Forum of Thuburbo Maius
About
Thuburbo Maius rebuilt its civic forum in 161 CE, laying out a square colonnaded on three sides with shops behind the portico. A wide staircase at its north end climbed straight up to the new Capitol. Its paving stones still show the wear of two centuries of foot traffic. In 117 CE this ground held only an earlier, smaller square, not the piazza that survives 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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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 →