Editing Roman Forum (section)

===Roman Republic===
[[File:Templo de Vesta.JPG|thumb|The [[Temple of Vesta]]]]
[[File:2012-02-17 Foro Romano da Palazzo Senatorio 3.jpg|thumb|A view of the Roman Forum seen from a window of the [[Palazzo Senatorio]]: at the centre the church of [[Santi Luca e Martina]] (beside it at the right, the roof of the [[Curia Julia]]), in the lower right the [[Arch of Septimius Severus]]]]
[[File:Platner-forum-republic-96 recontructed color.jpg|thumb|Map of the Roman Forum. Structures of Republican Rome are shown in red and those of Imperial Rome in black. From Platner's ''Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome'', 1904 (adjusted).]]

During the Republican period, the Comitium continued to be the central location for all judicial and political life in the city.<ref>{{cite book |title = Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory | last=Vasaly| first=Ann| publisher = University of California Press | place = Berkeley | year = 1996| page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=nXJ5d0lvTFMC&pg=PA61 61]| isbn=0-520-07755-5}}</ref> However, to create a larger gathering place, the Senate began expanding the open area between the Comitium and the [[Temple of Vesta]] by purchasing existing private homes and removing them for public use. Building projects of several consuls repaved and built onto both the Comitium and the adjacent central plaza that was becoming the Forum.<ref>{{cite book |title = Handbook for Rome and the Campagna | editor-last=Young | editor-first=Norwood| publisher = John Murray |place = London | year = 1908| page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=SGwPAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1–PA95 95]}}</ref>

The 5th century BC witnessed the earliest Forum temples with known dates of construction: the [[Temple of Saturn]] (497 BC) and the [[Temple of Castor and Pollux]] (484 BC).<ref>Richmond, Ian Archibald, et al. (1996), Entry, "Forum Romanum", In: Hornblower, Simon and Antony Spawforth (eds.), ''[[The Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'' (3rd ed.), [[Oxford University Press]], p. 607.</ref> The [[Temple of Concord]] was added in the following century, possibly by the soldier and statesman [[Marcus Furius Camillus]]. A long-held tradition of speaking from the elevated speakers' [[Rostra]]—originally facing north towards the Senate House to the assembled politicians and elites—put the orator's back to the people assembled in the Forum. A [[tribune]] known as [[Caius Licinius]] (consul in 361 BC) is said to have been the first to turn away from the elite towards the Forum, an act symbolically repeated two centuries later by [[Gaius Gracchus]].<ref>{{cite book |title = Religions of Rome: A History| last=Beard, Mary| author-link=Mary Beard (classicist)| author2 = North, John A.; Price, Simon | publisher = Cambridge University Press | place = Cambridge | year = 1998| page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=2rtaTFYuM3QC&pg=PA109 109 (note 139)]| isbn= 0-521-30401-6 }}</ref>

This began the tradition of ''locus popularis'', in which even young nobles were expected to speak to the people from the Rostra. Gracchus was thus credited with (or accused of) disturbing the ''[[mos maiorum]]'' ("custom of the fathers/ancestors") in ancient Rome. When [[Roman censor|Censor]] in 318 BC, [[Gaius Maenius]] provided buildings in the Forum neighborhood with balconies, which were called after him ''maeniana'', so that the spectators might better view the games put on within the temporary wooden arenas set up there.

The [[Tribune bench]]es were placed on the Forum Romanum, as well. First, they stood next to the senate house; during the late Roman Republic, they were placed in front of the [[Basilica Porcia]].

The earliest [[basilica]]s (large, aisled halls) were introduced to the Forum in 184 BC by [[Cato the Elder|Marcus Porcius Cato]], who thus began the process of "monumentalizing" the site. The [[Basilica Fulvia]] was dedicated on the north side of the Forum square in 179 BC. (It was rebuilt and renamed several times, as Basilica Fulvia et Aemilia, Basilica Paulli, [[Basilica Aemilia]]). Nine years later, the [[Basilica Sempronia]] was dedicated on the south side.<ref name="books.google">{{cite book |title = Italy: Handbook for Travellers | last=Baedeker, Karl | author-link=Karl Baedeker | publisher = Karl Baedeker | place = Leipzig |year = 1903| page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=uAlBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA251 251]}}</ref>

Many of the traditions from the Comitium, such as the popular assemblies, funerals of nobles, and games, were transferred to the Forum as it developed.<ref name="books.google" /> Especially notable was the move of the ''[[comitia tributa]]'', then the focus of popular politics, in 145 BC. In 133 BC the [[Tribune of the people|Tribune]] [[Tiberius Gracchus]] was lynched there by a group of senators.

In the 80s BC, during the dictatorship of [[Sulla]], major work was done on the Forum including the raising of the plaza level by almost a meter and the laying of permanent marble paving stones.<ref>[[Peter Connolly (classical scholar)|Connolly, Peter]] and [[Hazel Dodge]] (1998), ''The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens & Rome'', [[Oxford University Press]], p. 109.</ref> Remarkably, this level of the paving was maintained more or less intact for over a millennium: at least until the sack of Rome by [[Robert Guiscard]] and his Normans in 1084, when neglect finally allowed debris to begin to accumulate unabated.<ref>Watkin, 2009, p. 106.</ref>

In 78 BC, the immense [[Tabularium]] (Records Hall) was built at the Capitoline Hill end of the Forum by order of the consuls for that year, [[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (consul 78 BC)|M. Aemilius Lepidus]] and [[Quintus Lutatius Catulus Capitolinus|Q. Lutatius Catulus]]. In 63 BC, [[Cicero]] delivered his famous speech denouncing the companions of the conspirator [[Catiline]] at the Forum (in the [[Temple of Concord]], whose spacious hall was sometimes used as a meeting place by the Senators). After the verdict, they were led to their deaths at the [[Tullianum]], the nearby dungeon which was the only known state prison of the ancient Romans.<ref>Watkin, 2009, p. 79.</ref>

Over time, the Comitium was lost to the ever-growing Curia and to [[Julius Caesar]]'s rearrangements before his assassination in 44 BC.<ref>The close relationship between the Comitium and the ''{{lang|la|Forum Romanum}}'' eventually faded from the writings of the ancients. The former is last mentioned in the reign of [[Septimius Severus]] ({{circa|200 AD}}).</ref> That year, two events were witnessed by the Forum, perhaps the most famous ever to transpire there: [[Marc Antony]]'s [[Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears|funeral oration for Caesar]] (immortalized in [[Shakespeare]]'s [[Julius Caesar (play)|famous play]]) was delivered from the partially completed speaker's platform known as the [[Rostra|New Rostra]] and the public burning of Caesar's body occurred on a site directly across from the Rostra around which the [[Temple of Caesar|Temple to the Deified Caesar]] was subsequently built by his great-nephew Octavius ([[Augustus]]).<ref>Grant, 1970, pp. 111–112.</ref> Almost two years later, Marc Antony added to the notoriety of the Rostra by publicly displaying the severed head and right hand of his enemy [[Cicero]] there.