a contemporary psalter (preserved in the library of St Mark at independent of the patriarchal see of Constantinople by adopting Venice) there is a portrait

of him, with a grey beard, crowned and the practice of selecting its metropolitan from among native robed in imperial costume.

priests and prelates exclusively. AUTHORITIES.-Leo Diaconus (ed. Bonn, 1828): Psellus, History

See S. M. Solovev, History of Russia (Russ.), (Petersburg, 1895). (ed. Sathas, London, 1899): George Cedrenus (Chronicle, transcribed from the work of John Scylitzes, vol. ii., ed. Bonn, 1839): Zonaras, Ivan III. and Sophia Palaeologa, succeeded his father in 1505,

BASIL III., IVANOVICH (1479-1533), tsar of Muscovy, son of Vasilievski and Jernstedt. St Petersburg. 1896): Yahya of Antioch A crafty prince, with all the tenacity of his race, Basil succeeded (contemporary Asiatic chronicle), extracts with Russian translation in incorporating with Muscovy the last remnants of the ancient by Rosen (St Petersburg. 1883): Al Mekin (Elmacinus) Historia independent principalities, by accusing the princes of Ryazan Saracenica (ed. with Latin translation by Erpenius, Leiden, 1625): and Syeversk of conspiracy against him, seizing their persons, Graeco-Romanum, vol. ii. 1853): Finlay. Hist. of Greece; Gibbon, and annexing their domains (1517-1523). Seven years earlier Driline and Fall G. Schlumberger, L'Epopée byzantine, part i. and (24th

of January 1510) the last free republic of old Russia, Pskov, part ii. (Paris, 1896, 1900)

V. B. B.) I was deprived of its charter and assembly-bell, which were sent

to Moscow, and tsarish governors were appointed to rule it. | Neocaesarea in Pontus, he deliberately set himself against these Basil also took advantage of the difficult position of Sigismund tendencies. He declared that the cenobitical life is superior to of Poland to capture Smolensk, the great eastern fortress of the eremitical; that fasting and austerities should not interfere Poland (1512), chiefly through the aid of the rebel Lithuanian, with prayer or work; that work should form an integral part of Prince Michael Glinsky, who provided him with artillery and the monastic life, not merely as an occupation, but for its own engineers from western Europe. The loss of Smolensk was the sake and in order to do good to others; and therefore that first serious injury inflicted by Muscovy on Poland and only the monasteries should be near towns. All this was a new departure exigencies of Sigismund compelled him to acquiesce in its in monachism. The life St Basil established was strictly cenosurrender (1522). Equally successful, on the whole, was Basil bitical, with common prayer seven times a day, common work, against the Tatars. Although in 1519 he was obliged to buy off common meals. It was, in spite of the new ideas, an austere life, the khan of the Crimea, Mahommed Girai, under the very walls of the kind called contemplative, given up to prayer, the reading of Moscow, towards the end of his reign he established the of the Scriptures and heavy field-work. The so-called Rules (the Russian influence on the Volga, and in 1530 placed the pre- Longer and the Shorter) are catechisms of the spiritual life rather tender Elanyei on the throne of Kazan. Basil was the first than a body of regulations for the corporate working of a comgrand-duke of Moscow who adopted the title of tsar and the munity, such as is now understood by a monastic rule. Appardouble-headed eagle of the East Roman empire. By his second ently no vows were taken, but obedience, personal poverty, wife, Helena Glinska, whom he married in 1526, Basil had a son chastity, self-denial, and the other monastic virtues were strongly Ivan, who succeeded him as Ivan IV. enforced, and a monk was not free to abandon the monastic life. A novitiate had to be passed, and young boys were to be educated in the monastery, but were not expected to become monks.

See Sigismund Herberstain, Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (Vienna, 1549); P. A. Byelov, Russian History Previous to the Reforms of Peter the Great (Russ.), (Petersburg, 1895); E. I. Kashprovsky, The War of Basil III. with Sigismund I. (Russ.), (Nyezhin, 1899).

BASIL IV., SHUISKY (d. 1612), tsar of Muscovy, was during the reigns of Theodore I. and Boris Godunov, one of the leading boyars of Muscovy. It was he who, in obedience to the secret orders of Tsar Boris, went to Uglich to inquire into the cause of the death of Demetrius, the infant son of Ivan the Terrible, who had been murdered there by the agents of Boris. Shuisky obsequiously reported that it was a case of suicide; yet, on the death of Boris and the accession of his son Theodore II., the false boyar, in order to gain favour with the first false Demetrius, went back upon his own words and recognized the pretender as the real Demetrius, thus bringing about the assassination of the young Theodore. Shuisky then plotted against the false Demetrius and procured his death (May 1606) also by publicly confessing that the real Demetrius had been indeed slain and that the reigning tsar was an impostor. This was the viler in him as the pseudo-Demetrius had already forgiven him one conspiracy. Shuisky's adherents thereupon proclaimed him tsar (19th of May 1606). He reigned till the 19th of July 1610, but was never generally recognized. Even in Moscow itself he had little or no authority, and was only not deposed by the dominant boyars because they had none to put in his place. Only the popularity of his heroic cousin, Prince Michael Skopin-Shuisky, who led his armies and fought his battles for him, and soldiers from Sweden, whose assistance he purchased by a disgraceful cession of Russian territory, kept him for a time on his unstable throne. In 1610 he was deposed, made a monk, and finally carried off as a trophy by the Polish grand hetman, Stanislaus Zolkiewski. He died at Warsaw in 1612.

See D. I. Ilovaisky, The Troubled Period of the Muscovite Realm (Russ.), (Moscow, 1894); S. I. Platonov, Sketches of the Great Anarchy in the Realm of Moscow (Petersburg, 1899); D. V. Tsvye!tev, Tsar Vasily Shuisky (Russ.). (Warsaw, 1901-1903); R. Nisbet Bain, Slavonic Europe, ch. viii. (Cambridge, 1907). (R. N B.)

BASILIAN MONKS, those who follow the rule of Basil the Great. The chief importance of the monastic rule and institute of St Basil lies in the fact that to this day his reconstruction of the monastic life is the basis of the monasticism of the Greek and Slavonic Churches, though the monks do not call themselves Basilians. St Basil's claim to the authorship of the Rules and other ascetical writings that go under his name, has been questioned; but the tendency now is to recognize as his at any rate the two sets of Rules. Probably the truest idea of his monastic system may be derived from a correspondence between him and St Gregory Nazianzen at the beginning of his monastic life, the chief portions whereof are translated by Newman in the Church of the Fathers," Basil and Gregory," §§ 4, 5. On leaving Athens Basil visited the monasteries of Egypt and Palestine; in the latter country and in Syria the monastic life tended to become more and more eremitical and to run to great extravagances in the matter of bodily austerities (see MONASTICISM). When (c. 360) Basil formed his monastery in the neighbourhood of

St Basil's influence, and the greater suitability of his institute to European ideas, ensured the propagation of Basilian monachism; and Sozomen says that in Cappadocia and the neighbouring provinces there were no hermits but only cenobites. However, the eastern hankering after the eremitical life long survived, and it was only by dint of legislation, both ecclesiastical (council of Chalcedon) and civil (Justinian Code), that the Basilian cenobitic form of monasticism came to prevail throughout the Greek-speaking lands, though the eremitical forms have always maintained themselves.

Greek monachism underwent no development or change for four centuries, except the vicissitudes inevitable in all things human, which in monasticism assume the form of alternations of relaxation and revival. The second half of the 8th century seems to have been a time of very general decadence; but about the year 800 Theodore, destined to be the only other creative name in Greek monachism, became abbot of the monastery of the Studium in Constantinople. He set himself to reform his monastery and restore St Basil's spirit in its primitive vigour. But to effect this, and to give permanence to the reformation, he saw that there was need of a more practical code of laws to regulate the details of the daily life, as a supplement to St Basil's Rules. He therefore drew up constitutions, afterwards codified (see Migne, Patrol. Graec. xcix., 1704-1757), which became the norm of the life at the Studium monastery, and gradually spread thence to the monasteries of the rest of the Greek empire. Thus to this day the Rules of Basil and the Constitutions of Theodore the Studite, along with the canons of the Councils, constitute the chief part of Greek and Russian monastic law.

The spirit of Greek monachism, as regenerated by Theodore, may best be gathered from his Letters, Discourses and Testament. Under the abbot were several officials to superintend the various departments; the liturgical services in the church took up a considerable portion of the day, but Theodore seems to have made no attempt to revive the early practice of the Studium in this matter (see ACOEMETI); the rest of the time was divided between reading and work; the latter included the chief handicrafts, for the monks, only ten in number, when Theodore became abbot, increased under his rule to over a thousand. One kind of work practised with great zeal and success by the Studite monks, was the copying of manuscripts, so that to them and to the schools that went forth from them we owe a great number of existing Greek MSS. and the preservation of many works of classical and ecclesiastical antiquity. In addition to this, literary and theological studies were pursued, and the mysticism of pseudoDionysius was cultivated. The life, though simple and selfdenying and hard, was not of extreme austerity. There was a division of the monks into two classes, similar to the division in vogue in later time in the West into choir-monks and lay-brothers. The life of the choir-monks was predominantly contemplative,

Specimen passages, and also a general picture of the life, will be found in Miss Alice Gardner's Theodore of Studium, ch_v.

being taken up with the church services and private prayer and the bishops are all recruited from the monks. But besides this study; the lay-brothers carried on the various trades and external they have been a strong spiritual and religious influence, as is works. There is little or no evidence of works of charity outside recognized even by those who have scant sympathy with the monastery being undertaken by Studite monks. Strict per- monastic ideals (see Harnack, What is Christianily? Lect. xiii., sonal poverty was enforced, and all were encouraged to approach end). confession and communion frequently. Vows had been imposed Outside the Orthodox Church are some small congregations on monks by the council of Chalcedon (451). The picture of of Uniat Basilians. Besides Grottaferrata, there are Catholic Studite life is the picture of normal Greek and Slavonic monachism Basilian monasteries in Poland, Hungary, Galicia, Rumania; to this day.

and among the Melchites or Uniat Syrians. During the middle ages the centre of Greek monachism shifted There have been Basilian nuns from the beginning, St Macrina, from Constantinople to Mount Athos. The first monastery to be St Basil's sister, having established a nunnery which was under founded here was that of St Athanasius (c. 960), and in the course his direction. The nuns are devoted to a purely contemplative of the next three or four centuries monasteries in great numbers, life, and in Russia, where there are about a hundred nunneries, Greek, Slavonic and one Latin-were established on Mount they are not allowed to take final vows until the age of sixty. Athos, some twenty of which still survive.

They are very numerous throughout the East. Basilian monachism spread from Greece to Italy and Russia.

AUTHORITIES.-In addition to the authorities for different portions Rufinus had translated St Basil's Rules into Latin (c. 400) and of the subject matter named in the course of this article, may be they became the rule of life in certain Italian monasteries. They mentioned, on St Basil and his Rules, Montalembert, Monks of the were known to St Benedict, who refers his monks to the Rule of West, second part of bk. ii., and the chapter on St Basil in James 0. our holy Father Basil,”-indeed St Benedict owed more of the history and spirit of Basilian Monachism, Helyot, Hist. des Ordres ground-ideas of his Rule to St Basil than to any other monastic Religieux, i. (1714): Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1907), legislator. In the 6th and 7th centuries there appear to have i., 1; Abbé Marin, Les Moines de Constantinople (1897): Karl been Greek

monasteries in Rome and south Italy and especially (1898): Otto Zöckler, Askese und Mönchtum, pp. 285-309. (1897) in Sicily. But during the course of the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries For general information see Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (ed. crowds of fugitives poured into southern Italy from Greece and i.), art. Basilianer," and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. Sicily, under stress of the Saracenic, Arab and other invasions; ii.), in articles " Mönchtum," "Orientalische Kirche," and " Athos

(E. C. B.) and from the middle of the 9th century Basilian monasteries, berg," where copious references will be found. peopled by Greek-speaking monks, were established in great BASILICA, a word of Greck origin (sce below), frequently used numbers in Calabria and spread northwards as far as Rome. in Latin literature and inscriptions to denote a large covered Some of them existed on into the 18th century, but the only building that could accommodate a considerable number of survivor now is the monastery founded by St Nilus (c. 1000) at people. Strictly speaking, a basilica was a building of this kind Grottaferrata in the Alban Hills. Professor Kirsopp Lake has situated near the business centre of a city and arranged for the (1903) written four valuable articles (Journal of Theological convenience of merchants, litigants and persons engaged on the Studies, iv., v.) on “The Greek monasteries of South Italy"; he public service; but in a derived sense the word might be used deals in detail with their scriptoria and the dispersal of their for any large structure wherever situated, such as a hall of libraries, a matter of much interest, in that some of the chief audience (Vitruv. vi. 5. 2) or a covered promenade (St Jerome, collections of Greek MSS. in western Europe-as the Bessarion Ep. 46) in a private palace; a riding school (basilice equestris at Venice and a great number at the Vatican-come from the exercitatoria, C.I.L. vii. 965); a market or store for flowers spoils of these Italian Basilian houses.

(basilica floscellaria (Notitia]), or other kinds of goods (basilica Of much greater importance was the importation of Basilian vestiaria, C.I.L. viii. 20156), or a hall of meeting for a religious monachism into Russia, for it thereby became the norm of body. In this derived sense the word came naturally to be monachism for all the Slavonic lands. Greek monks played a applied to the extensive buildings used for Christian worship considerable part in the evangelization of the Slavs, and the first in the age of Constantine and his successors. Russian monastery was founded at Kiev (c. 1050) by a monk from The question whether this word conveyed to the ancients any Mount Athos. The monastic institute had a great development special architectural significance is a difficult one, and some in Russia, and at the present day there are in the Russian empire writers hold that the name betokened only the use of the building, some 400 monasteries of men and 100 of women, many of which others that it suggested also a certain form. Our knowledge of support hospitals, almshouses and schools. In the other Slavonic the ancient basilica as a civil structure is derived primarily from lands there are a considerable number of monasteries, as also in Vitruvius, and we learn about it also from existing remains and Greece itself, while in the Turkish dominions there are no fewer from incidental notices in classical writers and in inscriptions. than 100 Greek monasteries. The monasteries are of three kinds: If we review all the evidence we are led to the conclusion that cenobia proper, wherein full monastic common life, with personal there did exist a normal form of the building, though many poverty, is observed; others called idiorrhythmic, wherein the examples deviated therefrom. This normal form we shall undermonks are allowed the use of their private means and lead a stand if we consider the essential character of the building in generally mitigated and free kind of monastic life; and the lauras, the light of what Vitruvius tells us of it. wherein the life is semi-eremitical. Greek and Slavonic monks Vitruvius trcats the basilica in close connexion with the forum, wear a black habit. The visits of Western scholars in modern to which in his view it is an adjunct. In the earlier classical times to Greek monasteries in search of MSS.-notably to St times, both in Greece and Italy, business of every kind, political, Catherine's on Mount Sinai, and to Mount Athos-has directed commercial and legal, was transacted in the open forum, and much attention to contemporary Greek monachism, and the there also were presented shows and pageants. "When business accounts of these cxpeditions commonly contain descriptions, increased and the numbers of the population were multiplied, more or less sympathetic and intelligent, of the present-day life it was found convenient to provide additional accommodation for of Greek monks. The first such account was Robert Curzon's in these purposes. Theatres and amphitheatres took the perparts iii. (1834) and iv. (1837) of the Monastcrics of the Levant; formances and games. Markets provided for those that bought the most recent in English is Athelstan Riley's Athos (1887). Thc and sold, while for business of more important kinds accommodalife is mainly given up to devotional contemplative exercises; the tion could be secured by laying out new agorae or fora in the church services are of extreme length; intellectual study is little immediate vicinity of the old. At Rome this was done by means cultivated; manual labour has almost disappeared; there are of the so-called imperial fora, the latest and most splendid of many hermits on Athos (q.0.).

which was that of Trajan. These fora corresponded to the later The ecclesiastical importance of the monks in the various Greek or llellenistic agora, which, as Vitruvius tells us, was of branches of the Orthodox Church lies in this, that as bishops regular form and surrounded by colonnades in two stories, and must be celibate, whereas the parochial clergy must be married, I they had the practical use of relieving the pressure on the

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original forum (Cic., ad Att. iv. 16). The basilica was a structure intended for the same purposes. It was to all intents and purposes a covered forum, and in its normal form was constituted by an arrangement of colonnades in two stories round a rectangular space, that was not, like the Greek agora, open, but covered with a roof. Vitruvius writes of it as frequented by merchants, who would find in it shelter and quiet for the transaction of their business. Legal tribunals were also set up in it, though it is a mistake to suppose the basilica a mere law court. The magistrates who presided over these tribunals had sometimes platforms, curved or rectangular in plan, provided as part of the permanent fittings of the edifice.

According to Vitruvius (v. 1. 4, cf. also vi. 3. 9) the building is to be in plan a rectangle, not more than three times nor less than twice as long as it is broad. If the site oblige the length to be greater, the surplus is to be cut off to form what he calls chalcidica, by which must be meant open vestibules. The interior is divided into a central space and side aisles one-third the width of this. The ground plan of the basilica at Pompeii (fig. 1) illustrates this description, though the superstructure did not correspond to the Vitruvian scheme The columns between nave and aisles, Vitruvius proceeds, are the same height as the width of the latter, and the aisle is covered with a flat roof forming a terrace (contignatio) on which people can walk. Surrounding this on the inner side is a breastwork or parapet (pluteum), which would conceal these promenaders from the view of the merchants in the basilica below. On the top of this parapet stood the upper row of columns, three-quarters as high as the lower ones. The spaces between these columns, above the

erected in the later Greek cities, is hard to say. We should naturally look in that direction for the prototypes of the Roman basilicas, but as a fact we are not informed of any very early basilicas in these cities. The earliest we know of is the existing basilica at Pompeii, that may date back into the 2nd century B.C., whereas basilicas made their appearance at Rome nearly at the beginning of that century. The first was erected by M. Porcius Cato, the censor, in 184 B.C., and was called after his name Basilica Porcia. Cato had recently visited Athens and had been struck by the beauty of the city, so that it is quite possible that the importation was direct.

Rome soon obtained other basilicas, of which the important Basilica Fulvia-Aemilia came next in point of time, till by the age of Augustus there were at least five in the immediate neighbourhood of the forum, the latest and most extensive being the Basilica Julia, which ran parallel to its southern side, and is shown in plan in fig. 2. The great Basilica Ulpia was built

2

FIG. 2.-Plan of Basilica Julia, Rome. (From Baedeker's Central Italy, by permission of Karl Baedeker.) by Trajan in connexion with his forum about A.D. 112, and a fragment of the Capitoline plan of Rome gives the scheme of it (fig. 3), while an attempted restoration of the interior by Canina is shown in fig. 4. The vaulted basilica of Maxentius or Constantine on the Via Sacra dates from the beginning

FIG. 1.-Basilica at Pompeii. 1, Portico (Chalcidicum): 2. hall of of the 4th century, and fig. 5 gives the section of it. The

basilica: 3, aisles; 4. altar; 5, tribunal: 6, offices.

top of the pluteum, would be left free for the admission of light to the central space, which was covered by a roof called by Vitruvius (v. 1. 6) mediana testudo. Nothing is said about a permanent tribunal or about an apse.

How far existing remains agree with the Vitruvian scheme will be seen as we proceed. We have now to consider the derivation of the word "basilica," the history of the form of building, and its architectural scheme as represented in actual relics.

The word" basilica " is a Latinized form of the Greek adjective Baoth, "royal," and some feminine substantive, such as domus, or stoa, must be understood with it. A certain building at Athens, wherein the apxwv Bagiλeus transacted business and the court of the Areopagus sometimes assembled, was called Barinelos oroά, and it is an accredited theory, though it is by no means proved, that we have here the origin of the later basilica. It is difficult to see why this was called "royal" except for some special but accidental reason such as can in this case be divined. There are other instances in which a term that becomes specific has been derived from some one specimen accidentally named. "Labyrinth" is one case in point, and basilica may be another. It is true that we do not know what was the shape of the King Archon's portico, but the same name (Barileos oroá) was given to the grand structure erected by Herod the Great along the southern edge of the Temple platform at Jerusalem, and this corresponded to the Vitruvian scheme of a columned fabric, with nave and aisles and clerestory lighting.

Whether the Roman basilicas, with which we are chiefly concerned, were derived directly from the Athenian example, or mediately from this through structures of the same kind

number of public basilicas we read of at Rome alone amounts to about a score, while many private basilicas, for business or recreation, must also have existed, that in the palace of Domitian on the Palatine being the best known. In provincial cities in Italy, and indeed all over the empire, basilicas were almost universal, and in the case of Italy we have proof of this as early as the date of the death of Augustus, for Suetonius (Aug. 100) tells us that the body of that emperor, when it was brought from Nola in Campania to Rome, rested" in basilica cujusque oppidi." As regards existing examples, neither in the peninsula nor the provinces can it be said that these give any adequate idea of

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BASILICA XLPIA

FIG. 3.-Plan of Basilica Ulpia, from Capitoline plan of Rome. the former abundance and wide distribution of basilicas. Northern Africa contributes one or two examples, and a plan is given of that at Timgad (fig. 6). The Gallic basilicas, which must have been very numerous, are represented only by the noble structure at Trier (Trèves), which is now a single vast hall 180 ft. long, 90 ft. wide and 100 ft. high, commanded at one end by a spacious apse. There is reason to conjecture that this is the basilica erected by Constantine, and some authorities believe that originally it had internal colonnades. In England basilicas remain in part at Silchester (fig. 7), Uriconium (Wroxeter),

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FIG. 4.-Interior view of Trajan's Basilica (Basilica Ulpia), as restored by Canina. Chester (?) and Lincoln, while three others are mentioned in inscriptions (C.I.L. vii. 287, 445, 965).

A comparison of the plans of existing basilicas shows considerable variety in form. Some basilicas (Julia, Ulpia, Pompeii) have the central space surrounded by galleries supported on columns or piers, according to the normal scheme, and the newly excavated Basilica Acmilia, north of the Roman forum, agrees with these. In some North African examples, in the palace basilica of Domitian, and at Silchester, there are colonnades down the long sides but not across the ends. Others (Trier [?], Timgad) have no interior divisions. One (Maxentius) is entirely a vaulted structure and in form resembles the great halls of the Roman Thermae. At Pompeii, Timgad and Silchester, there are fixed tribunals, while vaulted apses that may

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in two stories, round it, and some arrangement for clerestory lighting. Later basilicas might vary in architectural scheme, while affording the same sort of accommodation as the older ones. The relation of the civil basilica of the Romans to the Christian church has been extensively discussed, and the reader will find the controversy ably summarized in Kraus's Geschichte der christlichen Kunst, bk. 5. There is nothing remarkable in the fact that a large church was called a basilica, for the term was applied, as we have seen, to structures of many kinds, and we even find "basilica " used for the meeting-place of a pagan religious association (Röm. Mill. 1891, p. 109). The similarity in some respects of the early Christian churches to the normal form of the columned basilica is so striking, that we can understand how the theory was once held that Christian churches were the actual civil basilicas turned over from secular to religious uses. There is no evidence for this in the case of public basilicas, and it stands to reason that the demands on these for secular purposes would remain the same whether Christianity were the religion of the empire or not. Moreover, though there are one or two civil basilicas that resemble churches, the latter differ in some

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FIG. 5.-Section of the Basilica of Maxentius or Constantine (Temple of Peace).

have contained tribunals occur in the basilica of Maxentius. In the Basilica Julia there was no tribunal at all, though we know that the building was regularly used for the centumviral court (Quint. xii. 5. 6), and the same was the case in the Ulpia, for the semicircular projection at the end shown on the Capitolineplan, was not a vaulted apse and was evidently distinct from the basilica.

In view of the above it might be questioned whether it is safe to speak of a normal form of the basilica, but when we consider the vast number of basilicas that have perished compared to the few that have survived, and the fact that the origins and traditions of the building show it to have been, as Vitruvius describes it, essentially a columned structure, there is ample justification for the view expressed earlier in this article. There can be little doubt that the earlier basilicas, and the majority of basilicas taken as a whole, had a central space with galleries, generally

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FIG. 6-Plan of Basilica adjoining the Forum of the Roman city of Timgad, in North Africa.

(From Gsell's Monuments antiques de Algov.

most important respects
from the form of the
basilica that we have
recognized as normal.
The early Christian
basilicas, at any rate
in the west, had very
seldom, if ever, galleries
over the side aisles, and
their interior is always
dominated by the semi-
dome of an apse that
terminates the central
nave, whereas, with the
doubtful exception of
Silchester (Archacologia, by permission of A. Fontemoing)
liii. 549), there is no instance known of a vaulted apse in a
columned civil basilica of the normal kind.

When buildings were first expressly erected for Christian worship, in the 3rd or perhaps already in the 2nd century A.D (Leclercq, Manuel, ch iii. "Les édifices chrétiens avant la paix de l'église "), they probably took the form of an oblong interior

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