The Forum Boarium was the cattle forum venalium of Ancient Rome and the oldest forum that Rome possessed. It was located on a level piece of land near the Tiber between the Capitoline, the Palatine and Aventine hills. Here, too, is where the first bridges were built. The Boarium was by the premier port of Rome (Port Tibernius), and experienced intense commercial activity.
The Forum Boarium was the site of the first gladiatorial contest at Rome which took place in 264 BC as part of aristocratic funerary ritual—a munus or funeral gift for the dead. Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva put on a gladiatorial combat in honor of his deceased father with three pairs of slaves serving as gladiators.
The site was also a religious center housing the Temple of Hercules Victor, the Temple of Portunus, and the massive 6th or 5th century BC Great Altar of Hercules.
Read more about Forum Boarium: Architecture
Famous quotes containing the word forum:
“That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)