Forum Novum Severianum

About

Cuicul's population had so far outgrown its original walls by the early 3rd century that the city built an entirely second forum outside them, an irregular quadrilateral of some 3,200 square meters framed by porticoes on two sides. It gave the expanded southern districts their own civic and religious center, anchored by a monumental arch and a dynastic temple rather than retrofitting the cramped Old Forum a mile of streets away. The project reflects Cuicul near its demographic peak, a boomtown of some 12,000 people sprawling well past its founding-era footprint. It postdates Trajan's reign by nearly a century.

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

• https://www.worldhistory.org/image/16991/severan-forum-and-temple-of-the-gens-septimia-cuic/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_Caracalla_(Dj%C3%A9mila)

Nearby

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Templum Gentis Septimiae

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Arcus Caracallae

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Thermae Maiores Cuiculi

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