#forum nervae

[dererumgestarum]

FORUM TRANSITORIUM

The Argiletum was the main thoroughfare connecting the Subura to the Forum Roman. Lined with squalid timber houses, this unsightly road contrasted sharply with the Forum of Augustus to the north and the Templum Pacis to the south.

Around AD 85, Domitian undertook to transform the Argiletum into an imperial forum that would also serve as a magnificent traffic corridor. Like the other fora, an imposing temple (in this case hexastyle, prostyle, and pseudo-peripteral) was erected on a tall podium at the eastern end. The temple was dedicated to Minerva (a deity for whom Domitian had a special devotion). Domitian’s forum would be the smallest of the imperial fora.

The numerous architectural similarities to the Domus Augustana confirm that Rabirius, Domitian’s court architect, designed the forum as well. The narrow space precluded the flanking colonnades used in the previous fora. Rabirius retained the idea of the colonnades by placing a row of Corinthian columns 1.75m from the enclosing walls, along the length of the forum.

Rabirius’ daring experimentation is on full display in the Forum Transitorium. The columns carry a densely-ornamented entablature (a Flavian predilection) that projects with each column, but reverts to the wall in the intervals. The attic of each interval received a full-length figure in relief, exemplified by the image of Minerva seen between the two surviving columns. (The two extant columns are referred to by modern Romans as le colonnace.) This striking solution dramatically enriched the articulation of the wall. It also increased the length of the frieze, which depicts the myth of Arachne, who dared to challenge Minerva to a weaving contest, and scenes of Minerva supervising docile sewing women. The latter may have been an illusion to an annual artisan’s festival that took place in the Forum.

At the time of Domitian's assassination in AD 96, the forum was largely completed. The temple was dedicated by his successor, Nerva, in AD 97. Although it was Officially named for the new emperor, the Forum Nervae quickly came to be known as the Forum Transitorium, reflecting its function as a means of getting from one place to another.

In the 230s, Alexander Severus commissioned a group of bronze statues of the deified emperors for the Forum Transitorium, which were placed in between the columns on pedestals. This arrangement echoed the statuary gallery of worthy Romans seen in the neighboring Forum of Augustus.

The most innovative forms of Roman architecture often appear first in wall painting. The second style architectural imagery of Cubiculum 16 of the Villa of the Mysteries includes arcades with tall, projecting cornices that closely resemble le colonnacce. These imaginative capriccios decorating a seaside villa would have to wait 150 years before an architect to realize them in stone in an urban setting.