Introduction

Roman Forum- View from Capitoline Hill 

Located between the Capitoline and Palatine hills in Rome, the Roman Forum (Forum Romanum) served as the location of many of Rome’s Temples, commemorative monuments, and various other buildings related to civic life. The forum served as an important center of Roman business, religion, and daily life from the time of the Roman Monarchy up until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century C.E. Between that time and when excavations began in the early 1900s, the Forum was sometimes used as a field to pasture cows.