Roman Forum of Brescia
About
Brixia's forum square existed from the Late Republic and gained a basilica and porticoes under Augustus, but Vespasian rebuilt it wholesale in 73 CE alongside his new Capitolium and theatre. The rebuilt square gave the colony a unified civic center on the model of Rome itself. Its footprint survives in the modern Piazza del Foro, which still carries the ancient name. By 117 CE it had been the city's political and commercial heart for over four decades in its Flavian form.
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
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 →