AUDĪTŌRĬUM

as the name implies, is any place for hearing. It was the practice among the Romans for poets and others to read their compositions to their friends, who were sometimes called the auditorium; but the word was also used to expre any place in which any thing was heard, and under the empire it was applied to a court of justice. Under the republic the place for all judicial proceedings was the comitium and the forum. But for the sake of shelter and convenience it became the practice to hold courts in the Basilicae, which contained halls, which were also called auditoria. It is first under M. Aurelius that the auditorium principis is mentioned, by which we must understand a hall or room in the imperial residence; and in such a hall Septimius Severus and the later emperors held their regular sittings when they presided as judges. The latest jurists use the word generally for any place in which justice was administered.