Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum. It was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches, and nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history.[1]. Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archeological excavations attracting numerous sightseers.

Shot from The Portico Dii Consentes. It was last rebuilt in 367 AD and was thus the last functioning pagan shrine in the Forum (such shrines had been forbidden by law more than a decade earlier). The Portico housed twelve recessed rooms where it is believed the judicial clerks of the Capitoline Assent held their offices.

You can see the curve of the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre, in the far distance, center.

I have a thousand stone pictures from Rome....but I am an information rich, wide angle guy....:>}}})

Traveller