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On this page: Bas – Basterna – Baxa

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JASILICA.

empire apply the term "basilicae to all churches "built after the model just’described ; and such were the earliest edifices dedicated to Christian worship, which, with their original designation, continue to this day, being still called at Rome basiliche. A Christian basilica consisted of four principal parts :

— 1. IlpJi/aos, the vestibule of entrance. 2. News, navis9 and sometimes gremium, the nave or centre aisle, which was divided from the two side ones by a row of columns on each of its sides. Here the people assembled for the purposes of worship. 3. "AjLtSoof (from cw/a§cui/eiv, to ascend), chorus (the choir), and suggestum, a part of the lower extremity of the nave raised above the general level of the floor by a flight of steps. 4. ‘lepaTeTo^, iepbv /3/7,ua, sanctuarimn^ which answered to the tribune of the ancient basilica. In the centre of this sanctuary was placed the high altar, under a taber­nacle or canopy, such as still remains in the basilica of St. John of Lateran, at Rome; at which the priest officiated with his face turned towards the people. Around this altar, and in the wings of the sanctuarium, were seats for the assistant clergy, with an elevated chair for the bishop at the bottom of the circle in the centre. (Theatr. Basil. Pisan. cura Josep. Marl. Canon, iii. p. 8 ; Ciainp. Vet. Men. i. ii. et De Sacr. Ed. ; Stieglitz, Arch’dol. d. Baukunst, vol. iii. pp. 19, &c ; Hir.t. Lelire d. Ge-b’dude^ pp. 180, &c ; Bunsen, Die Basiliken des Christlichen Roms, Munich, 1844.) [A. R.]

BASl’LICA. About a. d. 876, the Greek emperor Basilius, the Macedonian, commenced this work, which was completed by his son Leo, the philosopher, who reigned from a. d. 886 to 911. Before the reign of Basilius, there iiad been several Greek translations of the Pandect, the Code, and the Institutes ; but there was no autho­rised Greek version of them. The numerous Con­stitutions of Justinian’s successors, and the contra­dictory interpretations of the jurists, were a further reason for publishing a revised Greek text under the imperial authority. This great work was called ‘AvaKdQap(ris rcov iraAat&v vo^wv, rb ||t/-K.ovTa.§igiov, 6 fiaffiXiKos (vo/xos) and to, (3a(TiiKd. It was revised by the order of Constantinus Por-phyrogenneta, about a. d. 945. The Basilica com­prised the Institutes, Pandect, Code, the Novellae, and the imperial Constitutions subsequent to the time of Justinian, in sixty books, which are subdi­vided into titles. For the Institutes the paraphrase of Th :ophilus was used, for the Digest the TrAaros of Stephanus, and the commentary of Cyrillus and of an anonymous author, for the Code the Kara

•rrrfSas of Thalelaeus and the work of Theodoras, and for the Novellae, except the 168, the Summae of Theodoras, Athanasius, and Philoxenus. The publication of this authorised body of law in the Greek language led to the gradual disuse of the original compilations of Justinian in the East. But the Roman law was thus more firmly established in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, where it has maintained itself among the Greek population to the present day.

The arrangement of the matter in the Basilica is as follows : —All the matter relating to a given subject is selected from the Corpus Juris ; the extracts from the Pandect are placed first under each title, then the constitutions of the Code, and next in order the provisions contained in the Insti­tutes and the Novellae, which confirm or complete t&e provisions of the Pandect. The Basilica does

BAXA.

not contain all that the Corpus Juris contains ; tat it contains numerous fragments of the opinions of ancient jurists, and of imperial Constitutions, which are not in the Corpus Juris.

The Basilica were published, with a Latin ver­sion, by Fabrot, Paris, 1647, seven vols. folio. Fabrot published only thirty-six books complete, and six others incomplete: the other books were made up from an extract from the Basilica and the Scholiasts. Four of the deficient books were after­wards found in MS., .and published by Gerhaid Meerman, with a translation by M. Otto Reitz, in the fifth volume of his Thesaurus Juris Civilis et Canonici; and they were also published separately in London, in 1765, folio, as a supplement to Fabrot’s edition. A new critical edition, by C. Guil. E. Heimbach, Leipzig, 1833, &c., 4to., has been commenced. (Booking, Institutionen^ vol. i. p. 105.)

BASTERNA,a kind of litter (teW) in which women were -carried in the time of the Roman em­perors. It appears to have resembled the lectica [lectica] very closely • and the only difference apparently was, that the lectica was carried by slaves, and the basterna by two mules. Several etymologies of the word have been proposed. Sal-masius supposes it to be derived from the Greek Pao-rdfa (Salm. ad Lamprid. Heliog. 21). A de­scription of a basterna is given by a poet in the Anfli. Lat. iii. 183.

BAXA, or BAXEA, a sandal made of vege­table leaves, twigs, or fibres. According to Isidore (Orig. xix. 33), this kind of sandal was worn on the stage by comic, whilst the cothurnus was ap­propriate to tragic actors. When, therefore, one of the characters in Plautus (Men. ii. 3. 40) says, Qui extergentur baxae ? we may suppose him to point to the sandals on his feet. Philosophers also wore sandals of this description, at least in the time of Tertullian (De Pallio, 4) and Appuleius (Met. ii. and xi.), and probably for the sake of sim­plicity and cheapness. Isidore adds, that baxeae were made of willow (ex salice), and that they were also called calones; and he thinks that the latter term was derived from the Greek /caoi/, wood. From numerous specimens of them dis­covered in the catacombs, we perceive that the Egyptians made them of palm-leaves and papyrus. (Wilkinson, Manners and Customs^ vol. iii. p. 336.) They are sometimes observable on the feet of Egyptian statues. According to Herodotus, san­dals of papyrus (uTroS^/xara /3ugAu>a, ii. 37) were a part of the required and characteristic dress of the Egyptian priests. We may presume that he intended his words to include not only sandals made, strictly speaking, of papyrus, but those also in which the leaves of the date-palm were an in­gredient, and of which Appnleius makes distinct mention, when he describes a young priest covered with a linen sheet and wearing sandals of palm (lintels amiculis intectum, pedesque palmeis baxeis indutum, Met. ii). The accompanying woodcut shows two sandals exactly answering to this de­scription, from the collection in the British Museum. The upper one was worn on the right foot. It has a loop on the right side for fastening the band which went across the instep. This band, together with the ligature connected with it, which was in­serted between the great and the second toe, is made of the stem of the papyrus, undivided "and unwrought. The lower figure shows a; sandal in;