Latin History

Roman Forum

At the center of most Roman cities was a big open space called the Forum. People met there to do business, to sell things and buy things, to see their friends, to find out about the news, and even to go to school. Usually the Forum had stone pavement, and around the edges there were fancy buildings: temples, and basilicas, and sometimes stores (shops). In some cities the Forum had a platform in it that people could stand on to make speeches. This platform was called the Rostra.

The main forum in Rome was the biggest and the most important of the Roman fora (one forum, two fora). People first began meeting in this forum around 500 BC, at the time of the founding of the Roman Republic. The Senate met in the brick building on the right of the photograph (actually this is a later replacement for an older building that burned down). Little by little, rich men added temples, statues, triumphal arches, and basilicas to the forum, until by the time of Julius Caesar the forum was very crowded.

So Julius Caesar built a new forum off to the side of the first one. This was known as the forum of Julius Caesar. It has a temple at one end. It also has doors of a lot of little shops, for the businesses that were located in the forum. (In the time of Caesar, of course, the forum was paved in limestone blocks).

On a big pinkish cement blocks in the front of the temple where Venus once stood.