Description
The Roman Forum and the Palatine are the ancient heart of Rome: a valley of ruined temples, arches and basilicas, between the Capitoline Hill and the Colosseum, and above it the hill where legend has the city born. For centuries it was the political, legal and religious center of Roman civilization.
In the Forum the main street is the Via Sacra, which runs from the Capitoline to the Arch of Titus, built in memory of the Jewish War, and passes beside the Arch of Septimius Severus, raised in 203 for the victories over the Parthians.
The small, round Temple of Vesta kept the sacred fire of Rome, watched over by the Vestal Virgins. Nearby stood the Temple of the Divine Julius, on the spot where Caesar's pyre was lit.
The Senate met in the Curia, a large brick building, today among the best-preserved of antiquity in Rome precisely because in 630 it became a church. Inside remain the wide, low steps where about three hundred senators sat and the floor of ancient marbles. On the walls are displayed the two reliefs called the Plutei of Trajan.
At the foot of the Capitoline stand the columns of the Temple of Saturn, the oldest sacred place in Rome after those of Vesta and Jupiter: the state treasury was kept there.
On the opposite side of the square, three marble columns are what remains of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, dedicated to the divine twins. Its podium also served as a platform for speeches.
The Palatine is the hill above the Forum. Here you see the remains of the imperial palaces and the gardens of the Farnese Gardens, built by the Farnese in the 1500s, from which you look down on the Forum.
The so-called House of Livia keeps frescoes in the second style: painted columns, a coffered ceiling in perspective, and in the center the story of Io watched over by Argus.
Legend says a she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus in the cave of the Lupercal, at the foot of the Palatine, and that Romulus founded his city here. Excavations have found traces of Iron Age huts. Augustus, born on the hill, chose it as his residence, and after him the other emperors did.
The Latin name Palatium is the origin of the word "palace" in all European languages.
The Forum was a marshy valley, drained around 600 BC with the Cloaca Maxima. The decline was slow. In the Middle Ages the square, by then buried, was the "Campo Vaccino," where cows grazed. In the Renaissance Julius II used it as a quarry for materials, and Raphael's protests were no use at all. Scientific excavations began in 1788.
Don't miss
• The Via Sacra.
• The Temple of Vesta.
• The Curia.
• The House of Livia.
• The Farnese Gardens.
Did you know?
• On the columns of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina you can still see the marks of the ropes used in an attempt to pull them down.
• In 1870 Napoleon III sold the Farnese Gardens to the Italian State for 650,000 lire.
• Near the Lapis Niger the oldest known Latin inscription was found.
In the Forum the main street is the Via Sacra, which runs from the Capitoline to the Arch of Titus, built in memory of the Jewish War, and passes beside the Arch of Septimius Severus, raised in 203 for the victories over the Parthians.
The small, round Temple of Vesta kept the sacred fire of Rome, watched over by the Vestal Virgins. Nearby stood the Temple of the Divine Julius, on the spot where Caesar's pyre was lit.
The Senate met in the Curia, a large brick building, today among the best-preserved of antiquity in Rome precisely because in 630 it became a church. Inside remain the wide, low steps where about three hundred senators sat and the floor of ancient marbles. On the walls are displayed the two reliefs called the Plutei of Trajan.
At the foot of the Capitoline stand the columns of the Temple of Saturn, the oldest sacred place in Rome after those of Vesta and Jupiter: the state treasury was kept there.
On the opposite side of the square, three marble columns are what remains of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, dedicated to the divine twins. Its podium also served as a platform for speeches.
The Palatine is the hill above the Forum. Here you see the remains of the imperial palaces and the gardens of the Farnese Gardens, built by the Farnese in the 1500s, from which you look down on the Forum.
The so-called House of Livia keeps frescoes in the second style: painted columns, a coffered ceiling in perspective, and in the center the story of Io watched over by Argus.
Legend says a she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus in the cave of the Lupercal, at the foot of the Palatine, and that Romulus founded his city here. Excavations have found traces of Iron Age huts. Augustus, born on the hill, chose it as his residence, and after him the other emperors did.
The Latin name Palatium is the origin of the word "palace" in all European languages.
The Forum was a marshy valley, drained around 600 BC with the Cloaca Maxima. The decline was slow. In the Middle Ages the square, by then buried, was the "Campo Vaccino," where cows grazed. In the Renaissance Julius II used it as a quarry for materials, and Raphael's protests were no use at all. Scientific excavations began in 1788.
Don't miss
• The Via Sacra.
• The Temple of Vesta.
• The Curia.
• The House of Livia.
• The Farnese Gardens.
Did you know?
• On the columns of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina you can still see the marks of the ropes used in an attempt to pull them down.
• In 1870 Napoleon III sold the Farnese Gardens to the Italian State for 650,000 lire.
• Near the Lapis Niger the oldest known Latin inscription was found.