Overview of locations

After examining the multiple various locations of tribunals within Rome it is worth considering the impact upon the citizens of Rome of such a distribu­tion of courts. It becomes apparent that some areas must have been very much alive with court activities, a point that indeed is frequently noted by ancient authors.

The Forum Romanum easily saw the most legal activity within its bound­aries during the last years of the Republic and the first two centuries of the imperial period. Horace calls it the “differtum forum”, “the stuffed-full forum”.²²⁷ While various types of activities could take place there — includ­ing individuals reciting their own writings “in medio foro” — courts likely filled a good portion of the space.²²⁸ Magistrates, lictors, scribes, litigants, advocates, family, friends, supporters, and general audience seeking a thrill, must all have been swarming through the whole area. We have placed numerous courts within this area. The praetor peregrinus occupied a central location. The praetor urbanus held court toward the eastern end — perhaps using the speaker's platform attached to the Temple of Divus Iulius. A num­ber of quaestiones perpetuae were also in this area during the first half of Augustus' reign, perhaps making use of the space within the Basilica Aemilia as the forum filled. Tiberius, Claudius, Vespasian, Domitian, and Hadrian held court within the forum as well;²²⁹ Claudius was there almost every day.²³⁰ In Nero's reign cases connected with the treasury were also moved here to be heard by recuperatores.²³¹ Advocates must have spent a fair amount of their time in this “forum... triste”, “sad forum”, in the midst of a sea of courts.²³² One great advocate, Philippus, advancing in years, com­plains that this Forum is too far from his home.²³³

Even with the addition of Julius Caesar's forum, another was still needed.

Anderson suggests that the Forum of Trajan displaced the Forum of Augustus as “Rome's palace of justice”.²³⁹ Such a statement implies that legal activity came to an end in the Forum of Augustus. Considering the size of the empire and the population of Rome, this is most unlikely. Even with the Forum of Trajan sharing the deluge, the courts still appear bogged down. Juvenal moans that everyone is in court with the same complaint.²⁴⁰ Martial's comment, a little earlier in date, is more poetic: “fora litibus omnia fervent”, “all the fora seethe with cases”.²⁴¹ The Forum of Trajan housed the court of the consul, and perhaps that of the praefectus urbi. The jurisdiction of the urban prefect expanded greatly in the years following Augustus' death; thus, con­sidering that the Tabulae Sulpiciorum and the Tabulae Herculanenses are examples from but two communities within Italy, and only from two archives that happen to survive, one can imagine the numbers of similar cases that were coming to Rome from the rest of Italy.

In such a physical environment the weather could certainly have had an impact on the courts. Seneca the Elder and Quintilian repeatedly state that the orator must be able to endure sun, wind, and rain while arguing before the court.²⁴² Pliny the Elder as well as Dio record numerous occasions when awnings were stretched across the Forum Romanum; Julius Caesar and Marcellus, the son of Augustus' sister, during the latter's aedileship are reported to have covered that space because of the intense heat.²⁴³ The same was done again during the reign of Gaius.²⁴⁴ Pliny states explicitly that Marcellus was attempting to protect those engaged in lawsuits. The increased ratio between portico and open area found in all the imperial fora compared to the Forum Romanum perhaps suggests some attempt to forestall having to use such ad hoc methods of protection. However, considering the number of courts meeting in the Forum of Augustus, for example, we still must con­clude that not all courts were housed within the porticoes, and that even the porticoes offered inadequate protection.

The fora of Rome clearly maintained strong connections with legal activ­ities throughout the entire period of this study — to such an extent, in fact, as to impact upon the Latin language. Evidence ranging in date from the time of Seneca the Elder to that of Fronto suggests that Romans so linked the fora with the courts that they came to generalize the vocabulary for indicating a court's specific location. Seneca the Elder describes the advocate's arena as simply the forum.²⁴⁵ The speakers in Tacitus' Dialogus talk of undertaking cases as being “called to the forum” and of the bustling courts as “the frenzied and hazardous forum”.²⁴⁶ Fronto refers to his young pupil's transformation into an advocate by saying “he went down to the forum noble by birth, he returned more noble by eloquence than by lineage”.²⁴⁷ On another occasion Fronto apologizes to Marcus for his tardy response, saying he was on his way “to the forum” to plead a case.²⁴⁸ Perhaps the clearest generalized use of this term is found in Suetonius' writings when he describes Gaius Albucius Silus' retirement from advocacy with the phrase “he withdrew from the forum”.²⁴⁹ From what we have seen above, these remarks clearly cannot be referring solely to the Forum Romanum; hearings during these men's lifetimes were being held regularly in all of the fora.