Forum of Nerva

Stand at the railing and look down. The street noise of modern Rome is behind you: scooters, buses, the hum of traffic on the wide avenue. Below you, a few metres lower, lies a strip of old paving and pale stone. Two great columns rise from it, half sunk in shadow, carrying a heavy block of carved marble. This is the Forum of Nerva. It is one of the smallest of the imperial forums, and one of the most surprising.

First, a word about what a forum was. In ancient Rome, a forum was a public square. It was a place for temples, law courts, speeches and business. The old Roman Forum grew slowly over centuries. But as the city became the capital of an empire, it ran out of space. So the emperors began to build new forums of their own, one after another, side by side. Today we call them the Imperial Forums.

This one has an unusual story, because the man whose name it carries did not really plan it. The project was begun under the emperor Domitian, in the late first century. Domitian was a forceful and feared ruler. In the year 96 he was murdered in a palace plot. His successor was Nerva, an elderly senator. Nerva completed the forum and dedicated it in the year 97. So the square bears his name... but the vision was Domitian's.

Why does that matter? After Domitian's death, the Senate condemned his memory. Romans called this kind of punishment damnatio memoriae, which means the condemnation of memory. His name was removed from inscriptions, and many of his statues were destroyed. A building he started could not easily keep his name. So the credit passed to Nerva. It is a small lesson in Roman politics, written in stone right in front of you.

Now look at the shape of the space. It is long and narrow, more like a corridor than a square. That is because the builders had very little room. This land was already squeezed between the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Peace and the old Roman Forum. An old street ran through here, called the Argiletum. It linked the crowded Subura neighbourhood to the heart of the city.

That old road gave the place its other name. Romans also called it the Forum Transitorium — the forum you pass through. It was a monument, but it was also a busy passage. People walked through it every day on their way somewhere else. In a sense, you are still doing the same thing. You are passing by on a city street, just at a higher level.

The architects had a clever answer to the lack of space. A full colonnade, a covered walkway on columns, would have filled the narrow square. So they placed the columns very close to the enclosure walls instead. The columns stood almost against the stone, with the beam above them stepping out and back. This gave the long walls rhythm and depth, without stealing room from the square. It is a theatrical trick, and the two surviving columns show how it worked.

Romans later gave these two survivors a nickname: the Colonnacce. The name means something like the big old columns. Look above them. A carved band of stone runs across the top. This is the frieze. And above it, in a raised panel, stands a female figure in relief. She is Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, war and crafts. Domitian treated her as his personal protector.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. The frieze shows scenes of women at work, spinning and weaving. Many scholars connect these scenes to the myth of Arachne. In that story, a young weaver challenged Minerva to a contest and lost. The goddess turned her into a spider. The carving was a message about skill, order and the danger of pride. It fits well with a strict emperor who liked to present himself as a guardian of old Roman values.

At the far end of the forum once stood a temple to Minerva. It survived far longer than most ancient buildings in Rome. It was still standing at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Then, in 1606, Pope Paul V had it taken down. Its stone and marble were reused for his own building projects, including the great Acqua Paola fountain on the Janiculum Hill. So if you visit that fountain, you may be looking at pieces of this temple.

After the empire fell, the forum did not stay empty. Over the centuries, people built homes and workshops among the ruins. Excavations here have found remains of houses from the early Middle Ages. The ground level slowly rose, as soil and rubble built up. For a long time, the two columns stood half buried, with houses pressed around them. Old drawings and engravings often show them this way, rising out of a crowded city street.

Much of the forum is still hidden today. In the 1930s, the government of Benito Mussolini cut the broad Via dei Fori Imperiali through this area. Whole medieval and later neighbourhoods were cleared. Some ancient remains were uncovered, but the new road also covered large parts of the forums. So when you stand here, part of the Forum of Nerva is likely under the asphalt beneath your feet.

Before you move on, take one more look at Minerva in her panel. She is worn and damaged, but she is still there after nearly two thousand years. Then listen to the street around you, the voices and engines and footsteps. People still pass through this place, just as Romans did on their way to the market. As you walk away, notice how the old ground sits lower than the new. Every step in this city is a step on top of history.