t Temple of Saturn (right) and the Temple of Castor and Pollux (left)
The Roman Forum was the scene of public meetings, law courts and gladiatorial combats and was lined with shops and open-air markets. It was also the site of many of the city’s key temples and monuments.
t Temple of Saturn (right) and the Temple of Castor and Pollux (left)
In the early days of the Republic, the Forum was like a large piazza – a hive of social activity – containing shops, food stalls, temples and the Senate House. By the 2nd century BC it was decided that Rome required a more salubrious centre, and the food stalls were replaced by business centres and law courts. The Forum remained the ceremonial centre of the city under the Empire. Emperors repeatedly renovated old buildings and erected new temples and monuments.
To appreciate the layout of the Forum before visiting its confusing patchwork of ruined temples and basilicas, it is best to view the whole area from above, from the Piazza del Campidoglio. Excavation of the Forum continues, and the ruins uncovered date from many different periods of Roman history.
Experience Forum and Palatine
t Plan showing the key buildings of the Roman Forum
Insider Tips
The quietest times to visit the Roman Forum are early morning or late afternoon. Holders of a Roma Pass enter the Forum via a special, faster queue. Hire an audio guide (€5), which can be purchased with your ticket, or check out the various apps online. For a quieter experience, the Palatine is invariably much less crowded.
t Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius, once the largest building in the Forum
This building was once a rectangular colonnaded hall, with a multicoloured marble floor and a bronze-tiled roof. It was built by the consuls Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Marcus Fulvius Nobilor in 179 BC. The two consuls, who were elected annually, exercised supreme power over the Republic.
Basilicas in ancient Rome served no religious purpose; they were meeting halls for politicians, moneylenders and publicani (businessmen contracted by the state to collect taxes). A consortium agreed to hand over a specified sum to the state, but its members were allowed to collect as much as they could and keep the difference. This is why tax-collectors in the Bible were so loathed.
The basilica was rebuilt many times; it was finally burned down when the Visigoths sacked Rome in AD 410.
t The Curia, or the Court of Rome, rebuilt by Diocletian in the 3rd century
A modern restoration now stands over the ruins of the hall where Rome’s Senate (chief council of state) used to meet. The first Curia stood on the site now occupied by the church of Santi Luca e Martina, but after the building was destroyed by fire in 52 BC, Julius Caesar built a new Curia at the edge of the Forum. This was restored by Domitian in AD 94 and, after another fire, rebuilt by Diocletian in the 3rd century. The current building is a 1937 restoration of Diocletian’s Curia. Inside are two relief panels commissioned by Trajan to decorate the Rostra.
Speeches were delivered from this dais, the most famous (thanks to Shakespeare) being Mark Antony’s “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” oration after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Caesar himself had just reorganized the Forum and this speech was made from the newly sited Rostra, where the ruins now stand. In the following year the head and hands of Cicero were put on show here after he was put to death by the second Triumvirate (Augustus, Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus). Fulvia, Mark Antony’s wife, stabbed the great orator’s tongue with a hairpin.
The dais took its name from the ships’ prows (rostra) with which it was decorated. Sheathed in iron (for ramming enemy vessels), these came from ships captured at the Battle of Antium in 338 BC.
Experience Forum and Palatine
Business seems to have carried on until the last minute at the Basilica Aemilia. You can still spot Roman coins melted into its pavement from the 5th century AD when the Visigoths invaded and set it on fire.
t The Arch of Septimius Severus, one of the best-preserved ruins
This triumphal arch was built in AD 203 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the accession of Septimius Severus. The relief panels – largely eroded – celebrate the emperor’s victories in Parthia (modern-day Iraq and Iran) and Arabia. Originally, the inscription along the top of the arch was to Septimius and his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, but after Septimius died Caracalla murdered Geta, and had his brother’s name removed. Even so, the holes into which the letters of his name were pegged are still visible.
The most prominent of the ruins in the fenced-off area between the Forum and the Capitoline Hill is the Temple of Saturn. It consists of a high platform, eight columns and a section of entablature. There was a temple dedicated to Saturn here as early as 497 BC, but it had to be rebuilt many times and the current remains date only from 42 BC.
Saturn was the mythical god-king of Italy, said to have presided over a prosperous and peaceful Golden Age from which slavery, private property, crime and war were absent. As such, he appealed particularly to the lower and slave classes. Every year, between 17 December and 23 December, Saturn’s reign was remembered in a week of sacrifices and feasting, known as the Saturnalia. As long as the revels lasted, the normal social order was turned upside down. Slaves were permitted to drink and dine with (and sometimes even be served by) their masters. Senators and other high-ranking Romans would abandon the aristocratic togas that they usually wore to distinguish themselves from the lower classes and wear more democratic, loose-fitting gowns. During the holidays, all the courts of law and schools in the city were closed. No prisoner could be punished, and no war could be declared. People also celebrated the Saturnalia in their own homes: they exchanged gifts and played light-hearted gambling games, the stakes usually being nuts, a symbol of fruit-fulness. Much of the spirit and many of the rituals of the Saturnalia have been preserved in the Christian celebration of Christmas.
This column is one of the few to have remained upright since the day it was put up. It is the youngest of the Forum’s monuments, erected in AD 608 in honour of the Byzantine emperor, Phocas, who had just paid a visit to Rome. The column may have been placed here as a mark of gratitude to Phocas for giving the Pantheon to the pope.
t Remains of the Basilica Julia, a Roman court of civil law
This immense basilica was begun by Julius Caesar in 54 BC and completed after his death by his great-nephew Augustus. It was damaged by fire almost immediately afterwards in 9 BC, but was subsequently repaired. After numerous sackings only the steps, pavement and column stumps remain. The basilica had a central hall, surrounded by a double portico. The hall was on three floors, while the outer portico had only two.
The Basilica Julia was the seat of the centumviri, a body of 180 magistrates who tried civil law cases. They were split into four chambers of 45 men, and unless a case was very complicated they would all sit separately. The four courts were divided only by screens or curtains. Lawyers hired crowds of spectators, who applauded every time the lawyer who was paying them made a point and jeered at his opponents. Scratched into the steps are gameboards where the clappers and booers played dice and other gambling games to while away the time between cases.
t The Temple of Vesta was circular in shape and had 20 Corinthian columns
The Forum’s most elegant temple, a circular building originally surrounded by a ring of 20 fine fluted columns, dates from the 4th century AD, though there had been a temple on the site for far longer. It was partially reconstructed in 1930.
As soon as a girl became a Vestal she came to live in the House of the Vestal Virgins. This was once an enormous complex with about 50 rooms on three storeys. The only remains today are some of the rooms around the central courtyard. This space is perhaps the most evocative part of the Forum. Overlooking ponds of water lilies and goldfish is a row of eroded, and mostly headless, statues of senior Vestals, dating from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The better-preserved examples are in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.
Vestal Virgins had their hair cut off and hung on a lotus tree as an offering to the gods.
The three slender fluted columns of this temple form one of the Forum’s most beautiful ruins. The first temple here was probably dedicated in 484 BC in honour of the mythical twins and patrons of horsemanship, Castor and Pollux. During the battle of Lake Regillus (499 BC) against the ousted Tarquin kings, the Roman dictator Postumius promised to build a temple to the twins if the Romans were victorious. Some said the twins appeared on the battlefield, helped the Romans to victory and then materialized in the Forum – the temple marks the spot – to announce the news. The three surviving columns date from the last occasion on which the temple was rebuilt – by the Emperor Tiberius after a fire in AD 6.
One of the Forum’s oddest sights is the Baroque façade of the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda rising above the porch of a Roman temple. First dedicated in AD 141 by Emperor Antoninus Pius to his late wife Faustina, the temple was rededicated to them both on the death of the emperor. In the 11th century it was converted into a church because it was believed that San Lorenzo had been condemned to death there. The current church dates from 1601.
The cult of Vesta, the goddess of fire, dates back to at least the 8th century BC. Six virgins kept the sacred flame of Vesta burning in her circular temple. The girls, who came from noble families, were selected when they were between 6 and 10 years old, and served for 30 years. They had high status and financial security, but were buried alive if they lost their virginity and whipped by the high priest if the sacred flame died out. Although they were permitted to marry after finishing their service, few did so.
No one is exactly sure to whom the Temple of Romulus was dedicated, but it was probably to the son of Emperor Maxentius, and not to Rome’s founder.
The temple is a circular brick building, topped by a cupola, with two rectangular side rooms and a concave porch. The heavy, dull bronze doors are original.
Since the 6th century the temple has acted as a vestibule to the church of Santi Cosma e Damiano, which itself occupies an ancient building – a hall in Vespasian’s Forum of Peace. The entrance to the church is on Via dei Fori Imperiali. The beautiful carved figures of its 18th-century Neapolitan presepio (crib or Nativity scene) are on view, and the church has a vivid Byzantine apse mosaic with Christ pictured against orange clouds.
t Basilica of Contantine and Maxentius
The basilica’s three vast, coffered barrel vaults are powerful relics of what was the largest building in the Forum. Work began in AD 308 under Emperor Maxentius. When he was deposed by Constantine after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in AD 312, work on the massive project continued under the new regime. The building, which, like other Roman basilicas, was used for the admin-istration of justice and for carrying on business, is often referred to simply as the Basilica of Constantine. The area covered by the basilica was roughly 100 m by 65 m (330 ft by 215 ft). It was originally designed to have a long nave and aisles running from east to west, but Constantine switched the axis around to create three short broad aisles with the main entrance in the centre of the long south wall. The height of the bulding was 35 m (115 ft). In the apse at the western end, where it could be seen from all over the building, stood a 12 m- (39 ft-) statue of the emperor, made partly of wood and partly of marble. The giant head, hand and foot are on display in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The roof of the basilica glittered with gilded tiles until the 7th century when they were stripped off to cover the roof of the old St Peter’s.
It was not until the 18th century that excavations of the Roman Forum began, revealing what can be seen today.
This triumphal arch was erected in AD 81 by the Emperor Domitian in honour of the victories of his brother Titus and his father Vespasian in the Jewish War in Judaea. In AD 66 the Jews, who were weary of being exploited by unscrupulous Roman officials, rebelled. A bitter war broke out which ended four years later in the sacking of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem, the fall of Jerusalem after the city was completely destroyed, and the Jewish Diaspora.
Although the reliefs inside the arch are somewhat eroded, you can make out a triumphant procession of Roman soldiers carrying off spoils from the Temple of Jerusalem. The booty includes the altar, silver trumpets and the menorah, a golden seven-branched candelabrum.
t Temple of Venus and Rome, designed by Emperor Hadrian and inaugurated in 121 AD
The Emperor Hadrian designed this temple himself. The temple, thought to have been the largest and most splendid in ancient Rome, was dedicated to Roma, the personification of the city, and to Venus Felix, ancestor of the Roman people and bringer of good fortune. Each goddess had her own cella (shrine). When the architect Apollodorus allegedly pointed out that the seated statues in the niches were too big (had they tried to “stand” their heads would have hit the vaults), Hadrian had him put to death. The temple has had extensive restoration, and a number of the columns have been re-erected. There are excellent views of the Colosseum from here.
Santa Francesca Romana was a 14th-century housewife, who became convinced of the constant presence of a guardian angel lighting the road before her whenever she travelled. For this reason, in 1925, she was made the patron saint of motorists. On her feast day, 9 March, the city’s trams and buses are blessed, and the road outside her church next to the Temple of Venus and Rome is packed with cars whose drivers are seeking her blessing.