Rostra

History

Magistrates, politicians, advocates and other orators spoke to the assembled people of Rome from this highly honored, and elevated spot. Consecrated by the Augurs as a templum, the original Rostra was built as early as the 6th century BC. This Rostra was replaced and enlarged a number of times but remained in the same site for centuries.

In 338 BC the Rostra got its name when, following the defeat of Antium by the consul Gaius Maenius, the Antiate fleet was confiscated by Rome, of which the prows (literally rostra in Latin) of six ships were set upon the Rostra. Maenius paid for it out of his share of war booty. He also erected a victory column, the Columna Maenia, close to the Rostra.

Julius Caesar rearranged the Comitium and Forum spaces and repositioned the Senate Curia at the end of the republican period. He moved the Rostra out of the Comitium. This took away the commanding position the curia had held within the whole of the forum, having advanced extremely close to the Rostra during its last restoration. Augustus, his grand-nephew and first Roman emperor, finished what Caesar had begun, as well as expanded on it. This "New Rostra" became known as the Rostra Augusti. What remains in the excavated forum today, next to the Arch of Septimius Severus, has endured several restorations and alterations throughout its historical use. While a few different honorary names are attributed to those restorations, scholars, archeologists and the government of Italy recognise this platform as the "Rostra Vetera" encased inside the "Rostra Augusti".

The term rostrum, referring to a podium for a speaker is directly derived from the use of the term "Rostra". One stands in front of a Rostrum and one stands upon the Rostra. While, eventually, there were many rostra within the city of Rome and its republic and empire, then, as now, "Rostra" alone refers to a specific structure.

Before the Forum Romanum, the Comitium was the first designated spot for all political and judicial activity and the earliest place of public assembly in the city. A succession of earlier shrines and altars is mentioned in early Roman writings as the first suggestum. It consisted of a shrine to the god Vulcan, that had two separate altars built at different periods. This early Etruscan mundus altar originally sat in front of a temple that would later be converted into the Curia Hostilia. …

In contemporary news

In November 2008 heavy rain damaged the concrete covering that has been protecting the Vulcanal and its monuments located in the Imperial comitium space since the 1950s. This includes the stele accorded the name of "The Black Rock" or Lapis Niger. The marble and cement covering is a mix of the original black marble, said to have been used to cover the site by Sulla, and modern cement used to create the covering and keeping the marble in place.

Professor Angelo Bottini, Superintendent of Archeology in Rome, stated that an awning or tent covering is in place to protect the ancient relics until the covering is repaired, giving tourists of this millennium a look at the original suggestum for the first time in 50 years.

Other known Rostra

In 29 BC Augustus ordered the construction of another Rostra in front of the Temple of Caesar, at the opposite end of the Forum Iulium from Caesar's Rostra. This was used as a tribunal and was adorned with the prows of galleys captured at the Battle of Actium.