Layout
The layout of the Forum of Domitian.
The Forum of Domitian followed the standard plan of an imperial forum - a temple dominating an open space bounded by passageways or shelters. However, this Forum was built in the narrow space between three other Fora, and is only 131m by 45m. Due to its constricted site, columns divide the Forum’s perimeter walls into a series of shallow bays that create the illusion of spaciousness, rather than the standard walkways. Since the architect Rabirius used also this system of broken entablature in the Aula Regia, Domitian’s palace on the Palatine, d’Ambra argues that he was probably also responsible for the Forum Transitorium.1
On one end, a D-shaped gate called the Porticus Absidata led to the Subura; its design would have excluded wheeled traffic from the Forum. Within this gate, there stood the Temple of Minerva. It is probable that an equestrian statue of Domitian adorned the center of the Forum, and at the other end, there stood a shrine to Janus Quadrifrons before a passageway to the Forum Romanum. The long sides of the Forum were broken by a number of doors to the Templum Pacis on one side and to the Forum Augustum and Forum Iulium on the other.
1. d'Ambra, Eve. Private Lives, Imperial Virtues. Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 1993.