welcome to the forum of rome
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This is the heart of the City, the reality of what it means to be a citizen of Rome. Here stand reminders of all aspects of Rome’s legends and history, its darkest as well as its most glorious moments. Here Romans live out to the full the privileges of citizenship : their relationship to their rulers, their heroes, their gods, to their institutions as well as to neighbouring peoples and lands. Over the centuries, the Forum has developed from a murky bog into a world-famous district resplendent with monuments whose very name echoes in cities on every continent.
The Making of the Forum
Faustulus discovers Romulus and Remus |
Here, according to legend, in a thin outflowing of the Tiber, the basket bearing the infant twins Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars and Rhea Silvia, was stopped by the roots of a fig tree growing next to a grotto. The infants were suckled by a lupa1 until taken in by the shepherd Faustulus and his wife Larentia.2 Another legend says that on this same spot Romulus, first King of Rome, met his end, killed by the senators. They immediately claimed he had been taken up to the heavens and deified.3 The sacred and mysterious Lapis Niger shows the world the spot where he fell.4 Romulus became Quirinus.5 As for the fig tree, which we Romans call the Ficus Ruminalis, it was replanted and now stands in the Comitium.
Rome was as yet little more than a group of hilltop villages inhabited by peasants and landlords when L. Tarquinius Priscus [Tarquin the Elder] initiated a prodigious engineering project in what was still just an inundated field. Thanks to his Cloaca Maxima, the marsh between the Capitoline Hill to the northwest, the Palatine to the southeast and the slopes of the Quirinal to the northeast was drained, giving birth to the Forum. Souvenirs of its Tiber-drenched past are the Lacus Curtius and the health-giving waters of the Lacus Iuturna next to the Temple of Castor. The resulting dry, open space forms a roughly rectangular area, the base in the southwest jutting into the Capitoline Hill. The narrow valley between the Capitoline and the Palatine which we Romans call the Velabrum and which fans out to the Tiber was also drained and opened to development. It is delimited by the vicus Iugarius on the west side and the vicus Tuscus on the east. [For convenience’s sake, the Velabrum is comprised in AncientWorlds’ Forum Romanum, see map below.] When Rome evolved into an empire, its princes added more fora in the northwest sector up to the slopes of the Quirinal Hill.
1 Lupa, Latin for a female wolf. In ancient Latin slang, the same word meant prostitute.
2 Some modern historians postulate that Faustulus’ wife was herself a lupa (prostitute).
3 This is one of multiple legends concerning the fate of Romulus.
4 There were also multiple legends concerning this stone. Faustulus was said to have been killed on this spot. Others claimed it marked the tomb of Hostus Hostilius, the grandfather of Tullus Hostilius, third king of Rome.
5 The confusion between Romulus and Quirinus was common in late Antiquity. Originally, Quirinus was a Sabine deity. The word has the same root as the name Curites used to mean Romans. It is possible that Quirinus was “Romanised” into Romulus in order to “tidy up” the cultural origins of Rome.
AncientWorlds’ district of the Forum
Romanum, including the Velabrum |
The Portus Tiberinus, the Forum Boarium (left) and the temple of
Hercules ; in the background (upper right,) the Circus Maximus |
Kings, Senators and Gods
Civic life in Rome took root in the Forum with the Comitium which includes the Curia, the building where senators gather to debate on public affairs. Official archives are kept in the Tabularium which backs into the Capitoline Hill. Ordinary citizens are not excluded from civic actions. Lawyers and their clients pour in and out of the Forum all day long. The centumviri, our city’s college of judices, meet in the Basilica Julia where dozens of cases are argued each day. It is where you would expect to see the Tribunes and the Magistratus. Bordering on the Comitium is the platform called the Rostra where citizens can voice their opinions and concerns. Which is why this space has witnessed many a moving, even sinister episode of Roman history : the lying-in-state of Julius Caesar ; the severed head and hands of M. Tullius Cicero.
Vestal Virgin |
In Rome, non-citizens are also permitted to speak in public. They do so on a different platform called the Graecostatis. Those, however, who would wilfully harm Rome and flaunt its laws, are thrown into the Carcer while senators deliberate on their fate.
The gods keep watch over each and every act of everyday life. Some of the earliest and most awe-inspiring shrines to our most sacred Latin or Sabine divinities are to be found here.
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A Few Festivities in the Forum |
| 1 Ian. |
Festival
of Ianus |
10 Aug. |
Ceres and
Ops |
| 11 Ian. |
Iuturnalia |
17 Aug. |
Portunalia |
| 15 Feb. |
Lupercalia |
23 Aug. |
Volcanalia |
| 24 Feb. |
Regifugium |
13 Oct. |
Fontanalia |
| 9 Iun. |
Vestalia |
15 Oct. |
Equus Oct.
Race |
| 15 Iul. |
transvectio
equitum |
17 Dec. |
Saturnalia |
| 22 Iul. |
Festival of
Concordia |
19 Dec. |
Opalia |
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The Regia, seat of the rex sacrorum, contains two sanctuaries, one for Mars and one for Ops Consiva, goddess of Abundance. There is a second altar for Ops and one for Ceres in the vicus Iugarius. Only the Pontifex Maximus and the Vestal Virgins may enter the sanctuaries in the Regia. The Forum is home to Ianus Geminus, guardian of passages - he welcomed Saturn to Latium when the ancient Titan was driven out of Greece. It is home to the Volcanal, the ancient open-air altar to Vulcan ; to the Public Penates whose temple is sited along the Clivus Sacer ; to Vesta and her sacred virgins, as well as the space where those who violated the vow of chastity were interred alive. At the western extremity of the Forum rises the Temple of Saturn, the oldest temple building in Rome. The Temple of Castor and that of Concordia, commemorating early struggles that marked the city’s growth, followed by many others over the centuries, all contribute to the grandeur of the Forum and serve to unite gods and men for the preservation and prosperity of Rome.
Open For Business
Aureus depicting the Forum of Trajan |
From earliest times, the Forum has served as a commercial centre. People dwelling inland travelled to the mouth of the Tiber in order to obtain salt. Farmers and herdsmen sold them their local produce. In the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, once the area had been drained the thanks to the Cloaca Maxima, a group of shops called the Tabernae Lanienae - later dubbed Tabernae Veteres lined the southwest side. They were in use for over five hundred years before Divus Julius had them torn down in order to erect his Basilica Julia. With the advent of the Republic, Tabernae Novae - also called Tabernae Argentariae or Tabernae Plebeiae - rose up, aligned symmetrically opposite the Tabernae Veteres. These were used until the building of the Basilica Aemilia. Other modifications over the years have altered the type of business conducted in the Forum today. With the construction of the Forum Boarium near the banks of the Tiber, the butchers and meat markets have moved out of the Forum to be replaced by more elegant counters : bankers, money-changers, merchants of gold, jewellery and other fine objects imported from far abroad. As Rome’s world hegemony increases, more and more foreign merchants are opening shop in the Forum, so conveniently reached long ago by the Portus Tiberinus, Rome’s small ancient port, and (more frequently nowadays) by the port of Ostia. The need for more shops has been met by the emperors themselves. Through their generosity, and with an eye to beautifying the city, we have the Forum of Caesar, the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Nerva and the Forum of Trajan. These were not just markets. Here there were libraries, shrines and galleries.
The Imperial Fora. Click for full-size map
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Via Sacra ; the Arch of Titus |
Visiting the
fora each with over a hundred shops, plus the other market-places around the Forum, is one of the reasons this area remains such a lively place day and night all through the year. In fact, for virtually all of their commercial (and legal) affairs, Romans go to the Forum. Residents of the eastern Campus Martius can reach the Forum through the Fontinal Gate in the Servian Wall, arriving on the Clivus Argentarius. This road passes along the imperial
fora, past the
Gemonian Stairs to the arch of Septimius Severus. Those fortunate enough to live on the Palatine can simply take the Nova Via and the
Via Sacra. From the Subura, access is through the Argiletum which links with the two roads vicus Longus and Clivus Suburanus.
All roads do indeed lead to Rome... which is why all distances are calculated from the
Milliarum Aureum set up by Augustus right here in front of the
Temple of Saturn.
Their Memory Lives
So many unforgettable events that shaped Rome’s destiny were played out in the Forum. Some of them were grandiose. Others were tragic. For example, the sight of the blood-stained body of Lucretia, that epitome of womanly virtue.
“[The household] besought the gods to assist them in the pursuit of their holy and just aims, and then went to the Forum. They were followed by their slaves, who carried upon a bier spread with black cloth the body of Lucretia, unprepared for burial and stained with blood; and directing them to place it in a high and conspicuous position before the senate-house, they called an assembly of the people.”
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. IV |
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That gruesome spectacle, followed by Lucius Junius Brutus’ speech to the people of Rome, spelled the end of the monarchy and the start of the Republic. Another body, that of Divus Julius himself, was also exposed in the Forum before his funeral pyre was reduced to ashes ; Romans remember that he had refused the diadem, that despicable symbol of monarchy....
The Forum has seen its share of murders too. Witness the ignominous
Year of the Four Emperors : in January of that year, the emperor Galba and the Caesar L. Calpurnius Piso Licinianus were both treacherously ambushed and butchered, one near the
Lacus Curtius, the other on the threshold of the
Temple of Vesta. And in December, the emperor Vitellius was bound and paraded through the Forum by a pitiless, jeering crowd before meeting a similar miserable end.
L. Junius Brutus |
a gladiator show |
Emperor Vitellius |
But not all events in the Forum are so tragic. During the Lupercalia, nearly naked young men race through the Forum with leather lanae, striking at the women who throw themselves in their path, the mark of the thongs a promise of painless fertility. The first gladiatorial games in Rome were held in the Forum Boarium as a part of the munera for the funeral of Junius Brutus Pera. In the summer, the equestrians gather for the annual transvectio equitum, the breath-taking procession that has them ride through the Forum to the temple of Jupiter at the summit of the Capitoline Hill.
But perhaps the thing that we all enjoy the best about the Forum is that it is where Romans go to meet people. All kinds of people. From every corner of the globe ! And from all walks of life.
“In case you wish to meet a perjurer, go to the Comitium; for a liar and braggart, try the temple of Venus Cloacina; for wealthy married wasters, the Basilica. There too will be harlots, well-ripened ones, and men ready for a bargain, while at the Fish-market are the members of eating clubs. In the lower forum citizens of repute and wealth stroll about; in the middle forum, near the Canal, there you find the merely showy set. Above the Lake are those brazen, garrulous, spiteful fellows who boldly decry other people without reason and are open to plenty of truthful criticism themselves.”
T. Maccius Plautus, Curculio |
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So for either business or pleasure, the Forum is best equipt to cater to your requirements. Whether it be under the
arch of the Fabii or any other arch in the Forum, whether it be in a basilica, a portico, at the edge of the Tiber or the edge of the waters of the
Meta Sudans, may you encounter many other travellers, Romans or non, may you find new friends, and may the gods grant you everything your heart might desire !
mauricius fabius
Last edited Oct MMXI
