Trajan's Markets
About
Built into the cut face of the Quirinal beside Trajan's Forum, this is six storeys of brick-faced concrete holding roughly a hundred and fifty rooms, linked by stairs, ramps and a paved street that runs across the slope halfway up. A vaulted hall at its centre is roofed by concrete groin vaults springing from piers — a way of covering a wide space without filling it with columns. The rooms were long read as shops; more likely they are offices for the staff who administered the grain dole and the city's supply. In 117 CE the complex is barely finished, and the mortar is still curing.
What happened here
Trade is regulated and everyone is aware of it. Weights and measures are checked against the standards kept by the aediles, and short measure gets you fined and named. Stalls are arranged by trade, with the fish and meat kept to one side and downwind where the town has any choice. Prices swing with the shipping season and are shouted rather than displayed. Much of the meat on sale has come from a sacrifice, so the religious calendar shows up in the supply. Slaves buying for a household argue harder than their owners would. The upper floors, where there are any, are offices and storage let by the town for rent. It opens at dawn and the good produce is gone by mid-morning.
In ancient writing
- Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.4
Credits Apollodorus of Damascus, architect of Trajan's building program in Rome, with constructing the forum and its surrounding structures, the complex that this market building belonged to.
- Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 13.25
Describes gilded statues of horses and military standards displayed along the colonnades of the Forum of Trajan, part of the same imperial complex as this market building.
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 →