Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna

by Robert Burn

These three columns stood at the side of the temple which abutted on the exterior wall of the Forum, as the ruins show. A large portion of this wall is still standing on each side of the arch called the Arco dei Pantani. The arch itself is built of travertine, the wall of blocks of peperino laid alternately with the longer and shorter sides outwards as in the masonry of the tabularium. In the middle ages a door was fitted on to this archway, and a portion of the stone was cut away on the west side. This has injured its architectural beauty very much. It has also been stripped of the marble facing with which it was probably covered originally, and being now half buried in the rubbish of ages, it presents a somewhat mean and rough appearance.

This archway formed one of the entrances to the Forum Augusti from the east. The wall of the enclosure can be traced for a considerable distance on each side of it, but there are no other archways now open. The monotonous appearance of so high a wall is relieved by having the edges of the stones cut so that each block stands out separately, and the lower part of the wall is divided into two, and its upper into three stages by projecting ruins of travertine.

It is said that the blocks of stone in this masonry are fastened with wooden bolts made in the shape of double swallow tails, and that some of these have been found completely petrified. When the Forum was first designed Augustus encountered great opposition from owners of private house property; and through fear of the unpopularity which wholesale evictions might have caused, he accommodated the shape of the external walls to that of the ground he could occupy. Hence arose the irregular line of the exterior, which was, however, reduced to a symmetrical plan inside by secondary walls. The general shape of the interior area of the enclosure was that of a broad oblong piazza with two large semicircular side extensions or wings (somewhat like those in the Piazza S. Pietro) opposite to and corresponding to each other. The area was large, for the horse races, and games in honour of Mars were held here once when the Tiber had overflowed the circus.[77] The temple stood at the northern end between these two side extensions, and occupied about one-sixth of the whole space. Tribunals were placed in the hemicycles and courts of law held there. Some portions of the semicircular recesses are still extant by which their plan may be traced, but the outer wall is in no part preserved entire except at the back and sides of the temple. Its height at the back of the temple is 120 feet, and over the Arco dei Pantani 100 feet, which we must suppose to have been the normal height of the rest of the enclosure. These enormous walls served as a defence against fire, no less than to exclude the traffic and noise of the streets.

Although it is possible that Augustus may have entertained the design of erecting a new group of public buildings as a means of gaining distinction and popularity before the battle of Philippi which established his power, yet so far as we know, the temple of Mars Ultor and the Forum Augusti owed their existence to a vow made by the emperor immediately before the decisive battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, to build if victorious a temple to Mars as the avenger of his adopted father. The dedication of the temple took place in B.C. 2, accompanied with most magnificent shows of gladiators and splendid sham sea-fights.

Forum of Nerva.
The Colonnacce.

The Forum of Nerva was in the district through which the Via della Croce Bianca passes, and was connected with the ruin commonly called the Temple of Minerva, still standing on the right-hand side of that street where it is crossed by the Via Alessandrina. Two columns are there to be seen now called the Colonnacce, half buried in the earth, surmounted by an entablature and an attica. The wall behind the columns is built of blocks of peperino of unequal size, and is in a style of masonry inferior to the walls of the Forum of Augustus. In it may be seen the traces of an arch which has been filled up with the same stone as that of which the wall is built. The columns, which are of fluted marble, stand out in front of the wall; but, as in the Arch of Severus, the entablature does not lie between them, but projects from the wall over the capitals, and unites them with the wall. The edges of the architrave are richly decorated, and the frieze contains an elaborately carved bas-relief, which, though unfortunately much disfigured, can be partially understood by the help of old engravings taken before it was reduced to its present lamentable state.

Forum of Nerva as it stood in 1600. From Du Perac, ‘Vestigj di Roma.’

From these it appears that the figures represent various attributes of Minerva as the patroness of household management. Some of them are drawing water, others weaving or spinning, and others dyeing, washing, holding scales and purses as if bargaining. The remaining portion of the design is incomplete, and was probably carried round the rest of the frieze of the enclosure.[78] On the cornices, both upper and lower, the ornamentation is very rich, but not so chaste as work of the Augustan period. In the centre of the attica stands a figure of Minerva in alto-relievo, with spear, helmet, and shield.