Porticus

It remains therefore to speculate on the form of the church: whether we located north and south aisles beyond the nave or whether these are porticuses is not clear. The church could have been fully aisled, or it might have had shorter aisles extending to the east end, or just flanking porticuses.

Most early masonry churches were of a simple plan consisting of a nave, and sometimes a chancel, porticuses (in a cellular plan church) or transepts (in an integrated plan church), and a tower. Porticuses (porticūs: sing porticus) were lateral chambers.

Early churches could have any number of porticuses, but it was common for small churches to have two, one on the north side, and one on the south side of the nave, amounting to rudimentary transepts. […] Morris’s translation refers to “three porches” and he omits ‘built on the outside’ (Morris 1967: 124). Since ModE porch indicates a covered approach to the entrance of a building, and since porticuses were usually only accessible from inside the church, this translation is misleading.

Only the nave survives but it is not difficult to imagine the apse at the east end, and the small porticuses to the north and south.

It lay between the Circus Flaminius and the theatre of Marcellus, occupying the same site as the porticus which was built by Q. Caecilius Metellus, after his triumph over Macedonia, in b. c. 146 [Metellus, No. 5], and enclosing, as the porticus of Metellus had done, the two temples of Jupiter Stator and of Juno. […] He built a magnificent house on the Palatine, which, according to Cicero (de Off. i. 39), contributed to his election to the consulship, and he also erected a beautiful porticus, which is spoken of below. […] The porticus erected by Cn. Octavius was called Porticus Octavia, and must be carefully distinguished from the Porticus Octaviae, built by Augustus in the name of his sister. […] In the Notitia we have mention of a Minucia Vetus et Frumentaria, whence it is doubtful whether two different porticus or only one is intended.

Mr. Codd agrees that this Roman porticus must have been an arcade, with the columns of which we have the bases attached to the square piers; this was a usual Roman construction, and the two bases at an angle (one of them partly inserted in the other) would belong to this plan, the wide distance apart of the bases also confirms the idea that they stood against arches.

At the eastern end of the porticus is a square room of 14 feet, brick flues, painted stucco. […] Standing in the western porticus, and looking eastward, you have the river before you (within the distance of 180 yards), which, after winding below a rocky bank to the left and passing by the front of the villa, turns suddenly to the east, close under a hanging wood, on the steep side of the hill before mentioned. […] The entrance of this villa seems to have been on the east front, into a narrow porticus, or rather crypto-porticus, about fifty-four feet in length and eight wide, with painted walls and a tesselated pavement; […]

This [the Forum of Trajan] was a large square with porticuses on three sides, and the Basilica, called Ulpia, from Trajan’s family name, on the N. side. […] Colonnades.—It is scarcely possible to image anything so perfectly adapted to the front of the basilica, or so well contrived to conceal the buildings on each side of the piazza, as these noble porticuses.