Caesar Forum

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Forum Iulium

The Caesar Forum ( Latin Forum Iulium ) is the oldest of the four imperial forums in Rome , built by Gaius Iulius Caesar and his successor Augustus in the 1st century BC. Chr.

history

In the next two decades after Sulla's death , 78 BC. BC, the population of Rome jumped by leaps and bounds, due to a strong influx of residents from the provinces, war veterans and impoverished smallholders. Due to the lack of space, the old facilities of the Roman Forum were no longer sufficient to meet the requirements of the increased population. The second important reason for building the new forum was the desire aroused in the Roman aristocracy for self-expression, as the Romans had seen it at the Greco-Hellenistic royal courts. Stimulated by this, there was a real competition for the most magnificent buildings in Rome between Pompey and Caesar. The former presented the building of the city's first permanent theater . Caesar therefore used the pretext for building his forum that he only wanted to expand the Roman Forum due to the increased space required for the population. In truth, however, the forum that was later named after him only served to glorify his family and thus indirectly also himself.

Construction began in 54 BC. In order to create enough space for the new complex, numerous inhabitants of the Argiletum were expropriated by Caesar and their houses were torn down. The clay soil of the area rising towards the Quirinal was also leveled. Cicero was part of the working group charged with planning the forum. In one of his letters he speaks of a cost of 60 million sesterces that Caesar is said to have paid out of his own pocket to the homeowners for their land. Other authors even report 100 million sesterces. For comparison, whether this amount should be mentioned that a complete legion had cost the Roman state around 12 million sesterces annually.

46 BC Caesar inaugurated the unfinished building on the occasion of his triumph in September of the same year. The Forum Iulium also served the dictator as a stage for his power during his lifetime. Among other things, he received here in 44 BC. BC, in front of the Temple of Venus Genetrix , the Senate seated on a chair instead of, as tradition required, standing in front of the so-called registered fathers . Caesar saw the completion of his major project through his murder on the Ides of March 44 BC. However not anymore. The Caesar Forum was completed by Emperor Augustus, who also had it partially rebuilt and expanded by around 20 m. Regarding the function of the Forum Iulium, Appian writes that it is "for the people, but not as a marketplace, but as a place for the business of those who come together ... where one asks and receives justice" .

After the Forum Iulium, Caesar's successor built further, even larger and more splendidly furnished forums, but Caesar's own forum remained important for the Eternal City throughout the period of the Roman Empire . This can be seen, for example, through several reconstruction and conservation efforts. Large parts of the forum were destroyed by fire in 283 AD during the reign of Emperors Carinus and Numerian . The chronograph of the year 354 AD reports that in the year 303 AD Diocletian and Maximian Herculius had the destroyed Forum Iulium and the, in the same fire, demolished Curia Iulia rebuilt. However, more recent research shows, based on the analysis of found brick temples, that the reconstruction took place later, between around 306 and 312 AD, i.e. in the time of Emperor Maxentius . Maxentius was an advocate of traditional and cultural values, which is why the rebuilding of the Caesar Forum was of great importance for his politics. The reconstruction took place to varying degrees in different areas, with parts of the forum being completely rebuilt and modified. After Maxentius' reign, the Caesar Forum retained its importance for at least another century, as evidenced by the building work carried out by Anicius Auchenius Bassus (city prefect from 357 to 382 AD) and city prefect Nicomachus Flavianus the Younger . The latter set up the secretarium senatus , the court of the city ​​prefect , at the Forum Iulium in 393/394 AD and furnished it with additional statues of honor on reused marble plinths.

architecture

Floor plan of the Caesar Forum at the time of Augustus

According to the latest excavations, the Caesar Forum was a rectangular square and about 160 m long and 50 m wide. Porticos surrounded the area on three sides , and on the narrow open side was the temple of Venus Genetrix , the divine ancestral mother of the Julians . Since the forum was intended to surround the temple, access, at least in Domitian's time , was only possible via side entrances. Due to its high walls, the Caesar forum, like all imperial forums, looked like a closed complex. The porticos were 13.50 m wide and consisted of a double row of channeled columns made of Carrara marble . The outer row of columns, seen from the square, had a Corinthian order . In the times of Caesar and Augustus, the floors of the porticos were also made of white marble slabs. Augustus' alterations are also still clearly visible, as three parallel foundations in opus caementicium were uncovered in the southern area of ​​the forum , which prove that the Caesar forum was originally 20 m shorter. The purpose of the expansion was to allow the Iulia Curia to be connected to the Caesar Forum. It is noteworthy that the southern boundary wall of the forum in the direction of the Argiletum , which was still closed in Caesar's time , was replaced by an open colonnade with Tuscan order under Augustus , which was in complete contrast to the otherwise rather closed character of the imperial forums.

During the reconstruction under Emperor Maxentius, in the 3rd century, the image of the forum changed radically. The facade of the Temple of Venus Genetrix was in danger of collapsing after the fire, which is why a thick retaining wall was drawn across the temple portico and the front columns integrated into it. The two central front pillars were also removed to make room for an access portal to the temple's cella . The porticos surrounding the forum were apparently also completely rebuilt. However, completely different columns, smooth as well as fluted and made of different rock, were used. Columns made of different types of marble and red and gray granite were used, which gave the forum a much more colorful appearance than the original, uniformly designed columns. The pillars were placed on white, cube-like bases, which corresponded to the architectural fashion taste of the time.

Post-ancient use of the site

The end of the Caesar Forum came with the depopulation and decline of the entire city of Rome at the end of ancient times . Not only Caesar's forum, but also the other imperial forums and the Roman Forum were abandoned by the population, who retreated to the Field of Mars and to Trastevere , closer to the Tiber , and subsequently fell into disrepair. During the 9th century the travertine floor slabs were removed and the Caesar forum was used for agriculture. Vegetable gardens and small wooden huts were built and maintained in the ancient ruins. Orchards are also attested. In the middle of the 10th century, a small residential area was built again on the area of ​​the Caesar Forum, consisting of single-storey houses made of unfired clay, with simple thatched or wooden shingle roofs. Due to the onset of swamp, this district was abandoned again in the 11th century and the soil level increased significantly. During the 13th century, the completely rural areas of the forums of Caesar and Augustus and Vespasian's adjoining temples of peace were owned as extensive vegetable gardens by various churches and monasteries, such as the church of Sant'Adriano al Foro Romano or Church , established by Pope Honorius I in the Curia Iulia the nearby Basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano . During the Renaissance , the Caesar Forum was built over with a casual alternation of various fruit and vegetable gardens and residential houses, which, after the building efforts of Cardinal Michele Bonelli , had merged in the 17th century to form the so-called Alessandrino quarter. Due to improved living conditions in the 17th and 18th centuries, the modest houses in the area soon gave way to splendid palazzi by artists such as Flaminio Ponzio or Martino Longhi . During Mussolini's dictatorship in the early 1920s, plans were made to demolish the Alessandrino district and - after archaeological investigations of the imperial forums below - to build a connecting road between the Colosseum and Piazza Venezia , Via dell'Impero . In the course of this, the Caesar Forum was excavated between 1930 and 1932 and is now clearly visible again, with the exception of the eastern area, which is covered by the Via dei Fori Imperiali. From 1998 to 2008 two more excavation campaigns took place, carried out by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali of the city of Rome.

gallery

  • Caesar forum with a view of the Iulia Curia

  • Remains of the western portico

  • Temple columns - detail

  • Columns of the Temple of Venus Genetrix

  • Caesar forum facing east

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cicero: Ad Att . 4, 16, 8
  2. ↑ Pliny Maior: Naturalis Historia . 36, 103; Suetonius: Divus Iulius . 26, 2
  3. ^ Cassius Dio. 43, 22
  4. ↑ Livy: Periochae from Urbe condita . 116; Suetonius: Divus Iulius . 78; Cassius Dio. 44, 8, 1-2
  5. ↑ Appian: De Bellis Civilibus . 2, 102

Coordinates: 41 ° 53 ′ 39 ″  N , 12 ° 29 ′ 5 ″  E