[1] The first iteration of the Basilica Julia was begun around 54 BC by Julius Caesar, though it was left to his heir Augustus to complete the construction and name it in honor of his adoptive father.

The Basilica Sempronia was built in 169 BC by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and required the demolition of the house of Africanus and a number of shops to make room.

[7] The Basilica's façade as it appeared after the Augustan restoration was two stories high and arcaded, with engaged Carrara marble columns decorating the piers between the arches on both levels.

In his Epistles, Pliny the Younger describes the scene as he pleaded for a senatorial lady whose 80-year-old father had disinherited her ten days after taking a new wife.

One stone, on the upper tier of the side facing the Curia, is marked with an eight by eight square grid on which games similar to chess or checkers could have been played.

The last recorded restoration of the Basilica Julia was undertaken by the Urban Prefect Gabinius Vettius Probianus in 416 AD, who also relocated several Greek statues by the sculptors Polykleitos and Timarchus for display near the center of the façade.

[5] Part of the remains of the basilica were converted into a church, generally identified as that of Santa Maria de Cannapara which is mentioned in catalogues from the 12th through the 15th centuries.

The earliest excavations of the Basilica Julia in the late 15th and 16th centuries were destructive, their main purpose being to recover valuable travertine and marble for re-use.