Basilica romana

Next to the Macellum is the Curia (court), or Basilica Romana, where public or religious issues were discussed and decisions made.

In ancient Rome, the entire populace was divided into thirty curiae, which met in order to confirm the election of magistrates, witness the installation of priests, the making of wills, and adoptions.

An inscription tells us that the seat of the civic courts of Paestum was built with the financial support of Mineia, wife of senator Flaccus. 

The Basilica takes as its model the famous basilicas on the Roman Forum in Rome, where important aristocrats and men of power used this type of building to express their ambitions: it is no coincidence that the basilicas in Rome often bears the name of whoever financed the building. 

Here in Paestum, however, a woman was the protagonist of the reconstruction of the basilica in the Augustan era (15 BC), and this is an exceptional fact because in the ancient world women often did not have the same visibility, and did not have the same access to public life and power like men. This changed slightly with the Roman era, but one should not imagine that there was a true emancipation of women. However, they have the possibility, especially those belonging to the upper classes, to appear publicly, and Mineia who was married to the senator Flaccus is remembered in some inscriptions for having provided for the reconstruction of this sumptuous building, with decorations and columns, and wall paintings (by traces of which still remain). 

The niches on the two internal short sides of the building where there were the statues of Minea and his family are interesting. Here we see how Paestum from a large center of Magna Graecia gradually transforms into a city of the great Roman Empire where the model increasingly becomes the city of Rome, the Urbe with its monuments, but also in behavior and social interactions .