The Roman Forum is the heart of the ancient city.
For five centuries of the Republic, this was where Rome governed itself — where laws were passed, trials held, elections fought, and gods appeased.
Caesar was cremated here.
Cicero gave speeches here.
The ground beneath your feet is among the most historically charged in the world.
It takes a moment to orientate.
At one end, the Arch of Titus, built in AD 81 to commemorate the sack of Jerusalem.
At the other, the Arch of Septimius Severus.
Between them: the Temple of Saturn, where the Roman treasury was kept; the round Temple of Vesta, where a sacred flame burned and could never be allowed to go out; and the House of the Vestals, the priestesses who tended it.
The Basilica Julia — Julius Caesar's law court — runs along one side.
And the Curia Julia: the Senate House, where Rome's laws were made for centuries.
Its original bronze doors were so prized that Pope Alexander VII had them moved to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in 1660 — the doors you see in the Forum today are 17th-century copies.
The Rostra is the speaker's platform at the centre.
It is named after the rostra — the bronze rams from captured enemy ships — that once decorated its face.
Mark Antony gave Caesar's funeral speech from a platform like this.
This is where Roman public life happened, out in the open, in front of everyone.
From the Forum, climb the Capitoline Hill.
It was Rome's most sacred hill — the seat of Jupiter's great temple, the destination of triumphal processions.
The Capitoline Museums at the top hold the original gilded bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (the figure in the piazza outside is a copy), the Capitoline Wolf, and one of the finest collections of ancient sculpture anywhere.
The view back down over the Forum from the hill is the best in Rome.
Fun fact: by the Middle Ages, the Forum had been buried under metres of rubble and was used as a cattle field — locals called it the Campo Vaccino.
Systematic excavation only began in the 18th century.
Parts of it are still being dug out today.
