Roman Forum
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The Roman Forum is a large open area of ruins in the centre of Rome, Italy, lying in the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline hills. For about a thousand years it was the heart of ancient Rome: the place where people voted, listened to speeches, held trials, did business, worshipped the gods and cheered victory parades.
See it on the 3D globe →At a glance
- Country
- Italy
- Location
- Rome, Italy
- Built
- 7th c. BC – 4th c. AD
- Type
- Ancient site
Quick answers
Where is Roman Forum?
Roman Forum is in Rome, Italy.
The ruined heart of ancient Rome, with the Arch of Septimius Severus and the columns of the Temple of Saturn.
Today it looks like a field of broken columns, arches and stone floors, but each piece once belonged to a temple, a law court or a government building. Among the best-known remains are the tall columns of the Temple of Saturn and the triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus, built in AD 203. More than four million people visit every year to walk where Roman senators, merchants and ordinary citizens once walked.
History
Long ago the valley was a wet, marshy spot where water from the hills collected. The early Romans drained it with a great sewer called the Cloaca Maxima, then raised and paved the ground. Over the centuries they filled it with temples, meeting halls and monuments. The Temple of Saturn, first built around 497 BC, held the state treasury. After the capital of the empire moved to Constantinople in 330, the Forum slowly lost its importance.
What's there
A main road, the Via Sacra ("Sacred Way"), runs through the Forum. Along it you can find the Curia, where the Senate met; the Rostra, a stage for speeches decorated with the fronts of captured warships; and the round Temple of Vesta, goddess of the home and hearth, where special priestesses kept a sacred fire. Two triumphal arches stand at either end: the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Arch of Titus. There are also the remains of huge basilicas, which were Roman halls for courts and business.
Lost and found again
In the Middle Ages the Forum was buried under earth and rubble and was even used as a pasture, so people called it the "cattle field". Builders took its stone and marble for new buildings; in the 1540s some of it went into St Peter's Basilica. Digging to uncover the ruins began in the early 1800s, and large official excavations started in 1898. Archaeologists are still learning from the site today.
Fun facts
- The Arch of Septimius Severus there was built in AD 203.
- The Rostra got its name from the "beaks" (rostra), the pointed fronts of enemy warships, that were fixed to it as trophies.
- For hundreds of years the Forum was so buried that cows grazed there, and it was nicknamed the Campo Vaccino, the "cattle field".
- Some of the Forum's marble was reused to build St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
- The Senate house, the Curia, was turned into a church in the year 630, and its building still stands.
On the globe
The model shows the ruined heart of ancient Rome, with the Arch of Septimius Severus and the standing columns of the Temple of Saturn. Zoom in to find the big arch and the row of tall columns among the ruins.
Nearby on the globe
Sources
Updated: 2026-10-13