Roman Forum

[Steven.Piscione]

I'm doing a 10 page paper on forums in the Roman Empire, and i need to talk about its simple beginings until the emperors began to simply use it as a place for their propaganda. I've been finding a good amount of information on this topic, but the problem is that all the info i am finding has to do with forums in Rome and my professor told me that i have to do it on forums outside of Rome. Does anyone have any suggestions on where i could find some more information concerning this topic?

[Ludovicus]

I'm doing a 10 page paper on forums in the Roman Empire, and i need to talk about its simple beginings until the emperors began to simply use it as a place for their propaganda. I've been finding a good amount of information on this topic, but the problem is that all the info i am finding has to do with forums in Rome and my professor told me that i have to do it on forums outside of Rome. Does anyone have any suggestions on where i could find some more information concerning this topic?

 

 

You need to do some looking on your own first. Then others here may be about to help you narrow or deepen your topic. It took me about 30 seconds to find this reference on Roman forums in Italy, outside Rome. I'm sure you could do much better given more time.

 

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Forum-(Roman)

[Steven.Piscione]

I'm doing a 10 page paper on forums in the Roman Empire, and i need to talk about its simple beginings until the emperors began to simply use it as a place for their propaganda. I've been finding a good amount of information on this topic, but the problem is that all the info i am finding has to do with forums in Rome and my professor told me that i have to do it on forums outside of Rome. Does anyone have any suggestions on where i could find some more information concerning this topic?

 

 

You need to do some looking on your own first. Then others here may be about to help you narrow or deepen your topic. It took me about 30 seconds to find this reference on Roman forums in Italy, outside Rome. I'm sure you could do much better given more time.

 

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Forum-(Roman)

 

 

 

Thanks, i found those already, the problem wasn't really finding those but rather showing the evolution of the Forum. I'm planning on discussing the ones in Pompeii Lepcis Magna and a few others. I'm currently discussing how important the Forum was in everyday life for the Romans. Do you think it would be a good idea to look at floor plans of all the different forums in the cities and analyze the differences and gather an analysis from that? ie see what buildings have changed, whats grown larger/smaller, disappeared/added and so on...

[Ludovicus]

Thanks, i found those already, the problem wasn't really finding those but rather showing the evolution of the Forum. I'm planning on discussing the ones in Pompeii Lepcis Magna and a few others. I'm currently discussing how important the Forum was in everyday life for the Romans. Do you think it would be a good idea to look at floor plans of all the different forums in the cities and analyze the differences and gather an analysis from that? ie see what buildings have changed, whats grown larger/smaller, disappeared/added and so on...

 

 

Yes, sounds like a good idea. Yes, it's important to get familiar with why the Romans across the Empire needed a forum in the first place. What kinds of necessary activities went on there? Somewhere I read that in Verona the local forum was abandoned very early--around the 7th century AD. Was it merely a drop in population or were Verona's Romans doing different things? Was there a cultural break that made a forum no longer necessary? Were communal activities organized around a new center? If you link the change in building types with the wide changes in Roman life across the history of the Empire, then I think you'll have a good paper.

Edited December 1, 2008 by Ludovicus