Forum of the Colonia of Theveste
About
Trajan raised Theveste from legionary settlement to chartered Roman colonia, folding retired soldiers and their farms into full civic status. A forum anchored the new city, seating the magistrates who governed the Tebessa plain. By August 117 CE the colonia was not yet twenty years old, its public buildings modest next to the marble city that later generations built.
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 →