Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press Read Online Free PDF Page B

numbers at least give some sense of the order of magnitude. Huge though the population was, in an age before any form of transport faster than a man could walk or ride, Rome did not sprawl over as wide an area as more modern cities. Housing, especially in the poorer areas, was very densely packed. Yet at the heart of Rome in every sense was the open space of the Forum. This was a place of commerce, from the fashionable shops, which bordered on its great buildings and provided the luxuries that were the prize of empire, to the representatives of the big merchant companies and grain 19
    the rise to the consulship, 100–59 bc

ARGILETUM
    PAULI
    BASILICA
    VIA

SENATE
    BASILICA FUL
    HOUSE
    AE

VIA SACRA
    V
    BASILICA
    ICU

ABERNAE NOV
    PORCIA
    S IU
    Area of T

DOMUS PUBLICA
    GAR
    REGIA
    IUS
    C

BASILICA
    COMITIUM
    l
    AEMILIA ?
    o
    Area of
    a
    C A P I T O L I N E
    c

TEMPLE of
    a
    Praetors’
    m
    Tribunal

VESTA
    H I L L

CARCER
    ax
    ROSTRA
    ima
    ? Scalae
    ? Auguraculum
    Scalae Gemoniae
    Graecae

TEMPLE of
    F O R U M
    Lacus

CONCORD and
    VICUS TUSCUS
    Curtius

TEMPLE
    BASILICA
    R O M A N U M
    of
    Lacus

OPIMIA
    CASTOR
    luturnus

CLIVU
    PA L AT I N E

TABERNAE VETERES
    TABULARIUM
    S
    H I L L
    C
    Area of
    AP

TEMPLE
    ITO
    of

BASILICA IULIA
    L
    SATURN

BASILICA
    IN
    SEMPRONIA ?
    US

A R E A
    C A P I T O L I N A

V E L A B R U M
    0
    100 yards
    0
    100 metres
    The City of Rome – central area, Forum etc. (after CAH2 ix (1994) p.370). Some of the details are conjectural.
    suppliers. It was also the place of law and justice, where the courts convened, advocates presented their cases and juries gave their verdict, all in open view. Through the Forum ran the Sacra Via, the route of triumphal processions. More than anything else, it was in and around the Forum that the public life of the Republic was conducted. Magistrates, such as the tribunes, aediles and praetors, had set places in the Forum where they sat to conduct business. When the Senate met it was with very rare exceptions in a building on the edge of the Forum, either the Senate House (Curia) or one of the great temples. Outside the Senate House was the Speakers Platform or Rostra, whose name was derived from its decoration with the prows of enemy warships during the wars with Carthage. From the Rostra speeches were made to informal meetings of the Roman people as magistrates and prominent men sought to persuade them to vote for or against a bill, or to favour someone at an election. At the command of a suitable magistrate, the same crowd of Romans could be told to convene as an Assembly of tribes (either the Concilium Plebis or Comitia Tributa ) and pass legislation. Other than for elections, this almost always occurred in the Forum. In so many ways the Forum was the beating heart of Rome.8
    20
    Caesar’s World
    The Profits and the Price of Empire
    The Roman Republic was frequently at war, for long periods virtually on an annual basis. Frequent war-making was not unusual in the ancient world, where states rarely needed much more reason to attack their neighbours than a belief that they were vulnerable. The great period of Classical Greek culture, with its flourishing arts, literature and philosophy, had come at a period when warfare between the Greek city-states was endemic. Yet from early on in its history Rome’s war-making was distinctive in character, not simply because it was so successful, but through its talent for consolidating success on a permanent basis, as defeated enemies were absorbed and turned into reliable allies. By the beginning of the third century BC virtually all of the Italian Peninsula had come under Roman control. Within this territory some communities had been granted Roman citizenship and these, in addition to the colonies planted on conquered land, allowed the number of Roman citizens to grow in size far beyond the populations of other citystates. Other peoples were granted Latin status, conveying lesser, though still significant privileges, while the