Colonial Forum of Corduba
About
Corduba's civic heart began as a plain rammed-earth plaza under the Republic before Augustus paved it in stone; not content with one forum, the city added a second, more lavish square nearby — the so-called Forum Novum or Forum Adiectum — late in Augustus's reign or early under Tiberius. Both spaces were long-established fixtures by Hadrian's accession. The exact intra-city footprint of the Forum Novum is not precisely pinned down in available sources; this coordinate is an approximation from described street intersections, lower-confidence than the dating.
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
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