The Basilica housed the civil law courts and tabernae (shops), and provided space for government offices and banking. In the 1st century, it also was used for sessions of the Centumviri ("Court of the Hundred"), who presided over matters of inheritance. 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. Suetonius states that Caligula greatly enjoyed showering the crowd in the forum below with money while standing on the roof of the Basilica Julia.