THE EQUINE CUCKOO: STATIUS’ ECUS MAXIMUS DOMITIANI
IMPERATORIS AND THE FLAVIAN FORUM
Michael DewarMost contemporary visitors to the Roman Forum not unnaturally con-
ceive of it as stretching from the Arch of Septimius Severus and the
foot of the Tabularium in the west all the way to the Arch of Titus and
the foreground of the Colosseum in the east. They are encouraged to
do so not least by the fact that this is the area bounded by the gates set
up by the modern authorities, and marked by the old ticket booths
where, for a few thousand lire, it used to be possible to gain entrance
to the official archaeological park. Although the lira and the entrance
fee have both gone the way of Nineveh and Tyre, they thus continue
to exercise a mildly pernicious influence on visitors’ perceptions. For
in truth, the area so enclosed falls into two distinct parts. To the east
there is the upper Via Sacra area, where the road snakes between the
Velia to the north and the lower slopes of the Palatine to the south,
and then there is the Forum Romanum proper in the west. It is in this
western area that we find the open space in front of the Comitium,
framed by the Julian basilica on the south, the temples of the Deified
Julius and of Castor and Pollux to the east and the south-east respec-
tively, the Basilica Aemilia and the Senate House to the north, and the
temples of Concord and Saturn and the Rostra filling in the western
end. In antiquity, with the various buildings pressing in and cutting off
one’s view, all this will have been more obvious to the eye and the
Forum more clearly marked off, or at least so it must have been before
Hadrian had Apollodorus of Damascus slice off the top of the Velia in
order to make the platform for his immense temple of Venus and
Rome.
The area of the upper Via Sacra, leading on to the Colosseum, pro-
vides a clear example of Flavian propaganda, of a kind that is well
attested in literature. Critics are unanimous in agreeing that Nero’s
Golden House is presented in Flavian and Trajanic authors as the
grandiose folly of an egotistical tyrant, the shameful confiscation of
land that belonged to the Roman People in order to make it serve the