14 - Forum

The forum was the main public building of any Roman city. The first forum of Conimbriga was erected during the Augustan period (27 BC-14 AD) and initially served a political-administrative, religious, and commercial function. By current standards, it was as if the City Hall, the Court, the Cathedral, and the Market were all in one building. It was, therefore, one of the monuments that received the most attention throughout the city's history. Following the elevation of the city to the status of a Roman municipality during the Flavian period (69-96 AD), the forum underwent a profound remodelling, which corresponds to most of the archaeological structures visible today. The administrative and commercial functions would have been transferred to other buildings (whose location, however, we do not know) and the monument was converted into a large space dedicated to the imperial cult and the promotion of the greatness of Rome. At that time, the forum came to be composed of a large central square (which already existed in the previous phase), surrounded by a set of porticoes (one of which had three columns reconstructed to appreciate the original scale) and the majestic temple dedicated to the emperors (living and dead), whose apex rose above the square to an impressive height of about 18 meters. On the sides of the square, vestiges of the oldest phase of the building are still preserved, buried by the major renovation work. On the west side, a series of perpendicular walls are all that remains of the shops that ensured the commercial function that the forum performed in earlier times. On the opposite side, some pillars and foundations of the main space with a political-administrative function remain: the complex of the judicial basilica (court house) and the curia (meeting room of the city's magistrates). In the entrance area of the forum, only scant traces remain of a triumphal arch, through which one entered, and of two small external temples, all structures belonging to the Flavian period.