During our recent tour of Italy we were able to take some photos of the Forum of Julius Caesar, the first of the Imperial Forums. Construction was begun by Caesar in 54 BC (Rome: Oxford Archaeological Guides). This is the location where the senate would meet before him. It was also here that Caesar built the Temple of Venus Genitrix.
The temple (Fig. 62) was introduced to Caesar’s original plan at a slightly later stage. It was vowed by Caesar the night before the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, during his civil war with Pompey, to win over Pompey’s favoured goddess Venus Victrix, though when inaugurated in 46 BC (while still unfinished) it actually honoured her as Venus Genetrix, ‘universal mother’, from which Julius Caesar’s family (and thus all the emperors from Augustus to Nero) claimed descent (ibid.)
Forum of Julius Caesar. Photo ©Leon Mauldin.
The three Corinthians columns were added at the time of Hadrian.
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