Basilica
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in architecture, a Roman hall of justice. The name is derived from a hall in which the Greek basileus-archon heard cases involving religious disputes. The basilica became common throughout the Roman world shortly before the reign of Augustus. It was a huge oblong hall about three times as long as wide. The entrance was in one end. The opposite end was called the apse. It was semicircular in form. A raised floor or stage in the apse served as the tribune on which the judges sat on long semicircular benches. In order to support the roof, two rows of pillars ran from the apse to the front, dividing the main floor into a long, central nave, flanked on each side by a narrower aisle. Sometimes the architect set up a double row of columns on each side, making a double aisle. The nave was open clear to the roof. The nave of the early basilica was even without a roof. The aisles were surmounted by galleries for the accommodation of the public. Upon the introduction of Christianity, many basilicas were used as churches. The earlier Christian churches were built in the form of basilicas. The tribune was replaced by an altar. The addition of transverse arms converted the oblong of the basilica into the cross of the cathedral. Many old European edifices are halfway between basilicas and cathedrals. The Roman basilica is known chiefly by a study of ruins. Some of the more famous Christian basilicas may yet be seen at Rome, Treves, Ravenna, and elsewhere. See Cathedral ; Architecture
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 description of the plan — oblong hall, nave, aisles, semicircular apse with the judges' tribune — is still how the Roman basilica is described today. Two points have moved. Its guess that "the nave of the early basilica was even without a roof" reflects an old theory of an open-air (hypaethral) nave that specialists have since abandoned, and the neat derivation of the Christian church from the law court alone has softened: scholars now see the basilica as a general-purpose Roman public hall, also used for markets, audiences and cult, adapted to worship for its capacity rather than its legal pedigree. Rome itself has yielded a spectacular addition since 1910 — the subterranean, stucco-vaulted basilica at Porta Maggiore, found by accident during railway works in 1917 and generally read as a private hall of a mystery cult. As an ecclesiastical title, "basilica" has grown well beyond the "few hundred" implied here: papal grants of minor-basilica rank now run to well over a thousand churches on every continent.
Written for this edition, 2026.