Roman Forum of Rimini
About
Colonists laid out this forum in 268 BCE at the crossing of the decumanus and cardo, and by 117 CE it had served as Ariminum's civic heart for nearly four centuries. Tradition holds that Julius Caesar addressed his soldiers here in 49 BCE after crossing the Rubicon. A theater closed the square to the north and an archway marked its southern entrance. A basilica for courts and business stood nearest the sea.
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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