Rome tourist attractions - The Roman Forum

The Roman Forum (Forum Romanum), one of Rome's top tourist attractions, was the political and economical centre of Rome during the Republic and the point around which ancient Rome developed and many of the political, judicial and religious buildings of Rome were constructed here.

While Rome began as a village on the nearby Palatino Hill, supposedly by Romulus and Remus in 753 BC, at which time the valley in which the Forum was later constructed was nothing but marsh.

Somewhere between the beginning of the 6th and end of the 5th centuries BC the area started to become used as a market, shortly before Rome become a unified city around 575 BC. During this time games were held in the Roman Forum on feast days, but there was a sanctuary for Cloacina, the goddess of fertility, the chapel of the two-headed Janus and at the lower end of the market place was the Temple of Vesta guarded by the six Vestal Virgins.

However, after the Roman Republic was established in 510 BC many important development took place, including the Temple of Saturn in 497 BC and the Temple of Castor in 485 BC.

The Forum continued to develop over the years of the Republic, surviving siege, internal dispute and in 210 BC a great fire, which reduced much of the area around the Forum to ash. Many new buildings were constructed to replace what was damaged.

When Julius Caesar's heir Octavian, later Augustus, became the undisputed leaded of the Roman Empire in 37 BC, he wanted a city worthy of its Empire and it was during his reign that many of the buildings took their final form.

The Empire lasted until the 3rd century AD when Rome lost its began to lose its influence and was eventually split in two. The decline continued and by the 6th century the Roman Empire had begun to disappear.

During the middle ages much of the Forum was buried and silt and debris and the area was used to graze cattle and some stone was taken for the construction of new buildings. Although archaeologists began excavating the area in 1803, it was not until the 20th century that the Roman Forum was excavated completely. One of the most popular of Rome's tourist attractions, what we see today is a mixture architecture from different periods of Roman history.