The Tabularium was the official records office of ancient Rome and housed the offices of many city officials. Situated within the Roman Forum, it was on the front slope of the Capitoline Hill, below the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, to the southeast of the Arx. Within the building were the remains of the temple of Veiovis. In front of it were the Temples of Vespasian and Concord, as well as the Rostra and the rest of the forum. Presently the Tabularium is only accessible from within the Capitoline Museum, although it still provides a panoramic view over the Forum. The construction of the Tabularium was ordered around 78 BC by the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla. The building was completed by Quintus Lutatius Catulus, consul in 78 BC. This was part of a public works programme for the redevelopment of the Capitoline Hill, which had been damaged by a fire in 83 BC. The construction by Catulus is not mentioned in the ancient literature. It is known through an inscription (CIL 1). Architecture The building itself had a facade of peperino and travertine blocks. The interior vaults are of concrete. Its great corridor, long, raised above the forum on a massive substructure, is still partly preserved. This corridor was lighted through a series of arches divided by semi-detached columns of the Doric order, the earliest example of this class of decoration, which is in the Theatre of Marcellus, the Colosseum, and all the great amphitheatres throughout the Roman empire constituted the decorative treatment of the wall surface and gave scale to the structure. The facade faced the back of the Temple of Concord in the Forum and consisted of three levels. The first story was a large and tall fortified wall with a single door and only small windows near the top to light the interior, forum level rooms. The second story featured a Doric arcade (partially preserved) and the third, no longer extant story, had a high Corinthian order colonnade. The upper floors of this structure was much changed in the 13th century, when the Palazzo dei Senatori was built. Some scholars, such as Filippo Coarelli, in the past, have suggested that the Tabularium itself is unattested to in any literary sources. Furthermore, its function and purpose has been the subject of debate. The unity of the main structure does however suggest that the building was at least initially