Imperial Forums – Colosseum Rome Tickets

Forum of Nerva

Colosseum Rome Tickets — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 07:09:46 +0000

Construction of the Forum of Nerva (which is also known as the Forum Transitorium), was decided by Domitian to give monumental form to the vacant strip of land at the point where the two existing forums met.

Horizontal View of the Forum on Blue Sky Background. Rome, Italy

The northern wall of the Forum.

The emperor died shortly before the work was completed and it was finished by Nerva in A.D 97, at the time aged sixty-six, who gave it his name.

The new forum, 120 meters long and 45 wide, allowed no space for the construction of a new colonnade, so the portico of the Temple of Peace was used. At one end a temple was dedicated to Minerva: only its massive basement survives. (Minerva, the ancient Etruscan goddess of crafts, was originally equated with Artemis. Later, as a goddess of wisdom, she became the counterpart of the Greek Athene.).

Forum Of Nerva on Blue Sky Background. Rome, Italy.

Beyond the temple and close to the enceinte wall are two enormous Corinthian columns, the so-called Colonnacce. In the attic between the columns is a high-relief of Minerva, after an original of the school of Skopas. In the rich frieze of the entablature Minerva (Athena) is seen teaching the arts of sewing and weaving and punishing Arachne, the Lydian girl who excelled in the art of weaving and had dared to challenge the goddess. In front of the Colonnacce is a section of the Argiletum.

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Fora were pillaged for their building material and robbed of their marbles and bronzes, and the area was later built over. The temple was still standing at the beginning of the 17 th c., when it was pulled down by Paul V to provide marble for the Fontana Paolina on the Janiculum. Drawings from the 16th century show us that at that time the temple was still standing and the dedicatory inscription mentioning Nerva could still be deciphered on the architrave.

Forum in 1606-Sadeler-1606

Vasi, Giuseppe, Forum of Nerva

Reconstruction Video – Forum of Nerva:

The post Forum of Nerva appeared first on Colosseum Rome Tickets.

Basilica Ulpia

Colosseum Rome Tickets — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 06:17:57 +0000

The Basilica Ulpia, which derives its name from Trajan’s family name and served as a court of justice, lay at a right angle to the end of the square. In the current state of development, it is difficult to grasp the size of this hall, which measured 130 x 125m/427ft x 410ft (largest basilica ever built in Rome), and even in Trajan’s time, it was not easy to fit a building of these dimensions into the center of Rome.

Reconstruction drawing of Basilica Ulpia by Hanfmann – Source: Columbia Edu

Ulpia Basilica, Trajan Forum, Roma, Italy – The extensive clearances of the 1930s brought to light only part of the forum: most of the area is still concealed under the modern roadway and gardens.

Imperial Forums. Trajan’s Forum with Trajan’s column and Ulpia Basilica

Fact: Four panels in Arch of Constantine from the reign of Trajan were taken from the attic of the Basilica Ulpia.

Two libraries, one for Latin and one for Greek literature (designed by Apollodorus), lay next to the basilica; the victory column for Trajan towered between them. The complex, which was greatly admired in ancient times and of which only the triumphal column remains today, honored the emperor under whom the Roman Empire reached its greatest extent.

A nightly view of the Ulpia Basilica in Rome, Italy

Ulpia at night, Trajan Forum, Rome, Italy

Vittorio Emanuele II monument at night, as seen from the Ulpia ruins, in Rome, Italy.

In the Middle Era, the portico was stripped of its precious marbles. The four rows of columns of the central part of Basilica still remain. The east part of the Imperial Forums is separated from the center by the modern streets, however, a tunnel enables access from one area to the other. Just a small area of the square in front of the Basilica has been excavated.

Roman Architecture – The Basilica Ulpia:

The post Basilica Ulpia appeared first on Colosseum Rome Tickets.

Forum of Caesar

Colosseum Rome Tickets — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 06:52:11 +0000

The Forum of Caesar was built with the spoils of his Gallic Wars. On the 9th of August 48 B. C., the decisive battle was fought between the formidable armies of Pompey and Caesar. The Julian Family boasted its origin from Julius, commonly called Ascanius, son of Aeneas, bom of Anchises and Venus.

On the morning of the Battle of Pharsalus, Caesar made a vow to build a temple to his goddess ancestor. Pompey was defeated completely and Caesar built the new Forum (between the old one and the Quirinal), in the center of which rose the Temple to Venus Genetrix. The focal point of the new Forum was the Temple of Venus Genetrix, the most important building erected in the city by Julius Caesar.

Forum of Caesar: Evening Show Tickets

5/6 Via della Salara Vecchia

from €19.00 EUR
Duration: 50 Min.
Seller: Tiqets

The lightshow, the projection show and the music will take you to the time of Ancient Rome, while you are standing in the Trajan Forum. You will be in one of the most tourist-wise popular a […]

When Caesar decided to construct a new Forum besides the old, in order to extend the political center of Rome, there were serious problems to be solved before his plan could be executed. Apart from the expropriation and demolition of a number of private houses, a great deal of leveling was necessary, a long stairway had to be cut in the slope of the Capitol and the neighboring Senate House had to be moved. The enormous cost of all this was met out of the vast spoils of the Gallic Wars.

Reconstruction Model of Forum of Caesar – Caesar had to spend enormous sums of money (sixty million sestercians according to Cicero, one hundred million according to Svetonius) simply in acquiring the land and in expropriating the private buildings that occupied the area. ( Photo Credit: altair4.com )

Rome. Panorama of the remains of the Forum of Caesar from the Campidoglio.

The Forum of Caesar, also known as Forum Iulium or Forum Julium.

For centuries this temple remained a splendid monument, worthy of the fame and magnificence of the first Caesar. Among the numerous works of art placed in it, was the statue of Venus Genetrix, by Archesilaus, one of the most celebrated Greek sculptors, and one of Cleopatra.

Caesar deposited in the temple a veritable Museum of Greek Pictures and Sculptures, 6 collections of engraved gems, and a jeweled cuirass captured in Britain.

The temple was rebuilt by Trajan and inaugurated with the Trajan Column on the 12th of May of the year 113. Trajan added the Basilica Argentaria, or exchange building, as well as a large heated public lavatory (forica), remains of which survive above the shops.

Bronze statue of emperor Caesar, Imperial Forums, Rome.

Bronze statue of emperor Caesar, Imperial Forums, Rome -2

Two-thirds of the area of the Forum of Caesar has now been uncovered, but the ruins as we see them today are those of the Forum as it was modified by a major work of restoration undertaken in the reign of Trajan.

The excavations of the past years have revealed traces of the Forum and of the Temple of Venus Genetrix. For the occasion, the statue of Julius Caesar, copied in bronze from the one in the Capitol, was placed on a pedestal in the excavated ruins of the Forum. The Perpetual Dictator towers here in the glory of Rome. After almost 2000 years Caesar is still a popular hero.

The post Forum of Caesar appeared first on Colosseum Rome Tickets.

Forum of Augustus

Colosseum Rome Tickets — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 20:20:24 +0000

Before the Battle of Philippi in 42 B.C., in which Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Augustus’ adoptive father Gaius Julius Caesar, were killed, Augustus vowed to built a new forum. At the Battle of Philippi were defeated Caesar’s assassins, Cassius and Brutus. Augustus kept his vow and built the Temple to Mars Ultor, which became the centre of a new Forum. Forum of Augustus, dedicated to the Mars Ultor (war god, called the Avenger).

Forum of Augustus: Evening Show Tickets

1 Piazza del Grillo

from €19.00 EUR
Duration: 40 Min.
Seller: Tiqets

Lights of different colors, projections on the ruined wall, amazing music, and Ancient Rome. You come, you saw, you get entertained! While you are on your feet on Roman stairs, the astonish […]

Caesar died before succeeding in carrying out his revolutionary town plans, which included the deviation of the Tiber, but with the construction of the Curia and the Basilica Julia he did provide the Roman Forum with its basic plan. Above all he built the Forum of Caesar, and set an example for the policy of tying one’s name to the creation of a forum space which continued throughout the period of the Empire.

Caesar’s urban policy was taken up, albeit in a less revolutionary way, by Augustus. With the construction of the Forum of Augustus and the Temple of Mars Ultor, the Roman Forum with its series of monuments celebrating the gens Iulia can be considered as completed.

the remains of the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus and, below, a reconstruction of the structures.

Work on the new- forum went on for almost forty and it was inaugurated in 2 B.C. The function of this monumental space was to provide greater space for the crowd than the Roman Forum and Caesar’s Forum. But it became above all a centre of display designed to glorify the emperor, who is represented on a majestic triumphal chariot in the middle of the square. “I found Rome brick and left it marble”, was to be the Emperor’s famous boast.

Forum of Augustus – 3D Model (Photo Credit: Nike in Rome)

Landscape view of Forum with the remains of Temple of Mars Ultor in the foreground

The Forum of Augustus had a distinctively military character: it was here that the senate would meet to declare war or peace and here were erected the statues of victorious generals, who were no longer awarded a triumph as this was now the exclusive privilege of the emperors. In this way the forum’s original allusion to vengeance on the assassins of Caesar was extended to include the defeat of all Rome’s enemies.

The Forum of Augustus became in the early middle ages a sort of quarry: the fine materials of its buildings were stripped and re-used elsewhere.

Temple of Mars Ultor (The Avenger)

At the centre of the forum, surrounded by arcades, is the Temple of Mars Ultor (the Avenger) which Augustus dedicated in the year 2 B.C. as a memorial to the battle of Philippi. The temple housed several of Caesar’s possessions, including his sword.

This podium temple, of which three columns are still standing, was originally a peristyle temple with eight 15.3m.- high Corinthian columns on each side. It housed statues of Mars and Venus, of which the pedestals survive.

Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus

Statues of famous people were erected in the portico, and a colossal statue of Augustus, which was almost 14m., tall stood in the Aula del Colosso. A fire wall secured the precinct, where numerous ceremonies of state were held under Emperor Augustus. Tiberius added a triumphal arch for Drusus and Germanicus to the forum. In about 1200 the Knights Hospitaller used the ruins for their palaces, as did the Knights of St John of Rhodes and Malta at a later date. Today, the former exedra and the antiquarium are the priory of the Knights of Malta.

Reconstruction Video of Forum:

Forum of Augustus – Photo Gallery:

Distance to the Colosseum

Forum of Augustus set in the Imperial Forums, 0,7 km from (9 min walk) from Colosseum.

The post Forum of Augustus appeared first on Colosseum Rome Tickets.

Trajan’s Market

Colosseum Rome Tickets — Sun, 16 Sep 2018 04:02:03 +0000

The terraces cut out of the Quirinal hillsides to accommodate the Forum of Trajan were shored up by a complex of brick buildings called the Trajan’s Market (In italian Mercati di Traiano). Today, these impressive red-brick ruins with high vaults form a boundary between the area of the forums and the slope of Quirinal hill towards Via Quattro Novembre.

Trajan’s Markets are the conventional name of a series of buildings laid out on a number of levels along the lowest slopes of the Quirinal and abutting onto Trajan’s Forum. The project was Trajan’s attempt to alleviate the tax burden by supplying inexpensive goods and to relieve social tension by distributing imperial donations.

The semi-circular complex held more than 150 individual stores. All kinds of goods were bought and sold here: fruit and vegetables, expensive jewellery and perfume, grain, spices, fish, oil, and wine. The market complex also consisted of the state storehouses, which provided food for the poor at moderate prices or even free.

Trajan’s Markets as they are and as they were in antiquity.

Their facade was a great exedra with a semi-circular chamber at either end, perhaps used as schoolrooms or lecture theatres. There is reliable evidence that at least in late imperial times the forum was used for courses of higher studies with access to the two libraries nearby.

Trajan’s Market in Rome

Trajan’s Market is a large complex of ruins in the city of Rome, Italy, located on the Via dei Fori Imperiali. It is also known as Mercati di Traiano, Europe.

Trajan’s Market, 100 – 112 years AD

The middle of the complex housed shops (tabernae): eleven on the ground floor and ten on the first floor, facing onto a passageway. The shops on the second floor, however, faced in the opposite direction and opened onto a street running behind the Markets, the Via Biberatica. The name, recorded only in the Middle Ages, was derived from the Latin noun biber (drink) and probably indicates that some of the shops were taverns and sold refreshments.

Trajan’s Market in Rome

Museum of the Imperial Fora – Trajan’s Market in Rome.

Trajan Markets – large well preserved complex, located near Foro Traiano. Trajan’s Markets known as Rome’s ancient shopping center. Rome, Italy.

The Markets of Trajan were also occupied by retailers, but their principal use must have been as wholesale warehouses dealing in provisions and run by the state. They thus formed the last link in a chain of distribution that also included Trajan’s important new port at Fiumicino.

Markets of Trajan – Photo Gallery:

Distance to the Colosseum

Trajan’s Market set in the center of Roman Forum, 0,9 km from (10 min walk) from Colosseum.

The post Trajan’s Market appeared first on Colosseum Rome Tickets.

Trajan’s Column

Colosseum Rome Tickets — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 07:19:43 +0000

The Trajan’s Column was erected by Trajan between the two libraries in his forum is made up of nineteen cylindrical blocks of marble.

Trajan’s Column (in Italian Colonna Traiana) – its 18 drums of Greek marble are carved with a spiralling frieze of some 2,500 figures, actors in battle scenes which have provided a wealth of documentary detail about Roman arms and modes of warfare.

Set on a pedestal and topped by a great capital, the column measures 29.78 metres or one hundred Roman feet: a carefully calculated height. The shaft of the column once supported a statue of Trajan that disappeared in the Middle Ages and replaced by one of St. Peter in the sixteenth century (by Pope Sixtus V in 1588).

Trajan’s Column

Trajan’s Column and dome of the Church of the Most Holy Name of Mary and the Trajan’s Column at the Trajan’s Forum in Rome

It rises on a cubic plinth, consists of seventeen drum-shaped marble sections, and can be climbed by a spiral staircase inside the column. A door is set in the base an inscription above it stating that the primary purpose of the monument was to indicate the original height of the hill excavated to construct the Forum of Trajan.

In fact the column was meant to function as the tomb of the Emperor Trajan and the entry in the base leads to an antechamber and then a large room which included a gold urn with Trajan’s burning ashes. The same door on the right leads to a spiral stairs of 185 steps, cut in the marble, which rises to the top of the Column of Trajan. This confirms that the column was designed and built as Trajan’s funerary monument.

Trajan’s Column – Reconstruction Sketch. Source: Architecture of the Early Empire

Trajan’s Column: Carvings

The decoration of Trajan’s column is without precedent. It is a continuous carved frieze about 200 metres long, originally painted, which unfolds in a spiral around the shaft of the column.

Trajan’s column (Rome, Italy). Trajan’s Column is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars.

It illustrates episodes of the two wars waged and won by Trajan against the Dacians in 101-102 and 105-106 AD. (with more than 2,500 figures) The scenes from the two campaigns are separated by the figure of Victory writing on a shield. The artist’s intention was to provide a faithful record of events as they actually occurred. Given the column’s placing between the two libraries and the form of the carvings, it is likely that it was a reproduction of an ancient book in roll form and the carvings were a figurative representation of Trajan’s Commentaries, now lost, written in Dacia.

The frieze depicts minutely the main episodes of the war, though they repeat the same sequence of incidents: from the beginning of the enterprise with the crossing of the Danube on a bridge of boats to the deportation of the vanquished population, with battles, sieges, the construction of camps, speeches to the troops, and executions. The figure of Trajan appeal’s no fewer than sixty times.

Carvings, Details – Photo Gallery:

Distance from Roman Colosseum

Trajan’s Column set in the center of Imperial Forums, 0,9 km from (11 min walk) from Roman Colosseum.

The post Trajan’s Column appeared first on Colosseum Rome Tickets.

Trajan’s Forum

Colosseum Rome Tickets — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 00:15:42 +0000

Trajan’s Forum was built by the Emperor Trajan between 107 and 113 AD. It was financed by the immense wealth from the conquest of Dacia (modern Romania). Work was supervised by the most famous architect of the day, Apollodorus of Damascus.

Wide Angel Shot of Forum and Trajan’s Market, Imperial Forums, Rome, Italy

Today all too little remains, hardly suggesting a complex that for centuries was held in awe as one of the architectural wonders of the world. Broken columns and wistful piles of stones are the only monuments to the temple of Trajan, once among the city’s mightiest.

Trajan’s Forum, Rome, Italy.

Since the space between the existing forum and the hillsides was already taken up by buildings, Apollodorus had to cut into the ridge between the Quirinal and the Capitol. The new complex was truly immense (300 x 85 metres). In order to create Trajan’s Forum, the high ground which joined the Capitol to the Quirinal hill was levelled and whole streets of houses were swept away, (circa 61 million cubic meters of earth and rock was moved to make way for the Trajan’s Forum) thereby completing the great design for the centre of the city and providing a link between it.

A great open space with two porticoes, two huge hemicyclcs, and a triple arch with three gates leading into the Forum of Augustus was the central feature of Trajan’s Forum. Against the background of the forum rise the remains of the Basilica Ulpia, which contained important state archives and two libraries designed by Apollodorus, one utilized to store records in Latin and the other for those in Greek, a reflection of the empire’s bilingualism. The books, both rolls or bound codices, were kept in wooden presses set in the recesses still risible in the walls. The books were carefully catalogued and cared for by librarians, whose tasks included protecting them from damp.

Apollodorus (Apollodorus of Damascus)

Apollodorus (Apollodorus of Damascus). Greek architect and sculptor, 2nd century ad. Worked in Rome in the first half of the century, especially on the great complex of the Forum of Trajan, and the Ulpian Basilica. According to a recent hypothesis, he may be the sculptor of the reliefs on Trajan’s Column, and of some slabs which were originally in the Forum of Trajan and later incorporated into the Arch of Constantine. Banished from Rome Hadrian, and condemned to death.

Between the libraries stood the splendid spiral column whose reliefs celebrated the exploits of Trajan in the conquest of Dacia (today Romania). An inscription on the base explains that its height (38 m. without the statue) corresponds to the height of the hill which was dug away at this point. The emperor himself was buried in the interior of the base.

Reconstruction Video of Trajan’s Forum:

Reconstruction Sketch of Forum (Source):

Forum-of-Trajan-Reconstruction

The Emperor Constantius II Sees the Forum of Trajan for the First Time (in 357 AD)
“But when Constantius II reached the Forum of Trajan, a complex unique in the world, and, in our judgment, worthy the admiration of the gods, he stopped amazed, considering all around him those gigantic structures, which words cannot describe or mortal hands again build. So renouncing all hope of attempting anything of the kind, he said he wanted to imitate only Trajan’s horse, set in the middle of the atrium, and with the emperor on its back. And prince Ormisda (..), standing beside him, replied with pleasing wit: ‘First, emperor, command the construction of a stable like this, so that the horse you wish to have made can find as appropriate a setting as that we have before our eyes.” Ammianus Marcellinus, Histories, XVI, 10, 15-16

The extensive clearances of the 1930’s brought to light only part of the forum: most of the area is still concealed under the modern roadway and gardens. In the square of Trajan’s Forum, there was a colossal bronze statue, the Equus Traiani, depicting the emperor on horseback. A foundation hole and travertine base from the equestrian group, which came to light during major excavations done in 1999 in the area of the Fori Imperiali, finally confirmed its existence.

Trajan’s Forum Photo Gallery:

Distance to the Colosseum – Walking:

Trajan’s Forum set in the center of Imperial Forums, 0,8 km from (10 min walk) from Roman Colosseum.

The post Trajan’s Forum appeared first on Colosseum Rome Tickets.