Friday, June 15, 2007

Rome, Roman Forum, 9th June 2007






The Roman Forum , Forum Romanum, (although the Romans called it more often the Forum Magnum or just the Forum) was the central area around which ancient Rome developed, in which commerce and the administration of justice took place. The communal hearth was also located here. It was built on the site of a past cemetery.

Sequences of remains of paving show that sediment eroded from the surrounding hills was already raising the level of the forum in early Republican times. Originally it had been marshy ground, which was drained by the Tarquins with the Cloaca Maxima. Its final travertine paving, still visible, dates from the reign of Augustus.

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