The Rostra of the Roman Forum

The Rostra of the Roman Forum are the platform from which orators spoke to the people of Rome. The name comes from the rostra, the bronze rams of the warships captured at Antium in 338 BC and fixed to the parapet of the platform as a trophy. The first platform, the Rostra Vetera, stood next to the Comitium, in the northwest corner of the square. Caesar had it dismantled and rebuilt at the western end of the Forum, where the work was completed under Augustus (hence the name Rostra Augusti). A third phase, the Rostra Diocletiani, belongs to the end of the third century AD. What you see today is mostly the core of the podium, supplemented by a modern restoration. Here you find what is really still standing, how to tell apart the Umbilicus Urbis and the Miliarium Aureum (the two monuments almost everyone confuses), what really happened on this platform and from which points it is best seen and photographed, including the free balcony on the Campidoglio.

Where the Rostra of the Roman Forum are and how to get there

The Rostra occupy the short western side of the square of the Roman Forum, between the Arch of Septimius Severus to the north and the Temple of Saturn to the south, with the slopes of the Capitoline hill behind them. If you enter the archaeological area from the Colosseum and walk Via Sacra westward, you find them at the end, on the right, as the last element of the square before the climb toward the Capitoline Hill. They are a long straight base just over three meters high, with no columns and no roof: the reason most visitors walk past without noticing.

The exact spot in the square

To get your bearings, three references visible from afar are enough. The Arch of Septimius Severus closes the north side. The eight granite columns of the Temple of Saturn close the south side. Between the two, leaning against the western edge of the square, runs a low, straight wall about 20 meters long: that is the front of the Rostra. In front opens the free space of the forum square, where the honorary column erected in honor of the emperor Phocas in 608 AD stands isolated, the last monument added to the ancient Forum.

The entrances to the archaeological area

The Rostra are inside the fenced area of the Roman Forum and the Palatine, managed by the Colosseum Archaeological Park, and can only be reached with the area ticket. The entrances used by the Park are those at Largo della Salara Vecchia on Via dei Fori Imperiali, at Via della Salara Vecchia toward Via del Tulliano, at the Arch of Titus near the Colosseum and at Via di San Gregorio, which mainly serves the Palatine. The most convenient gate for the Rostra is the one at Via della Salara Vecchia, a few steps from the Mamertine Prison: from there the descent leads directly into the western sector of the square. The active entrances change with the season and with construction work, so it's best to check the entrances page on colosseo.it the day before.

Subway, tram and surface transport

The reference stop is Colosseo, on subway line B, five or six minutes on foot from Largo della Salara Vecchia going up Via dei Fori Imperiali. From Termini you take line B in the direction of Laurentina and get off at the second stop. The Cavour stop, also on line B, leaves you inside the Monti rione and requires you to go down to the Forums via Via Cavour and the Borgia climb, a longer and much more beautiful route. Tram 8 arrives at Piazza Venezia from Trastevere, and from Piazza Venezia to the Forums it's another five minutes on foot.

On surface lines, a caution is needed. The construction site of subway line C at Piazza Venezia has changed several times the routes of the buses that served Via dei Fori Imperiali and the nearby terminals: the detours change over time, and a line number learned by heart today may not be valid in six months. Before leaving it's best to check the route on atac.roma.it. For the general picture of getting around the city we have a dedicated page on how to get around Rome. The whole area falls within the limited traffic zone of the historic center and Via dei Fori Imperiali is closed to private traffic: taxis arrive at most at Piazza del Colosseo or Piazza Venezia, and there is no parking.

Seeing the Rostra without a ticket

There is a free and excellent way to look at them: the balcony on Via del Campidoglio, behind Palazzo Senatorio, which overlooks the Forum from above. You get there by climbing the Capitoline Cordonata, crossing the square and turning left at the side of the city hall. Access is free and there is no turnstile. From up there the Rostra read like a plan: you see the whole base, you understand the relationship with the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Temple of Saturn, you pick out the brick cylinder of the Umbilicus Urbis. It's the viewpoint we recommend first even for those who then go in: from above you understand where you are going, and once you're in the middle of the ruins nobody understands anything about the plan anymore.

What you see today of the Rostra, and what is modern

The monument visible today is largely the core of the podium in concrete and tuff blocks, anciently faced with marble and now without that facing, plus a masonry integration carried out in the first decades of the 1900s. Let's say it clearly, because very few panels do: when a visitor looks at the straight wall of the Rostra and thinks he has in front of him the surface that Cicero or Caesar saw, he is mistaken. He sees a stripped ancient core and a modern restoration that took up its course to make it readable.

The podium and its measurements

The platform is a long straight base, with the front facing the square and the back toward the Capitoline. The measurements that circulate in the archaeological literature don't fully coincide: the length of the front is given at around 24 meters, the depth between 10 and 12, the height a little over three meters. The differences depend on what is considered part of the monument, because the complex had additions and extensions in different periods. We report the order of magnitude, not a flat figure: whoever writes a flat figure on this monument has usually copied it.

The holes on the front

On the front wall you notice two rows of aligned rectangular cavities. The current reading, accepted by the manuals, is that they were the seats for the pegs with which the bronze rams and, later, other honorary objects were fixed. The necessary caution is that a large part of the surface visible today belongs to the 20th-century reconstruction, so the alignment you photograph shouldn't be taken as an intact ancient survey. The same caution applies to the step and the side ramp.

Why they are called Rostra: Antium, 338 BC

The name of the Rostra comes from the bronze rams of the warships of Antium, captured by the Romans in 338 BC and nailed to the orators' platform as a war trophy. The rostrum was the main weapon of an ancient ship: a massive bronze point fixed to the prow, below the waterline, with which the flank of the enemy ship was rammed. Taking it from a defeated fleet and attaching it to a wall in the middle of Rome's political square was a gesture of very precise brutality.

The battle and the source

The episode is placed at the end of the Latin War, when Antium, a Volscian city on the coast about 50 kilometers from Rome, was subdued by the consul Gaius Maenius. Livy, in the eighth book, tells that part of the Antiate ships was burned and that with the rams of the others it was decided to adorn the platform erected in the Forum, which from that moment took the name Rostra. Livy, however, writes three centuries after the events: the report is coherent and nobody seriously challenges it, but it remains an annalistic reconstruction, not a record.

A word that became a place

The interesting step is linguistic. Rostra is a neuter plural that simply means "the beaks," "the rams," and within a few generations it stops indicating the hanging objects and comes to indicate the place where they hang. In classical Latin "to go up on the Rostra" means to speak in public, period. It's the same mechanism by which today we say "going to the grandstand" without thinking of wood. When Cicero uses the word he isn't thinking of bronze: he's thinking of the political stage.

The rostrate columns, close relatives

The same naval trophy also adorned isolated honorary columns, the columnae rostratae, decorated with rows of rams projecting from the shaft. The most famous was the one erected for Gaius Duilius after the naval victory of Mylae in 260 BC, in the First Punic War. The piece that survives is an imperial-age replica of the inscription, and it is displayed in the Palazzo dei Conservatori inside the Capitoline Museums: if you want to see how a naval victory was written in archaic Latin, you'll find it there, 200 meters from the platform.

The Rostra Vetera and the Comitium: where the platform stood before Caesar

Until the middle of the first century BC the orators' platform stood at the northwest end of the square, on the edge of the Comitium, that is, the circular space where the assembly of the people met in front of the Curia. That was the original position, that of the Rostra Vetera, the "old Rostra," and it completely changes the sense of the scene: whoever spoke from the old platform had the Comitium in front of him and the square at his side.

What the Comitium was

The Comitium was a consecrated area, roughly circular in shape and stepped, set against the Curia, where citizens' assemblies, popular trials and the sessions in which the magistrate questioned the people were held. Its space is hard to recognize today, squeezed between the Curia Iulia and the Arch of Septimius Severus, and on the surface what emerges is mainly the modern covering of the Lapis Niger, the black marble paving that protects an archaic shrine with a cippus inscribed in very ancient Latin. That cippus is one of the oldest epigraphic documents of Rome, and it stands a few meters from where the Rostra Vetera stood.

Why Caesar moved it

The move was not a matter of urban furnishing. The old platform tied the orator to the restricted assembly of the Comitium and to the Curia, that is, to the Senate. Bringing it to the short western side of the square meant turning the orator toward the open space, where the crowd stands that doesn't vote by tribe but listens and reacts. Scholars discuss how much of this operation was deliberate political strategy and how much a technical consequence of the construction of the new Curia and the new monumental forum that Caesar was opening north of the square. The two readings are not mutually exclusive. The geometry, in any case, changed: from the platform of the Comitium to the stage of the square.

The Rostra Augusti: the project begun by Caesar and finished by Augustus

The platform you see today is the monument begun by Caesar at the western end of the forum square and brought to completion in the years after his death, under Augustus: for this reason the archaeological literature calls it Rostra Augusti. Caesar was killed on the Ides of March in 44 BC, so he saw almost nothing finished of what he had set in motion in the Forum.

The second platform, that of the temple of Caesar

At the opposite end of the square, in front of the temple dedicated to the deified Caesar, there was a second platform, the Rostra ad Divi Iulii, carved out of the podium of the temple and also decorated with ship rams, according to tradition those captured at Actium. The two platforms looked at each other from one end of the Forum to the other. That they really worked together is shown by the funeral of Augustus in 14 AD: Cassius Dio tells that two eulogies were delivered, one from each of the two platforms.

The Rostra Diocletiani and the last season of the platform

The final layout of the Rostra dates to the end of the third century AD, after the fire that struck the Forum under Carinus and the great restoration project of the Diocletianic age: hence the name Rostra Diocletiani used for the last phase. It is the layout of which the base visible today is preserved.

The five columns of the Decennalia

On the level of the platform, or immediately behind it, five honorary columns with statues were raised, tied to the celebrations of the tetrarchy. Of that group a sculpted base is preserved, known as the base of the Decennalia, with the scene of a sacrifice. If you look for the monument in the Forum, you find it near the Rostra, and it should be looked at closely because the reliefs are readable. The five columns also appear in a famous relief, the frieze of the Arch of Constantine that shows the emperor speaking from the Rostra: it is the best ancient photograph we have of this monument in operation.

The Plutei of Trajan

Two large sculpted marble parapets, known as the Plutei of Trajan or Anaglypha, were found in the central area of the Forum and are now displayed inside the Curia Iulia, which is visited with the same ticket as the area. One of the two shows an emperor speaking from a platform, with the row of the Forum's buildings in the background. They are the most useful figured source for imagining the Rostra with their facing and with the crowd in front: five minutes inside the Curia are worth more than half an hour of panels.

The so-called Vandalic Rostra

A late antique inscription, referring to an urban prefect and to a naval victory over the Vandals around AD 470, led to the name Rostra Vandalica being given to one sector of the complex, according to some scholars the reused eastern platform. The attribution is debated and not all archaeologists accept it in the same form. We mention it because the name turns up in guidebooks, and we flag that it is a hypothesis and not an established fact.

Umbilicus Urbis and Miliarium Aureum: two different monuments, at the two ends of the Rostra

Next to the Rostra of the Roman Forum you find the remains of two symbolic monuments that almost everyone mixes up: the Umbilicus Urbis Romae, the navel of the city, and the Miliarium Aureum, the gilded milestone column that Augustus had set up. They are two distinct things, with two distinct functions, and they stand at the two opposite ends of the platform. Take them with a pinch of salt too: the identification of the remains visible today with one or the other monument is debated, and neither attribution is definitively proven.

The Umbilicus Urbis Romae

The Umbilicus Urbis is the circular brick structure, built in steps, that you see at the northern end of the Rostra, on the side of the Arch of Septimius Severus. It was the symbolic center of the city, the point that represented its navel: a religious and ceremonial idea, not a geographic measurement. The brick form visible today is that of a late rebuilding, from the Severan period or later, and it keeps traces of the lost marble facing. In the antiquarian literature it has often been linked to the Mundus, the ritual pit that according to tradition connected the city with the underworld. The connection is an interpretive proposal, not a documented fact.

The Miliarium Aureum

The Miliarium Aureum is a different monument, with a practical function as well as a symbolic one: a column covered in gilded bronze, erected by Augustus around 20 BC, when he took charge of the roads, and bearing, according to the sources, the distances of the main cities of the empire. Cassius Dio and Pliny the Elder mention it, and Tacitus cites it as a topographical reference point in his account of the events of AD 69. The cylindrical marble fragment that is attributed to it today stands at the southern end of the Rostra, toward the Temple of Saturn. It is a piece of decorated shaft, not a whole column, and its relationship to the Augustan monument is a matter of discussion among scholars.

How not to confuse them, on site

The practical rule is about position. Looking at the Rostra from the square, with the Arch of Septimius Severus on your right: the Umbilicus is the brick cylinder on the right, toward the arch. The fragment attributed to the Miliarium is the piece of fluted marble on the left, toward the columns of the Temple of Saturn. One is big, reddish and recognizable from far away. The other is small, light-colored and almost always mistaken for a fallen column drum. Anyone who visits with a group finds that this is the explanation they remember best, because it is the only time two monuments can be told apart by counting right and left.

Why people get confused

The confusion has three causes that add up. The first is that both monuments have a meaning of "center": the navel of the city for the first, the ideal origin of the roads for the second, and in popular accounts the two concepts overlap. The second is physical closeness, a few meters apart on the same side of the square. The third is that the archaeological attributions were proposed in the 19th century and revised several times in the 20th, with authors who suggested swapping them or assigning the remains to something else. An honest page on this subject has to say that the identification is probable and not certain.

Distances were not measured from here

One more thing needs saying, because it dismantles a widespread belief. The saying that all roads lead to Rome and that all distances are counted from the Golden Milestone is a late image. In Roman road practice the miles on the great consular roads were counted from the gates of the city, not from a point in the middle of the Forum. The Miliarium Aureum worked as a summarizing, propagandistic monument of the road empire, not as a topographical benchmark from which measurements started. If you want to see how a consular road really worked, with its milestones, find an hour and go to the Appia Antica.

Tickets, hours and access: what we can tell you and what you need to check

The Rostra have no ticket of their own. You see them when you enter the archaeological area of the Roman Forum and the Palatine, which is run by the Colosseum Archaeological Park. We give no figures on this page for fares, discount categories, seasonal hours or closing days, because the Park updates them often and a wrong figure published here would do harm. The references to open before you leave are colosseo.it and the Park's official ticketing platform.

What is worth checking

Three things, in this order. The closing time on the day you choose, because it follows the season and the last entry is earlier than closing. The type of ticket, because the Park's formulas change over time and some include the Colosseum while others cover the Forum, the Palatine and the Imperial Forums. The availability of time slots, because entries are capped and in the peak months the morning slots sell out days ahead. Anyone who turns up without a booking in April or October risks finding only afternoon slots.

Accessibility and terrain

The area around the Rostra is partly on equipped paths and partly on ancient paving stones, uneven and sloping, with changes in level and gravel. The Colosseum Archaeological Park publishes maps of accessible routes on its website, along with a contact for visit assistance, and what is passable changes with the construction work underway. If you have specific needs, write ahead. For those who don't go in, the balcony on Via del Campidoglio is flat and can be reached without steps by going through Via delle Tre Pile instead of the Cordonata.

A curiosity about the Rostra of the Roman Forum

The most solid curiosity about the Rostra of the Roman Forum concerns the name. It is the only monument in the square named after a piece of military booty attached to a wall. Not after the builder, not after the deity, not after the function. After the bronze rams of a fleet defeated in 338 BC.

A trophy that becomes a place name

In the Forum almost everything is named after someone or something sacred: the Temple of Saturn, the Basilica Aemilia, the Curia Julia, the Arch of Septimius Severus. Not the Rostra. Their name is the plural of an object, and on top of that an object taken from the enemy. Translated literally, the Romans went to speak in public "on the rams". No modern city would name its parliament after the wreckage of an enemy fleet.

Something nobody tells you about the Rostra of the Roman Forum

What almost no guide says about the Rostra of the Roman Forum is that the straight wall visitors photograph is in very large part a rebuilding from the first decades of the 20th century, built over and around the ancient core to make legible a monument that the excavations had returned stripped and largely demolished.

What really happened to the monument

For centuries the Forum was a quarry. Marbles, bronzes, squared blocks: everything that could be carried off was carried off, reused in churches and palaces, and in limekilns to make lime. The Rostra, which were faced in marble and loaded with metal, got this treatment more than other buildings precisely because they were rich in valuable material and low, so easy to dismantle. What the 19th and 20th century excavations found was the core, not the monument.

Why it was rebuilt this way

The excavation campaign carried out in the Forum at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, tied to the name of Giacomo Boni, brought this sector of the square back to light together with the Lapis Niger. The choice made then, in line with the restoration culture of the time, was to complete the structures so as to give the public a form it could understand. Today the criterion would be different and the ancient would be better distinguished from the addition, with recognizable materials or joints. The result is a monument that reads well and says less about itself than it seems.

How to tell ancient from modern, by eye

A practical criterion exists and works in a good part of the Forum. Ancient concrete masonry shows flakes of mixed material, irregular and of different sizes, with coarse mortar and a ragged surface. Modern additions have more regular courses, more uniform mortar and sharp edges. It is not an infallible rule, because even ancient restorations are hard to tell apart from each other, but looking at the texture of the mortar teaches more than any information panel. And it is an exercise you then carry with you through the rest of the area, from the Basilica of Maxentius to the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina.

My advice for visiting the Rostra of the Roman Forum

The practical advice on the Rostra of the Roman Forum is to see them twice in the same visit: first from above, from the free balcony on Via del Campidoglio behind Palazzo Senatorio, and then up close by entering the archaeological area. It is 10 minutes more and it completely changes how you understand the monument.

First from above, then inside

From the Capitoline balcony the forum square reads like a plan: you see the line of the Rostra, its position relative to the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Temple of Saturn, the brick cylinder of the Umbilicus, the Column of Phocas standing alone in the middle of the empty space. Once you go down among the ruins, that geometry disappears. At ground level the Forum is a thicket of low walls where nobody understands where the center is. Whoever goes up first enters knowing what they are looking for. Whoever just walks in usually doesn't even stop in front of the Rostra.

The visiting order we recommend

For a group with half a day available, the order that works best is: Cordonata Capitolina, Piazza del Campidoglio, the balcony on Via del Campidoglio with the reading of the Forum from above, descent toward Via della Salara Vecchia, entry into the area, the western sector with the Rostra, the Umbilicus and the Temple of Saturn, then the Curia with the Plutei, then Via Sacra toward the Arch of Titus. In the opposite direction, starting from the Colosseum, you reach the Rostra after an hour and a half of walking and with your attention already used up.

What to really look at, once you are there

Three things, and in this order. The front with the housing cavities, to understand how the parapet was set up. The junction of the side stairs, to understand where the speaker climbed up from. The distance between the platform and the spot where the crowd stood, which is that of an open-air rally and not of an indoor assembly: it is 20, 30 meters of free space, and it explains why a Roman speaker needed the voice he had.

When to go

The best moment is the first time slot of the morning, for two reasons: the light comes from the east and hits the front of the Rostra head-on, and the flow of organized groups has not yet reached the western sector, which usually fills up in mid-morning. The second choice is the last two hours before closing, with warmer but raking light. Noon is the worst possible compromise: heat, short shadows, a full square.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely mentioned

The well-known and rarely mentioned fact is that nobody voted from the Rostra: people spoke. The Roman deliberative assembly worked elsewhere and under other rules, and the platform served for the contio, the meeting in which a magistrate called the citizens together to inform them, to argue, to attack an opponent. No vote, no decision taken on the spot.

Contio and comitia, two different things

In the contio the people listened and reacted, but they were not organized into voting units. When it came to voting, the citizens arranged themselves by tribes or by centuries, in different places and at different times: in the Comitium, on the Campus Martius, later in the Saepta. The distinction seems technical and yet it explains the political history of the republic. The work of persuasion was done in one place and the decision was taken in another, often days later, and in between there was all the room for negotiations, threats and second thoughts.

Who could go up

Not just anyone climbed onto the platform. The contio was called by a magistrate, who gave the floor to whoever he chose. A private citizen had no right to speak in public: he got it if a tribune or a consul had him go up. That is why the tribunate of the plebs, which called its own assemblies, was for centuries the most feared political instrument in Rome: it gave access to the microphone.

The consequence on the ground

This structure also explains the shape of the monument. A long, narrow platform, 3 meters high, with no seats for the public and no protection from the weather, serves one purpose only: to make one person seen and heard by a standing crowd in a square. It is not a hall. The Roman assembly Forum had its enclosed place in the Curia, reserved for senators, and its open place here in front, for everyone else. The plan of power can be read on the ground.

The right photo to take at the Rostra of the Roman Forum

The photograph that works for the Rostra of the Roman Forum is the one from above, from the balcony on Via del Campidoglio, with the platform in the foreground on the left, the Arch of Septimius Severus closing the frame on the right and the Column of Phocas standing alone in the space of the square. It is the only framing that shows both the monument and its function, that is, the empty space it had in front of it.

From the Capitoline balcony

The spot is free and open, and you reach it from Piazza del Campidoglio by going around the side of Palazzo Senatorio. You look east, so the late afternoon light comes from behind you and lights up the forum square. In the early morning, instead, you shoot against the light and need to expose for the highlights while accepting blocked-up shadows. With a lens around 35 millimeters in full-frame equivalent you hold the whole sequence of monuments. With a 70 or an 85 you isolate the platform with the arch behind it. The parapet is high and continuous: it is a stable support for dusk shots without a tripod.

From inside the area

From below, the best photograph is taken at three quarters, standing in the forum square about 20 meters from the front, slightly shifted toward the Arch of Septimius Severus. You get the length of the base in perspective instead of a flat wall, and the Umbilicus and the columns of the Temple of Saturn come into the frame. The head-on morning light separates the planes. Midday light flattens everything. If you have a telephoto lens, use it for the details of the masonry and for the cavities in the front, which go unnoticed to the naked eye.

Park rules and common sense

Amateur photography without a tripod is allowed in the areas of the Colosseum Archaeological Park. For tripods, professional shoots, drones and commercial services you need authorizations and specific regulations apply, to be requested in advance from the Park's offices. Drones over the historic center of Rome are in any case subject to airspace restrictions: the short answer is that you don't fly them. If you work with a crew, arrange the permit weeks ahead, not on the day.

Some important events that took place here in history

On the Rostra of the Roman Forum some of the harshest events of Roman history took place, and they should be told soberly and with the sources indicated, because for this platform the literary tradition is abundant, late and often partisan.

The heads of the proscribed

During the civil wars the platform was used as a place to display the heads of murdered political enemies. It happened in 87 BC, when the victims included the orator Marcus Antonius, grandfather of the triumvir, and it happened on a large scale with the Sullan proscriptions of 82 and with those of the second triumvirate. The point of the act was to wipe out the opponent in the very place where he had spoken: the voice was taken away and then the body was put where the voice had been heard.

Cicero, December of 43 BC

The best-known case is that of Marcus Tullius Cicero, killed in December of 43 BC during the proscriptions of the second triumvirate. Plutarch and Appian report that his head and hands were brought to Rome and displayed on the Rostra, and Cassius Dio adds the detail of Fulvia piercing the tongue with a pin. These sources were written between one and two and a half centuries after the events and belong to a tradition hostile to Antony. The core of the display is widely accepted by historians, while the details of cruelty should be taken as narrative and not as chronicle.

Caesar's funeral, March of 44 BC

After the Ides of March, Caesar's body was carried into the Forum and Mark Antony delivered the funeral oration. On the nature of that speech the ancient sources diverge. Suetonius reports that Antony had a herald read out the decrees and the oath of loyalty, adding very few words of his own. Appian instead gives a long and excited version. The speech that almost everyone has in mind, with the appeal to friends and countrymen, is the one written by Shakespeare at the end of the 16th century on the basis of Plutarch. It is literature, and no ancient source reports it in that form.

Two eulogies for Augustus' funeral

In AD 14, for the funeral of Augustus, two speeches were delivered from two different platforms of the same square, according to the account of Cassius Dio: one from the western Rostra, the other from the platform set up in front of the temple of the deified Caesar. The episode is the best proof that in the Forum of the imperial age the platforms worked in pairs.

Constantine speaks from the Rostra

The frieze of the Arch of Constantine with the scene of the oratio shows the emperor addressing the people from the platform, with the five Diocletianic columns behind him and the arches closing the square on the sides. It is a figurative testimony from the first decades of the 4th century, and it certifies that at that date the Rostra were still in use as a place for public speech.

Who passed through the Rostra of the Roman Forum

Over seven centuries, nearly the whole Roman political class passed through the Rostra of the Roman Forum: consuls, tribunes of the plebs, generals returning from campaigns, emperors. The platform was the place where you became a public voice, and going through its list means going through the history of the republic and the principate.

The orators of the republic

The names that tradition ties to this platform are those of the great orators: the Gracchi, who from here brought their agrarian proposals to the people in the 30s and 20s of the second century BC. Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla in the opposite phases of the civil war. Marcus Tullius Cicero, who built his career on the platform and ended up displayed on it. Many of the orations studied at school were born as speeches to be delivered in this space, before a standing crowd.

Caesar and the women of the family

A lesser-known episode concerns the young Caesar. Plutarch and Suetonius report that he delivered from the platform the funeral eulogy for his aunt Julia and then the one for his wife Cornelia, and that the second was an innovation, because the public eulogy from the Forum was reserved for elderly matrons. Caesar turned it into a political act: speaking of a private death before the whole city was a way of recalling the kinship with Marius and of presenting himself.

The emperors

In the imperial age the platform remains the place for official speeches, announcements and funeral eulogies of the ruling house. Tiberius spoke here for Augustus, and the reliefs of the Plutei kept in the Curia show an emperor speaking to the people from a platform in the Forum. As the political center of gravity shifts toward the Palatine and, later, toward other imperial residences, the Forum loses its role as the seat of debate and keeps it as solemn scenery.

What to see around the Rostra, in order of distance

The Rostra sit at the center of the highest concentration of ancient monuments in Rome, and within a 10-minute walk there is material for two days of visiting.

Inside the archaeological area

With the same ticket you see the Curia Julia with the Plutei, the Temple of Saturn, the Arch of Septimius Severus, the Basilica of Maxentius, the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the church of Santa Maria Antiqua with its early medieval frescoes and, uphill, the Palatine up to the Arch of Titus.

Five minutes away

Outside the fence, on the Capitoline side, there are the Mamertine Prison with the church of San Pietro in Carcere, the staircase of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, the Capitoline Museums with the galleries of the Tabularium and the Vittoriano complex, with the Brasini Wing that hosts exhibitions. On the opposite side of Via dei Fori Imperiali stand the Forum of Trajan, Trajan's Column, the Markets of Trajan and the Museum of the Imperial Forums.

A quarter of an hour away

To the south, the Circus Maximus, the Forum Boarium with the Temple of Portunus and the climb to the Aventine. Toward the Colosseum, the Domus Aurea and the Ludus Magnus. Toward the Campus Martius, the Theater of Marcellus, the sacred area of Largo Argentina and the Crypta Balbi. If you want to understand the context of the statues and inscriptions that are missing from the Forum, you find it at Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.

Where to eat near the Rostra without falling into a trap

Around the Roman Forum the density of places designed for people who pass through only once is the highest in Rome, and on this site we don't publish restaurant names. Signs change management, quality and prices within a few months, while the criteria for recognizing a serious place stay the same. We teach you how to choose, we don't recommend a door.

The five signs of a trap

The first is the lady rolling fresh pasta in the window or right on the sidewalk: it is an advertising lure aimed at passersby, not the sign of a kitchen. The second is the menu with photographs of the dishes, which serves people who don't read Italian and don't have to ask questions. The third is the barker at the door inviting you to sit down: a place with its own clientele has no need to stop people in the street. The fourth is continuous opening hours from morning to late at night, with no break between lunch and dinner: a kitchen that really works stops. The fifth is the position in front of the famous monument, where the price list tends to adapt to the tourist in front of you, with unpriced items and differences between service at the outdoor table and the indoor one.

The chains in the center

In recent years the historic center has seen a multiplication of places with a repeated sign, with the same menu in several points of the city and a line with a ticket number at the door. We don't name them and we don't recommend them. A plain observation is enough: Romans don't go there, and in the line in front of those doors you don't hear Roman spoken.

The simplest criterion there is

Look at who is sitting and in which language they order. If the tables hold locals who order in Italian without looking at the menu, the place has a regular clientele and doesn't live off passing trade. If the tables hold only foreigners with backpacks and a map, the place lives off people who come once and won't return. It works at any hour, in any neighborhood, without needing reviews.

Moving 200 meters away

Walking 200 or 300 meters out of the archaeological enclosure changes the average price and the quality more than any other choice: 10 minutes on foot toward the Monti district, beyond Via Cavour, are enough to leave the band of passing-trade places. For anyone who wants an already filtered starting point, Daniele Dezi keeps a collection of Roman addresses, curated and not sponsored, in his personal list by Daniele Dezi on Google Maps. We have gathered the general picture of Roman dining by area on the page where to eat in Rome, and for the historic stalls there is the one on the markets of Rome.

Frequently asked questions about the Rostra of the Roman Forum

What are the Rostra of the Roman Forum?

The Rostra of the Roman Forum are the platform from which orators spoke to the people, placed on the western side of the forum square between the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Temple of Saturn. The name comes from the bronze rams of the ships captured at Antium in 338 BC and attached to the parapet. The platform was born near the Comitium and was moved here by Caesar, with the works completed under Augustus.

Do you need a ticket to see the Rostra of the Roman Forum?

To see the Rostra of the Roman Forum up close you need the ticket for the archaeological area of the Roman Forum and the Palatine, run by the Colosseum Archaeological Park, because the platform is inside the enclosure. Fares, discounts and formulas change often and should be checked on colosseo.it. From above, instead, you can see them for free from the balcony on Via del Campidoglio, behind Palazzo Senatorio, where access is open.

Where exactly are the Rostra in the Roman Forum?

The Rostra are at the western end of the square of the Roman Forum, backed against the slopes of the Capitoline Hill, with the Arch of Septimius Severus to the north and the Temple of Saturn to the south. You recognize them as a long straight base a little over three meters high, in front of which opens the free space of the square with the Column of Phocas. The closest entrance is the one on Via della Salara Vecchia.

What is the difference between the Umbilicus Urbis and the Miliarium Aureum?

The Umbilicus Urbis Romae and the Miliarium Aureum are two distinct monuments placed at the two ends of the Rostra of the Roman Forum. The Umbilicus is the circular brick structure on the side of the Arch of Septimius Severus and represented the symbolic center of the city. The Miliarium was the gilded column that Augustus had erected with the distances of the cities of the empire, and the remains attributed to it are toward the Temple of Saturn. Both identifications are debated.

Is it true that Cicero's head was displayed on the Rostra?

Ancient sources report that Cicero's head and hands were displayed on the Rostra of the Roman Forum after his killing, in December of 43 BC, during the proscriptions of the second triumvirate. Plutarch and Appian tell it, and Cassius Dio adds more graphic details. They are authors late with respect to the events and tied to a tradition hostile to Antony. The display is accepted by historians, while the particulars should be taken with caution.

How much time does it take to visit the Rostra and the Roman Forum?

For the Rostra of the Roman Forum, 10 or 15 minutes are enough, including the walk around the Umbilicus Urbis and a stop in front of the Decennalia base. For the Roman Forum and the Palatine together you need from two and a half to three and a half hours, walking at an easy pace. If you add the Colosseum on the same day, count on the whole day and start with the monument you care about most.

Are the Rostra of the Roman Forum accessible to people with mobility difficulties?

The area of the Rostra of the Roman Forum is reached partly on equipped paths and partly on uneven ancient paving stones, with slopes and gravel stretches. The Colosseum Archaeological Park publishes maps of accessible routes and a contact for assistance, and what is passable changes with the construction work underway, so it is worth writing before the visit. Those who don't go in can look at the platform from the Capitoline balcony, which is flat and free to enter.

Does a visit to the Rostra work with children?

The Rostra of the Roman Forum work with children if you tell the story of the rams torn from the ships of Antium and nailed to the wall: a war trophy is an image that makes sense at any age. The Forum as a whole, though, asks for two or three hours of walking on uneven ground and almost no shade, so in summer it is best to go in at the first morning slot and bring water.

Who wrote this page

This page is edited by the team of Tour Leader Pro, the Rome-based project office that designs and coordinates visits, itineraries and cultural events in Rome and Lazio. The hours, fares and access conditions given here were verified at the date of publication on the official sources indicated in the text. It is worth rechecking them before you leave, because they change often. If you find outdated information, let us know.

If you are putting together a Roman itinerary that holds the Roman Forum, the Capitoline Hill and the Palatine together in a single day, and you want a guided visit or a route designed around your group, the reference is Tour Leader Pro, which in Rome and Lazio designs and coordinates visits, itineraries and cultural events with licensed guides and with the management of bookings at sites with capped entry.

If instead the trip is wider and includes other Italian cities, with transfers, timing and access to fit together, the planning tool we recommend is ItalyPlanner, which helps build a complete Italian itinerary taking into account real distances, museum closing days and actual visiting times.