goddess of wisdom. All capitols were built on high ground;
Rome’s was on the Capitoline Hill. If there was no natu-
ral high ground, a platform was built to raise the capitol
above the surrounding area. Residents believed that the
gods represented in the temples were their city’s protec-
tors, and that they could only protect what they could see
from the capitol.
In conquered territories a city’s capitol might hold tem-
ples to local gods, with their names changed to those of Ro-
man deities. For instance, in the cities of former Phoenician
colonies the Romans conquered in North Africa, they built
capitols with temples dedicated to the god Baal but changed
Baal’s name to Saturn. Beginning with Augustus Caesar (r.
27 b.c.e.–14 c.e.) Roman emperors themselves began to be
declared gods, and capitols throughout the empire began to
include temples to the emperors and members of their fami-
lies who had been declared gods, such as Augustus’s wife,
Livia. In some parts of North Africa all the old temple gods
were replaced by emperor-gods, perhaps because the armies
of the emperors off ered more obvious protection than did
the old gods.
Th ese practices led to confl ict in some colonial cities such
as those in Palestine, where Jews worshipped only one god
and were forbidden by their faith to worship any others. To
the Romans no city was protected from evil without a capitol
on high ground, and they seem to have had trouble under-
standing why anyone would object to such a thing, espe-
cially when they were willing to let the local people worship
whatever gods they preferred, if perhaps under the names of
Roman gods. Th e process of Romanizing people included ac-
climating them to Roman ways of worship, and it worked al-
most everywhere, but not in Palestine.
Besides the capitol, every Roman city had another public
area that was in some ways even more important: the forum.
Th is was the center of civic life, the place where vital news
fi rst circulated and where citizens debated the key issues of
the day. It was the heart of any Roman city. Th e typical forum
was a rectangular, fl at open space, usually paved, of varying
size from city to city, and bordered by the buildings for the
city’s basic institutions. Th e forum did not originate with the
city of Rome; earlier examples have been found in southern
Italy, perhaps infl uenced by the ancient Greek agora (literally
“marketplace” but extended to mean an open meeting place
in a city). But the famed Roman Forum was the model for all
that followed.
Th e Roman Forum was established in a marshy valley
near the Tiber. In its early days it was plagued by mosquitoes
and the diseases those insects carried, and the river some-
times fl ooded it. Between 616 and 579 b.c.e. King Tarquin
had a canal dug to drain the area; in the 100s b.c.e. this canal
was covered and became a sewer. At fi rst people seem to have
built homes haphazardly around the Forum, and apartment
houses called insulae (“islands”) were crowded together. Th e
Forum itself was always kept clear and was reserved for pe-
destrians only.
Forums generally had colonnades on one or more
sides, often with shops selling food or other goods. Nearby
buildings commonly included a basilica and a curia. The
basilica was a rectangular open building with a f lat roof.
Rome had one of the largest, the Basilica Julia, its f loorRoman silver coins, 275–260 b.c.e., depicting the founding twins of the city of Rome, Romulus and Remus (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)
cities: Rome 227