Built on a drained swamp
The valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline was marshland until the Romans drained it with the Cloaca Maxima, one of the oldest sewers in the world, which still carries water under the city today.
Urban Tales › Rome › Roman Forum
Roman Forum: the history, and the centuries it spent as a cow field
For a thousand years the Forum was where Rome voted, traded, prayed and argued. Then it was buried, quarried and used to graze cattle. Here's what you're looking at, and what to listen for as you walk through it.
In use7th c. BC – 5th c. AD
Oncea marsh
Later calledCampo Vaccino
Dug upfrom the 19th c.
Hear the Roman Forum story, in the app's voice
A short preview. The full story plays on its own when you walk up to it with Urban Tales.
Three stories most visitors miss
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2
Rome's cow field
After the empire fell, the Forum filled with earth and rubble. By the Middle Ages it was a pasture called the Campo Vaccino, the "cow field", and its marble was burned for lime or carted off to build new churches.
3
Where Caesar was cremated
After his murder in 44 BC, Julius Caesar's body was burned in the Forum by a crowd of mourners. The Temple of Divus Julius was built on the spot, and people still leave flowers on its remains on the Ides of March.
TipBefore you go down, look over the Forum from the terrace behind the Capitoline Museums, at Via del Campidoglio: it's free, and you see the whole valley at once. With Urban Tales running, the Forum's story plays as you get close.
Nearby landmarks
Roman Forum: common questions
What was the Roman Forum used for?
It was the city's center for politics, law, trade and religion: the Senate House, courts, temples and markets all stood here.
How old is the Roman Forum?
It developed from around the 7th century BC and stayed the heart of the city until the end of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD.
Where was Julius Caesar cremated?
In the Forum itself, where the Temple of Divus Julius was later built. He was killed elsewhere, in the Curia of Pompey, near today's Largo di Torre Argentina.