Forum

The forum

By transforming it into a city, the Roman occupation opened the old oppidum to the paths of Art. This only happened, however, when the Romans created the city and the forum taught the entire population the rules of urban coexistence, the pleasure of speech, the need for leisure, the taste for porticoes, fountains, and statues, and familiarized them with the monumentality of buildings. Of the first imperial constructions, nothing remains except the aqueduct and the foundations of the forum and public baths.

Enough elements survive, however, to recreate the atmosphere created by the elevation of the oppidum to municipium under the reign of Emperor Vespasian. Taking advantage of this important occasion, which brought Conimbriga fully into the framework of Roman citizenship, its inhabitants decided to renew the main public buildings and demolish what remained of the old thatched dwellings.

The transformation of the forum into a place entirely consecrated to the imperial cult gave rise to a monument closed in on itself, in which the temple, surrounded by a double portico, dominated the equally porticoed square, populated with statues and altars.