Roman Forum

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The Roman Forum

This page refers to the main forum in the centre of Rome. See Imperial forums or Other forums in Rome (below) for other forums in Rome and other Roman provincial cities.

See Forum (Roman) for the type of building.

The Roman Forum Forum Romanum, (although the Romans called it more often the Forum Magnum or just the Forum) was the central area around which ancient Rome developed, in which commerce and the administration of justice took place. The communal hearth was also located here.

Sequences of remains of paving show that sediment eroded from the surrounding hills was already raising the level of the forum in early Republican times. Originally it had been marshy ground, which was drained by the Tarquins with the Cloaca Maxima. Its final travertine paving, still visible, dates from the reign of Augustus.

Roman Forum with Palatine Hill in the background. The arch at the front left is the Arch of Septimius Severus, while on the right the three-columned Temple of Vespasian and Titus stands in front of the Temple of Saturn.

Roman Forum: Temple of Vespasian on the left, Arch of Septimus Severus behind the remains of the Temple of Saturn in the foreground. On the right are the three columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Palatine Hill, and slightly to the left of these is the Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Miranda. In the distance, the Colosseum and the Arch of Titus are visible.

1 Structures within the Forum
2 Excavation and preservation
3 Other forums in Rome
4 External links

[edit] Structures within the Forum

The ruins within the forum clearly show how urban spaces were utilized during the Roman Age. The Roman Forum includes a statue of the late Caesar and the following major monuments, buildings, and ancient ruins:

Map of central Rome during the Roman Empire, with Forum Holitorium and Forum Boarium shown at bottom middle

The remains of the Temple of Vesta.

Temples
Basilicas
Arches
Other
- Regia
- Rostra, from where politicians made their speeches to the Roman citizens
- Curia Hostilia (later rebuilt as the Curia Julia), the site of the Roman Senate
- Tabularium
- Clivus Capitolinus was the street that started at the Arch of Tiberius, wound around the Temple of Saturn, and ended at Capitoline Hill.
- Umbilicus Urbi
- Lapis Niger, a shrine also known as the Black Stone
- Atrium Vestae, the house of the Vestal Virgins
- A processional street, the Via Sacra, linked the Atrium Vetae with the Colosseum. By the end of the Empire, it had lost its everyday use but remained a sacred place.
- Column of Phocas, the last monument built within the Forum

[edit] Excavation and preservation

Campo Vaccino, by Claude Lorrain.

Campo Vaccino by Herman van Swanevelt.

The column erected in honour of the Byzantine emperor Phocas, 608: the last addition to the Roman Forum

An anonymous 8th century traveler from Einsiedeln (now in Switzerland) reported that the Forum was already falling apart in his time. During the Middle Ages, though the memory of the Forum Romanum persisted, its monuments were for the most part buried under debris, and its location was designated the "Campo Vaccino" or "cattle field," located between the Capitoline Hill and the Colosseum. The return of Pope Urban V from Avignon in 1367 led to an increased interest in ancient monuments, partly for their moral lesson and partly as a quarry for new buildings being undertaken in Rome after a long lapse. Artists from the late 15th century drew the ruins in the Forum, antiquaries copied inscriptions in the 16th century, and a tentative excavation was begun in the late 18th century.

A cardinal took measures to drain it again and built the Alessandrine neighborhood over it. But the excavation by Carlo Fea, who began clearing the debris from the Arch of Septimius Severus in 1803, and archaeologists under the Napoleonic regime marked the beginning of clearing the Forum, which was only fully excavated in the early 20th century.

Currently, remains from several centuries are shown together, due to the Roman practice of building over earlier ruins.

[edit] Other forums in Rome

See also: Category:Forums of Rome

Other fora existed in other areas of the city; remains of most of them, sometimes substantial, still exist. The most important of these are a number of large imperial fora forming a complex with the Forum Romanum: the Forum Iulium, Forum Augustum, the Forum Transitorium (also: Forum Nervae), and Trajan's Forum. The planners of the Mussolini era removed most of the Medieval and Baroque strata and built the Via dei Fori Imperiali road between the Imperial Fora and the Forum. There is also:

The Forum Boarium, dedicated to the commerce of cattle, between the Palatine Hill and the river Tiber,
The Forum Holitorium, dedicated to the commerce of herbs and vegetables, between the Capitoline Hill and the Servian walls,
The Forum Piscarium, dedicated to the commerce of fish, between the Capitoline hill and the Tiber, in the area of the current Roman Ghetto,
The Forum Suarium, dedicated to the commerce of pork, near the barracks of the cohortes urbanae in the northern part of the campus Martius,
The Forum Vinarium, dedicated to the commerce of wine, in the area now of the "quartiere" Testaccio, between Aventine Hill and the Tiber.

Other markets were known but remain unidentifiable due to a lack of precise information on the function of the sites. Among these, the Forum cuppedinis, was known as a general market for many goods.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Roman Forum

[edit] Comprehensive sites

"The Digital Forum", 3D reconstructions of the Roman Forum in ca. 400
Christian Hülsen: The Roman Forum (at LacusCurtius; Hülsen was one of the principal excavators of the Forum)