Forum of Bulla Regia
About
Bulla Regia's civic forum covered more than 1,000 square meters and organized the whole Roman townscape after Vespasian granted the city municipium status. Colonnaded porticoes lined every side, backed by a Capitol and a temple to Apollo. Archaeologists uncovered it in a five-year dig starting in 1949. In 117 CE this was still a modest civic square, not yet ringed by the grander facades later wheat wealth would add.
What happened here
Business starts at first light. The magistrates' tribunal opens, cases are called, and the crowd that gathers to listen is half the point of coming. Money-changers work from tables under the porticoes, weighing coin from a dozen mints against the local rate. Notices are painted on the walls and whitewashed over when they go stale: elections, gladiator shows, a lost slave, a house to let. By the sixth hour the heat empties the open square and the arcades fill instead. Statues of the town's benefactors stand between the columns, and the men who paid for them expect to be greeted by name. Public slaves sweep at dusk. The forum is where a Roman town keeps its records, its gossip and its self-regard in the same place.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Bulla Regia
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →