ROMAN FORUM

urban morphology

Zahabiya & Jerusha

‘FORUM’
A Forum was the main center of a Roman
city. Usually located near the physical center
of a Roman town, it served as a public area in
which commercial, religious, economic,
political, legal, and social activities occurred.
Fora were common in all Roman cities.

the Greek AGORA

It is likely that there was some Greek

influence on the concept of a public
gathering place for the Romans.
FORUM

There were two kinds of forums in ancient Rome,

-the fora civilia
-fora venalia.

The fora civilia was designed for the monuments and statues of the city
such as Triumphal arches and for the use of public courts of justice.

The fora venalia was erected for the buying, selling and trade which
were equivalent to market stalls and commerce.
LOCATION

Roman forum
The Roman Forum, also known by
its Latin name Forum Romanum
(Italian: Foro Romano)

It is a rectangular forum (plaza)

surrounded by several important
ancient government buildings at
the center of the city of Rome.

Citizens of the ancient city

referred to this space, originally a
marketplace, as the Forum
Magnum, or simply the Forum.
753 B.C.E. Foundation of the city (according to traditional Roman account)

Early Iron Age The hilltops became the focus of settlement

The traditional foundation narrative holds that one of the

first acts of Romulus, the city’s eponymous founder, was
to establish a fortification wall around the Palatine Hill,
the site of his new settlement.

The Capitoline Hill, opposite the Palatine, emerged as

the city’s citadel (arx) and site of the poliadic cult of
Jupiter Optimus Maximus, among others (poliadic: the
chief civic cult of an ancient city, derived from the Greek
word "polis").
IRON AGE
Iron Age populations had used the marshy valley
separating the Palatine and Capitoline hills as a
necropolis (a large ancient cemetery), but the
burgeoning settlement of archaic Rome had need
of communal space and the valley was
repurposed from a necropolis to a usable space.
This required several transformations, both of
human activity and the natural environment.
Burial activity had to be transferred elsewhere; for
this reason the main necropolis site shifted to the
far side of the Esquiline Hill.
 Addressing the problems of seasonal
rains and flooding dates back to the
time of the Tarquin kings, and it was
seen fit to build a sewer, the Cloaca
Maxima, to provide proper drainage of
the marshy land between the
Esquiline, Capitoline, and Palatine Hills
down to the Tiber River.
With the land properly drained and
dry, this area naturally became a
central gathering location for the
Etruscan inhabitants.
Cloaca maxima
When the Roman Republic came to be in 509 B.C., this area retained its public use, and was where
processions and elections took place, and eventually where the Roman Senate gathered.

As the ground around building rose, residents simply paved over the debris that was too much to
remove.
Shops

Market

Porticoes

Temples

Offices

Triumphal Arches

Civil Buildings
For centuries the Forum was the center of day-to-day life in Rome: the site of triumphal processions and
elections; the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches; and the nucleus of
commercial affairs.
ROSTRA
The Rostra (Italian: Rostri) was a
large platform built in the city of
Rome that stood during the
republican and imperial
periods.[1]Speakers would stand on
the rostra and face the north side
of the comitium towards the senate
house and deliver orations to those
assembled in between. It is often
referred to as a suggestus or
tribunal,[2] the first form
SENATE
The Senate House, government offices,
tribunals, temples, memorials and
statues gradually cluttered the area.
Over time the archaic Comitium was
replaced by the larger adjacent Forum
and the focus of judicial activity
moved to the new Basilica Aemilia (179
BC). Some 130 years later, Julius
Caesar built the Basilica Julia,
refocusing both the judicial offices and
the Senate itself.
Basilica Aemilia
The Basilica Aemilia was a civil basilica in the
Roman Forum The Basilica was 100 meters (328 ft)
long and about 30 meters (98 ft) wide.

Along the sides were two orders of 16 arches, and it

was accessed through one of three entrances. It was
frequently restored and redecorated by the members
of the Aemilian gens, giving the basilica its current
name.

The columns in the central nave, in African marble,

had Corinthian capitals and friezes with deeds from
the history of Republican Rome. The columns in the
second row were in cipolline marble and, finally, the
external ones had Ionic capitals.

Today only the plan and some rebuilt elements can

be seen.
Basilica Julia
The Basilica Julia was a structure that once stood in the
Roman Forum. It was a large, ornate, public building used for
meetings and other official business during the early Roman
Empire..

This basilica housed public meeting places and shops, but it

was mainly used as a law court. On the pavement of the
portico, there are diagrams of games scratched into the white
marble.

One stone, on the upper tier of the side facing the Curia is
marked with an eight by eight square grid on which games
similar to chess or checkers could have been played.

Today, What is left from its classical period are mostly

foundations, floors, a small back corner wall with a few arches
that are part of both the original building and later Imperial
reconstructions and a single column from its first building
phase.
Atrium Vestae
The House of the Vestal Virgins was the residence of
Vestal Virgins Located behind the circular Temple of
Vesta at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum between
the Regia and the Palatine Hall.

The Atrium Vestae was a three-story 50-room palace in

the ancient Roman Forum built around an elegant
elongated atrium or court with a double pool.

To the very east is an open vaulted hall with a statue of

Numa Pompilius, the mythological founder of the
cult.The House of the Vestals was rebuilt several times in
the course of the Empire.It now housed officials of the
imperial court, and subsequently the papal court.

Today, remains of the statues of the Vestals can be seen

in the Atrium Vestae.
 Temples
The temple was an important physical and ceremonial
structure in any Roman city. Originally a gathering place,
the temple evolved into a place for people to gather, to
worship gods and deified emperors, and to perform
ceremonial sacrifices and rites.

Temple Saturni was the oldest temple in the Forum

Romanum, the first of the three versions of this temple
was built in 498 BCE. It was dedicated to Saturn, the
Roman god of agriculture, a chief of the Roman Pantheon
and an early mythical king of Rome.

This temple perished in a fire in 283 CE. Under Emperor

Diocletian the temple was built again. The Ionic temple
housed a statue of Saturn, and was the starting point of
the annual Saturnalia.
Temples
Temple of Castor and Pollux was a temple dedicated to
the dioscouri Castor and Pollux, temple was built at this
location by Roman dictator Aulus Postumius Albinus, and it
was completed in 484 BCE.
The temple went through several restorations; in 117 BCE.
A fire had destroyed it in 14 BCE.

Temple of Concordia was built by the people of Rome. This

temple was constructed in 367 BCE. It underwent
restoration in 121 BCE, and then in 10 CE under Tiberius.

He tore it down, along with the basilica Opimia, and rebuilt

a larger temple in their places. The building was often used
by the Senate and for trials.
 ARCHES

The Roman Forum over history has had 3 arches

built there.

The first by Augustus in 29 BC in which is not

visible today

The second the Arch of Titus built in 81 AD

The third the Arch of Septimius Severus which

was built in 203 AD.
today...
IMPERIAL PERIOD AND GROWTH

The advent of the principate of Augustus (27 B.C.E. –

14 C.E.) brought about additions and renovations to
the Forum Romanum.
With the deification of Julius Caesar, a temple
dedicated to Caesar’s cult (templum divi Iulii) was
constructed on the edge of the forum square.

Augustus restored existing buildings, completed

incomplete projects, and added commemorative
projects.

Augustus created another new forum space beyond

the Forum Romanum that was named the Forum of
Augustus.

These new Imperial Fora in some cases provided Divi Iulii

additional space and, in turn, shifted attention away
from the Forum Romanum.
 IMPERIAL PERIOD AND GROWTH
During the Imperial period the Forum Romanum itself saw
only sporadic new construction, although the maintenance
of the existing structures would have provided a pressing
and ongoing obligation.

Just beyond the limit of the forum proper the second

century C.E. temple of Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina
was constructed in 141 C.E.

Coming to power at the end of the second century C.E., the

Severan family erected a triple-bay triumphal arch at the
northwestern corner of the forum square.

The third century C.E. saw rebuilding of structures and

monuments that had been damaged by fire, including the
rebuilding of the Curia Julia by the emperor Diocletian in
the late third century C.E. following a fire in 283 C.E.
 By the Imperial period, the large public
buildings that crowded around the central
square had reduced the open area to a
rectangle of about 130 by 50 metres.

Its long dimension was oriented northwest

to southeast and extended from the foot of
the Capitoline Hill to that of the Velian Hill.
The Forum's basilicas during the Imperial
period—the Basilica Aemilia on the north and
the Basilica Julia on the south—defined its
long sides and its final form.
 DECLINE OF THE ROMAN FORUM
After the Severan and Tetrarchic building programs of the third
century C.E. and Constantinian investment in the early fourth
century C.E., the forum and its environs began to decline and
decay.

Constantine I officially relocated the administrative center of the

Roman world to Constantinople in 330 C.

Theodosius I suppressed all "pagan" religions and ordered temples

shut permanently in 394 C.E. These changes, coupled with
population decline, spelled the gradual demise of spaces like the
Forum Romanum.

Its monuments were cannibalized for building materials and

open, unused spaces were re-purposed—sometimes as dwellings
and other times for the deposition of rubbish and fill.