ℜ𝔬𝔪𝔞𝔫 𝔉𝔬𝔯𝔲𝔪
🏺It’s was a place for public ceremonies, people’s assemblies, Senate meetings, speeches by orators and sentencing of convicts. Until the 8th century B.C., it was a desert and a swampy area intended for burial of the dead.
🏺It was drained by order of the 5th King of Ancient Rome, Lucius Tarquinius, during the construction of the Cloaca Maxima, part of the city’s sewerage system. Four centuries later #Rome was redesigned and the forum square with its trading rows around became the epicentre of commercial and political life.
🏺Basilicas and temples began to be built here. The most impressive one was built in honour of the Emperor Maxentius, but was completed by his victorious Constantine. The destroyed temple of Vesta, the goddess of the domestic hearth and her priestesses, is considered to be the sacral place of the forum.
🏺The Vestal Virgins had been prepared for their service since childhood. They took a vow of chastity for a 30-year period. The intruders were buried alive. The Golden Pillar was erected on the grounds of the forum, which served as a reference point for important provinces of the Empire.
🏺Nearby, as the Romans believed, there was the centre of the world “navel”- “Navel of the City of Rome”, which was at the same time the entrance to the underground kingdom. In 410 AD, the buildings and pagan temples of the forum were looted by the Goths, but with the advent of Christianity they were restored, already as Christian shrines.
🏺Between the 8th and 19th centuries, the once majestic forum was in disrepair. Cattle grazed among the ruins of ancient temples, and ancient buildings were partially dismantled for building materials for new palaces and churches.
guide in Rome | rome guide | guided tour in rome | Vatican guide | rome tour | trip to rome