Roman Forum of Beirut
About
Augustus turned Berytus into a full Roman colonia in 14 BC and raised a forum at its civic core. A 99-meter basilica with a Corinthian portico of polychrome stone lined its north side, built within the colony's first Roman century. Veterans of two legions settled here, turning a Phoenician port into a Latin-speaking showcase of empire. Its granite columns still stand near Beirut's Place de l'Etoile.
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.
In ancient writing
- Strabo, Geography 16.2.19
Describes Berytus's destruction by Tryphon and its Roman refoundation as a colonia settled with legionary veterans.
Sources
Nearby
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