Roman Forum of Milan
About
Mediolanum's forum occupied the crossing of the cardo and decumanus, a 160 by 55 meter square laid out as the city grew into its role as a municipium after 49 BCE. It carried the basilica, market stalls, and civic offices that ran the colony's daily business. Excavations in the 1950s under Via Brisa exposed foundations of its reception halls, and paving slabs turned up again beneath the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Piazza San Sepolcro sits directly above it today.
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
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