Roman Forum

What is there today

The Forum is, in the words of its English Wikipedia article, “a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archaeological excavations”. It reads best walked from one end to the other, taking the standing monuments as landmarks.

The west end, under the Capitoline. The white marble Arch of Septimius Severus, dedicated in 203 for the emperor’s victories over the Parthians, stands at the Forum’s north-western corner; references to Geta were removed from it after his brother Caracalla had him killed (en.wikipedia). Beside it are the Rostra, the speakers’ platform named after the rams of enemy warships captured in 338 BC, and, behind them, the Umbilicus Urbis, the symbolic centre of the city, now a brick core about 2 m high (en.wikipedia). The black paving of the Lapis Niger covers an altar and one of the earliest known Latin inscriptions, from around 570–550 BC (en.wikipedia). At the foot of the hill stand the ruins of the Temple of Saturn and the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, begun by Titus in 79 and completed by Domitian about 87 (en.wikipedia), and the Portico Dii Consentes, re-erected in 1835 (en.wikipedia). Above them, the Tabularium, Rome’s record office, can now be reached only from inside the Capitoline Museums, and still gives a panoramic view over the Forum (en.wikipedia). The Curia Julia, the senate house completed by Augustus in 29 BC, is one of the few Roman buildings that survive mostly intact, because it became a church in the 7th century; its roof, upper side walls and rear façade date from a remodelling in the 1930s (en.wikipedia). At the foot of the Capitoline, beneath the church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami, is the Mamertine Prison, the ancient Tullianum (en.wikipedia).

The square and its long sides. Of the Basilica Julia, begun by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, the excavations show foundations and corner walls of the Augustan building with pillars, plinths and columns from Diocletian’s rebuilding (en.wikipedia). Of the Basilica Aemilia only fragments of the plan and colonnade remain; part of its sculpted frieze is shown in the cloister of Santa Francesca Romana (en.wikipedia). Between the Basilica Aemilia and the Curia, the Argiletum left the Forum, the street of the booksellers that ran through the Subura; under the emperors its first stretch was replaced by the Forum of Nerva, and its line is today’s Via Leonina and Via della Madonna dei Monti (it.wikipedia; en.wikipedia). West of the basilica’s steps, a circular marble base is all that is left of the Shrine of Venus Cloacina (it.wikipedia). At the south-east corner, the Temple of Castor and Pollux, first built in gratitude for the victory at Lake Regillus, stands beside the Spring of Juturna, a sacred pool and shrine (en.wikipedia; it.wikipedia; Pleiades). A single tall column on the square honoured the Byzantine emperor Phocas in 608 and was the last monument put up in the Forum (the operator).

The east end, towards the Colosseum. The remains of the altar of the Temple of Caesar, built by Augustus for the deified Julius Caesar, are still a place of pilgrimage: flowers are left there daily, and on 15 March there are commemorations (en.wikipedia; Pleiades). Close by are the foundations of the Regia, the kings’ house and later the office of the chief priest; the round Temple of Vesta, where the sacred fire was kept, its ruins showing Corinthian columns; and, behind it, the House of the Vestal Virgins (en.wikipedia). The Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, later converted into the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda (en.wikipedia), still stands to its full height, its columns in front of the church façade. Further on are the Temple of Romulus, built by Maxentius for his son (Pleiades; the operator), and the Basilica of Maxentius, the largest building in the Forum when it was built and the last Roman basilica in the city (en.wikipedia). The Arch of Titus, put up by Domitian around 81, carries reliefs of the triumph of 71 after the fall of Jerusalem, among the few contemporary images of objects from the Temple in Jerusalem (en.wikipedia). Beyond it, the Temple of Venus and Roma, begun by Hadrian in 121, is thought to have been the largest temple in ancient Rome (en.wikipedia). At the foot of the Palatine, Santa Maria Antiqua, built in the 5th century, is the oldest Christian monument in the Forum and holds the earliest Roman image of the Virgin as a queen, from the 6th century (en.wikipedia).