Skip to main content

Start with our video overview:

Key information:

An ancient road, the Argiletum led you into the forum from the Subura, Rome’s crowded slum district. The road was lined with booksellers and cobblers, according to Martial. Domitian made the roadway into a narrow forum, the Forum Transitorium, ultimately dedicated by Nerva in 97. This arcaded street (with a Temple of Minerva) was a truly magnificent entry into the Forum Romanum.  It concluded between the Basilica Aemilia/ Paulli and Curia Iulia. Beyond it you had a perfectly framed view of the late third/ fourth century AD (Diocletianic) column, later called the Column of Phocas in your sightline for the entire walk down the road. Wheel ruts are still visible by the still standing columns, known as “le Colonnacce.”  The remains of a 9/10C house sits in the middle the roadway, found in the 1990s excavations, a sign of how much Rome had deteriorated in the medieval period.

Where in Rome is the Argiletum?

This content is brought to you by The American Institute for Roman Culture, a 501(C)3 US Non-Profit Organization.

Please support our mission to aid learning and understanding of ancient Rome through free-to-access content by donating today.

Cite This Page

Cite this page as: Darius Arya, The American Institute for Roman Culture, “Argiletum” Ancient Rome Live. Last modified 08/07/2020. https://ancientromelive.org/argiletum/

License

Created by The American Institute of Roman Culture, published on 08/07/2020 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.