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Forum (Latin, “marketplace” or “out-of-doors place”), term applied by the ancient Romans to the large, open, rectangular space in the central part of a city that was the common place of assembly of the people. Originally an unenclosed space, without buildings, in which the people gathered on market days and for religious festivals, elections, and other public events, it became the political center where civic and administrative buildings and the more important temples were located. Archways frequently surmounted both ends of the road or roads that transected the forum.
In early times, each city had only one forum, serving not only as a place for the transaction of legal, political, and mercantile business but also as an arena for public games, amusements, theatrical performances, gladiatorial and boxing combats, and races. The principal forum in Rome, the Forum Romanum Magnum (Great Roman Forum), was of this type, and above the colonnades that surrounded it were galleries for spectators. As cities grew, however, it became necessary to establish a separate forum (forum civile) for legal and administrative affairs, as well as mercantile forums (fora venalia), each devoted to the sale of an important commodity. Among the mercantile forums were the animal, vegetable, fish, grain, and wine markets. The shops were situated around the square of the mercantile forum and often on streets leading to it. In addition to the open forums, some cities also had covered markets. The term forum gradually became synonymous with market and was employed as a descriptive epithet in the names of many market towns, such as Forum Appii and Forum Julii. The temples of the forum often fulfilled more than a religious purpose. In Rome, the Temple of Concord was used by the Senate as a meeting place, and the Temple of Saturn served as the government treasury and housed the state financial records until it was replaced by the Tabularium. The center of the forum was usually so filled with statues, altars, arches, and other monuments that the transaction of business was seriously obstructed. In response to this problem, a general clearing of the forum was ordered from time to time.
The original Roman forum was between the Palatine and Capitoline (Monte Capitoline) hills and Quirinal Hill (Monte Quirinal). Before 500 bc the swampland was drained and established as a shop-lined marketplace. An area for town meetings was at the northwest corner. The beauty of the forum was considerably enhanced with the erection of the temples of Saturn, Castor and Pollux, and Concord. The first courthouse, the Basilica Porcia, was built in 184 bc, followed by those of Aemilia, Sempronia, and Opimia. The basilicas gave the forum a characteristic colonnaded appearance. In 54 bc, to alleviate the great congestion of the Forum Romanum Magnum, Julius Caesar began construction of a new, walled forum, in which the chief building was the Temple of Venus Genetrix. Near this new forum, about 20 bc, the Roman emperor Augustus built a still larger forum containing his temple to Mars Ultor. There followed the forums of Emperor Vespasian, surrounding a beautiful temple of peace; the forum begun by Emperor Domitian and completed by Emperor Marcus Cocceius Nerva, in which stood a temple sacred to Minerva; and, finally, the magnificent forum of Emperor Trajan, enclosing the Basilica Ulpia, Trajan's Column, and Trajan's Temple, added later by Emperor Hadrian. These five imperial forums communicated with the Forum Romanum Magnum in a continuous line that stretched to the north and east of it. The Gothic invaders of Rome in the 5th century ad inflicted comparatively little damage on the imperial forums. Deterioration had become appreciable by the 9th century, and the old edifices were mostly destroyed in the great fire of 1084, during the invasion of Robert Guiscard, the Norman adventurer. Habitable buildings were turned into fortresses, and during the Renaissance stones from them were used elsewhere. Reduced to a desolate wasteland, the area was known as Campo Vaccino or Cow Plain. Restoration was begun in the 19th century.
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