The Roman Forum.

        The building has no flashy columns, but instead consists of three large rectangular windows.  The doors were made of bronze and were removed and placed on the Basilica of St. John Lateran, where they can still be seen today.9        

The Curia, dating back to the third century AD. has survived remarkably well.  Replicas of the original doors hang on the Senate now.  

The Tabularium was the building where the state archives were kept, including the bronze tablets of Roman law.  The Record office was probably not intended to serve as only the state archives, but also as an annex and partial replacement of the national Treasury in the Temple of Saturn, which lay beneath its towering facade on the forum side.10

The Tullianum was the prison of Rome. The Tullianum was constructed of two floors. The top floor was used as detention of wrongdoers or suspects until their sentence was pronounced.  In Grant’s book, The Roman Forum, He tells the story of how the playwright Naevius, held there for libeling the noble family of the Metelli (206BC), was able to employ his detention in writing new plays which apologized for his offense. So conditions could not have been intolerably to bad on this floor.11

The Lower rooms in the Tullianum were very different. The rooms down here were used as temporary accommodations for the condemned prisoners that were awaiting a private exaction.  Down in this dark pit they were killed by either strangulation or starvation. The channel of the Great Drain ran by this building. It was intended that this would help to eliminate the corpses of the victims.

The Portico of the Twelve Gods is the dates in date of all surviving pagan deities.

After the Romans defeat at Carthaginians at lake Trasimene (217 BC), one of

The propitiatory ceremonies decreed was a Sacred Banquet at which the Twelve Gods

were made guests at the ceremonial meal. Here six large couches were brought and two

of the statues, one male and one female, were placed on each couch.                                                     

The Regia, the office of the chief priest, was believed to be the home of the Romans early kings.  The first Regia was first constructed in 575 BC, this was the time when the Forum was becoming the main square.  Then in 36 BC the Regia was reconstructed by a general of the triumvir Octavian (later Augustus) named Calvinus. He made the building into one complete structure.12 The fires under Nero and Commodus distorted the structure and it was never rebuilt.

        It is said that stored in the Regia was the Shield of Mars. As it fell from the heavens it landed in the spot of the Numa’s house, the legendary King of Pompilius. An oracle said that wherever the shield was kept, that would be the seat of the Roman Empire. Numa had eleven replicas made of the shield so that the original could not be taken. 25  

The sixth Roman wonder would be the Temple of Concordia. Constructed in the fifth century BC. it is today the most conserved due to the fact that in the sixth century BC it became a Christian church, dedicated to the saints Peter and Paul.

It was one of the oldest religious buildings in Rome, built in 367 BC and renovated several times in later centuries. According to legend, it commemorated the settlement of a bitter political dispute between the Plebeians and Patricians of the city and marked the unification of the nation

The Temple of Castor and Pollux was created in 484 BC to worship the twin brothers Castor and Pollux. The twins were worshipped as the protectors of the mariners.

The foundation of the temple is closely related to an ancient myth. During the battle of Lake Regillus in 496 BC against the Latins, two able, but unknown horsemen lead the roman troops to victory, and immediately after they were seen watering their horses at the Spring of Juturna. They were identified as the Dioscuri, and the dictator, Aulus Postumius Albinus, decided to build a temple in their honor. The temple was finished by his son in 484 BC.

The Temple of Saturn is located in the western end of the Forum, behind the Rostra and the Basilica Juila.  The Temple of Saturn was built in 497 BC, and thus is one of the oldest in the Forum. The temple is one of a series of temples to be built in the first decades of the republic. The archaic temple was demolished and the temple rebuilt in 42 BC by the Edil L. Munatius Plancus. This temple was destroyed by fire 283 AD, and was reconstructed reusing much of the old building material. The inscription on the architrave is from this period.13

In front of the podium, under the stair, were two rooms, one of which served as the Aerarium, the state treasury and on the side of the podium, holes remain from where a plate was attached for the posting of public documents and acts pertinent to the Aerarium. The bronze tablets of Roman law were also kept here. According to written sources, there was an altar dedicated to Saturn in front of the temple, but nothing remains.14

In the cella of the temple was a wooden statue of Saturn, which would be carried in procession when triumphs were celebrated.

The Festival of Saturn also centered around the Temple. The festival first started as a sacrificial rite, followed by a banquet for all the farm workers – to celebrate the completion of the autumn sowing.  This festival started as a one-day event, but later was extended to a three-day affair.  Then under urbanized Greek influence, the festival lost its agricultural meaning and became an event of exchanging gifts. 15

The Temple of the Divius Julius was the first temple to be built for a non-god (29 BC).  Following the assassination of the dictator Julius Caesar, his supporters brought his dead corpse to the site of an earlier platform, after Antony delivered his funeral oration, at the New Rostra, the disorderly crowd burned Ceasar's body on the spot. The temple dedicated to Caesar is located at the spot where he was burned.

On an interesting note, the first Funeral Games were held in Ceasar's honor. As the festivities got underway A comet shone across the sky for seven days, and was believed to be the soul of Julius Caesar. Octavian, Caesar’s adopted heir, joining Antony, Lepidus, and other Caesar loyalists vowed a temple to his divinity.16

The Temple of Vespasian and Titus, completed by Domitian and later restored by Severus, was dedicated in 79 AD to Vespasian after his death, and then dedicated to both Vespasian and his son Titus, after his death just two years later .17 When Vespasian died, he was made a divinity of the Roman State. His sons Titus and Domitian began building a temple in his honor. Vespasian, stricken with a deadly illness, when dying struggled to die standing up, as an emperor should, he declared that “ A pity- I believe I am turning into a god”. 18

         The Temple of Amor and Roma was a personal project of emperor Hadrian initiated in 121 AD, and finished in 135. The temple had a double dedication to Roma and Venus, deity of Love, Amor, which is Roma spelled backwards.

The double dedication is reflected inside, where there are two cellae, back to back, the one facing the colosseum for Venus and the one facing the Forum for Roma.

The Temple of Antoninus and Faustina was dedicated to at the emperor Antoninus Pius and his empress Faustina.19 During Antoninus reign as emperor, his wife Faustina died and he had her deified. Antoninus had a temple erected to honor her.  Twenty years later Antoninus died and the Senate changed it so that it was dedicated to the two of them.

The Temple of Vesta is situated between the Temple of Castor and Pollux and the Temple of Divius Julius. Vesta is one of the most ancient of the roman deities and her cult goes back to the 7th century BC Inside the round temple burnt the eternal fire, the symbolic hearth of Rome and all the roman people.20If the fire extinguished it would have grave consequences for the Romans. Also inside the temple, to which only the six Vestal Virgins had access, were kept the objects, that Aeneas was said to have brought with him on his flight from Troy. This included the Palladius (an ancient wooden statue of Minerva), and the images of the Penates.

The Temple of Vesta had undergone many changes, maybe because of the inherent danger of fire. The common features are the round plan and the entrance to the east. The current temple dates from 191 AD, when Juila Domna, wife of the emperor Septimius Severus, ordered a thorough restoration.

The circular cella, built of marble clad cement, was surrounded by twenty

Corinthian columns and rested on a marble covered podium with a 15m diameter. Half columns decorated the outer walls of the cella. The inside only housed the hearth.

The Virgins that guarded the Temple of Vesta resided in the House of the Vestal Virgins.  It is said that some one of the rooms in the house was used to keep safe important public and private documents, such as wills.21 In 45 BC, a year prior to his murder, Julius Caesar took his will to the house of the Vestal Virgins for safekeeping.  The employment of the Virgins house as a safe deposit is undoughtably one of the reasons for the large size.

        The most important duty of the Vestal Virgins was to prevent the fire in the Temple of the Goddess from going out.  The women rotated eight-hour shifts.  If the fire did go out, the one responsible was stripped nude and flogged by the chief priest. 22

         First, notice the triumphal arches that stand like bookends at the extremities of the Sacred Way, down to the Forum’s center.  At one end there is the Arch of Titus, and at the other, the Arch of Severus.

Standing at the highest part of the Sacred way is the Arch of Titus.  The arch was  

dedicated to the Emperor Titus, his blood –thirsty conquest of the Jewish Revolt and his

destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD). 23 The spoils of war were carried threw the

arch.

At the opposite end of the Forum, standing twenty-five feet tall and eighty-two feet wide, is the Arch of Severus (AD 193 - 211).  The purpose of this monument was to celebrate the victories of Severus, his sons and colleagues Caracalla and Geta over the Parthians and their allies in Assyria and Mesopotamia (AD 195 – 9). 24 In Grants book he says that, “... the emperors had allegedly ‘restored the Roman State and extended its empire’, though in fact the campaigns were appallingly extensive in proportion to the incomplete results achieved.”

The name of Geta, Severus younger son, originally appeared on the inscription with this father and his older brother, however, after the death of Severus, Caracalla assassinated Geta and ordered that his name be erased from the inscription on the arch. The name of Geta was erased and replaced with the name of his murder.  

In conclusion, the buildings of the Roman Forum shaped the lives of the Roman people. They came to worship, shop, gossip, and to hear the great political leaders of their time give speeches.  Weather Roman had important business or social business to conduct in the Forum, it was, the place to be.

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