The Forum Boarium was the cattle forum venalium of Ancient Rome and the oldest forum that Rome possessed. It was located on a level piece of land near the Tiber between the Capitoline, the Palatine and Aventine hills. Here, too, is where the first bridges were built. The Boarium was by the premier port of Rome (Port Tibernius), and experienced intense commercial activity.
The Forum Boarium was the site of the first gladiatorial contest at Rome which took place in 264 BC as part of aristocratic funerary ritual—a munus or funeral gift for the dead. Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva put on a gladiatorial combat in honor of his deceased father with three pairs of slaves serving as gladiators.
The site was also a religious center housing the Temple of Hercules Victor, the Temple of Portunus, and the massive 6th or 5th century BC Great Altar of Hercules.
Read more about Forum Boarium: Architecture
Famous quotes containing the word forum:
“What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)