Forum of Carthago Nova (Molinete)
About
The civic centre of the colony sits on the low Molinete hill above the harbour: a paved square with a hall for the town council along one side and a temple raised on a podium at the head of it. A bath building and a banqueting hall stand just downhill, their walls painted with garlands, theatrical masks and imitation marble panelling. All of it belongs to the rebuilding that followed the refoundation of the city under Augustus, the same programme that produced the theatre a few streets away. In 117 CE Carthago Nova is past its silver-mining peak but still one of the great ports of Hispania.
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
Nearby
 - Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Barcelona 2014.JPG?width=800)
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 →