The Forum was originally a marshy valley with a cemetary beside a rough highway. This highway and cemetary date from the Iron Age (ninth to sixth century BCE). The Romans identified the beginnings of the Forum with the legendary founding of their city by Romulus in 753 BCE when the war with the Sabines of the Quirinal, touched off by the rape of their women, had ended.
The buildings and sites of the Roman Forum are the very heart of ancient Rome. Take this tour of the heart of the most powerful city of the ancient world.
