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The imperial fora within the city of Rome have, in recent decades, become again a focus of attention for archaeologists within the city. The east section of the Forum Transitorium was uncovered during large-scale excavations undertaken by the Fascist regime during the construction of the road which was originally called the Via dell’Impero, now called the Via dei Fori Imperiali ^[1]. Rodolfo Lanciani was the first to gather historical sources regarding the Forum Transitorium in 1883. Initial excavations in 1913, 1926-28 and 1932-1941 helped to measure extant columns as well as uncovered the foundations of the Temple of Minerva and the perimeter wall ^[2]. This temple also gave the forum another name which is used by Martial: the Forum Palladium. This derives from an epithet of the Greek Minerva, Pallas Athena. Although there was relatively little known regarding the forum outside of literary texts before the 20th century, new excavations and insights are leading historians and archaeologists to new and exciting theories about what this forum was used for and its importance as a thoroughfare through an increasingly important part of the Roman urban landscape.

The Forum Transitorium was originally a Domitianic reorganization and monumentalization of the Argiletum, an ancient road connecting the Forum Romanum to the Subura district ^{[3] [4]}. The name Forum Transitorium took hold mostly due to the enclosure including a part of this ancient route ^[5]. This road ran a good distance throughout Rome, connecting the Tiber to the Esquiline. There is a good chance that the plan of its construction was created by Rabirius, the same architect who designed the Domus Augustana of Domitian . This is evidenced by the use of certain decorative details within the forum which include "spectacles" which were inserted between dentils in the "Colonnacce" ^[6]. The forum is long and thin (around 160 by 46m) and conforms to the basic layout of the fora before it, with a temple dominating one end and high walls surrounding an open courtyard with a colonnade which supplied shelter and passageways ^[7]. It had not yet dedicated in AD 96 when Domitian was assassinated, however it was likely close to being completed ^[8]. It was dedicated by Nerva the year after the death of his predecessor in AD 97 and renamed Forum Nervae ^[9]. In fact, the forum Transitorium was the only large-scale construction initiated by Domitian which was finished during the short fifteen month reign of Nerva ^[10].

Although the archaeological evidence of the Forum Transitorium is not extensive by any means, the evidence we do have when included with the Forma Urbis Romae (the Marble Plan) and the series of renaissance drawings which used the forum as its subject allow for a fairly accurate reproduction ^[11]. The archaeological evidence includes the core of the podium of the Temple of Minerva as well as some of the temple’s pavement and orthostats, foundations of the Porticus Absidata, as well as the “Colonnacce” ^[12][13]. Most of the evidence lies at the north end of the enclosure, with the remaining southern reaches lying underneath the paved surface of the Via dei Fori Imperiali ^[14].

On the south side of the enclosure wall of the forum is the only surviving evidence of the columns en ressaut, known as the Colonnacce, which surrounded the interior of the space ^[15]. These columns were a substitution for the normal colonnades which adorned the previous Imperial Fora. The reason for this substitution was purely practical due to the very limited amount of space between the Forum of Augustus and the Templum Pacis (Temple of Peace) ^[16]. In fact, the constraint of space and the adjacent fora walls not being parallel meant that the forum’s width changes depending on where it is measured (from around 135 to 160 feet) ^[17]. Placing the columns at around 1.75 metres from the enclosure walls served to increase the space within the forum. With fluted pavonazzetto shafts, these columns support a richly decorated entablature with a figured frieze. Of the several preserved scenes, the best known depicts the myth of Arachne. The attic also had figures, but only a central panel with a representation of Minerva has survived in situ ^[18]. The columns allowed the frieze to be broken away from the entablature and out over top of the columns and back again, an arrangement that likely ran down both long sides of the forum ^[19]. This may have been responding to an original monumental colonnade placed along the Argiletum by Vespasian ^[20].

Ancient evidence also suggests that Domitian may have wanted to perpetuate the memory of the Argiletum by placing the shrine of Janus Quadrifons into the Forum Transitorium ^[21]. There is no archaeological evidence for the shrine's existence. However, Martial and Statius indicate that Janus was incorporated into the plan of the new forum, the god having heralded the "Golden Age" of Domitian ^[22].

Minerva was the patron deity of Domitian, who initiated the construction of the Forum Transitorium. The rise of Minerva during this period has been attributed to the origin of her cult being in the Sabine region, which was considered the ancestral home of the Flavians ^[23]. According to the research completed by H. Bauer, the travertine and peperino foundations represent two different stages of construction ^[24]. The earlier temple was narrower, although it went further into the open space of the forum than did the later shrine ^[25]. The earlier temple displayed equality within its intercolumnations, while the later temple varied the distances between columns depending on where they were ^[26]. While the porch of the Minerva temple projected into the open space of the forum, the cella was narrowed on the northwest end in order to accommodate one of the hemicycles which protruded outwards from the Forum of Augustus ^[27].

The temple was a frontal Italic temple with marble facing which was set on a high podium which stood over the large forecourt which made up the open space of the Forum Transitorium ^[28]. As with some other temples of the time, the cella ended in an apse which contained the cult statue. This apse is detailed in the Forma Urbis Romae ^[29]. The façade was hexastyle (six columns on the front) with the pronaos (front room) containing two or three columns and antae on each end (architecturally representing wooden supports, holding up the roof of ancient wood-built temples). These columns were Corinthian in order and made from Phrygian marble ^[30]. However, due to its extremely poor state of preservation, the front of the temple cannot be accurately measured ^[31].

Le Colonnacce is the only surviving portion of the columns en ressaut which ran down the lengths of the Forum Transitorium and stands along the flank of the Temple of Minerva ^[32]. The wall is built with blocks of peperino which would have originally been faced with marble. The Corinthian columns stand only 1.75 m from the wall ^[33]. The columns support an entablature that was richly decorated with a figured frieze, 21 m of which are in situ out of an original 160 m on each long flank, depicting scenes from myth, the best known being that of Arachne ^[34].

Above the cornice originally ran a continuous attic which displayed figures carved in high relief, of which one survives depicting Minerva ^[35]. According to Anderson (1984), this type of architectural decoration appears to be a Domitianic innovation which had been adapted from triumphal arches, seen when compared to the Arch of Augustus at Susa along with the Arch of Trajan at Benevento ^[36]. However, the use of columns in this way was Hellenistic in origin and seemingly arrived in Italy in a courtyard Façade at Praeneste and at the Porta Marzia at Perugia ^[37].

The Arachne myth describes a young woman who had great skill on the loom, so great in fact that she thought she could challenge Minerva. The goddess, disguising herself as an old woman, warns Arachne not to enter the contest but she is ignored. When the contest is complete, Minerva is enraged at Arachne's cloth's excellent quality and design of sexual acts of the gods, so she destroys it. After stopping Arachne from committing suicide, she doles out a suitable punishment, turning the young girl into a spider, doomed to spin webs in dark places ^[38]. This is the only depiction of this myth in the state sponsored art of ancient Rome ^[39]. The rest of the frieze depicts women weaving and spinning under the tutelage of Minerva, the opposite to the defant Arachne ^[40]. Blanckenhagen offers one of the more detailed analyses of the frieze, viewing it as "depicting the local craftsmen's celebration of Minerva's festival, the Quinquatrus" ^[41].

What is known of the later history of the Forum Transitorium is only fragmentary. The first changes made to the forum appear to have been made by Alexander Severus (reigned 222-235 AD) who set up a gallery of statues of deified emperors ^[42]. Contracts for the removal of stone for construction throughout the city of Rome appear in 1425, 1504, 1522, and 1527, with an attempt to preserve a small section of the forum rejected within the Roman courts in 1520 ^[43]. A church, perhaps that of S. Maria in Macello, appearing within a contract of 1517, tells us of its location within the forum and statuary which was removed from the space between 1550 and 1555 on the orders of Pope Julius III ^[44]. The temple of Minerva was dismantled beginning in 1592. The architrave block was then re-cut and reused as the new main altar within St. Peter's ^[45].

The first version of the Baths of Agrippa, also known as the Laconicum was finished in 25 BCE. A laconicum appears to have been an earlier version of a heated bath which was also associated with a running track and exercise facilities for youths (^[46]). Dio tells us that “gave the name Laconian to the gymnasium because the Lacedaemonians had a greater reputation at that time than any one else for stripping and exercising after anointing themselves with oil” ^[47]. Agrippa also dedicated his Pantheon, the original structure where the current Trajanic reconstruction sits, in the same year ^[48]. In fact, Cassius Dio claims that three structures were completed by Agrippa in this year, the third being the Stoa of Neptune ^[49].

The Baths of Agrippa are the first known to have contained monumental sculpture, including the famous Apoxyomenos of Lysippusthe famed court sculptor of Alexander the Great. In fact, Pliny the Elder mentions the baths several times, noting that they were "a point of departure in artistic endeavor, implying that the building was perceived as groundbreaking in certain respects" ^[50].

The full version of the thermae, or Baths of Agrippa, did not come into use until after the completion of the Aqua Virgo in 19 BCE ^[51]. This new aqueduct was paid for by Agrippa himself and was one of a series of works connected with Roman water supply and sewers over which Agrippa seems to have had managerial control ^[52]. The Aqua Virgo is still in use today after almost 2000 years, terminating, and currently supplying the waters to, the Trevi Fountain ^[53]. These building projects were a few of the many which Agrippa undertook within the Roman Campus Martius and across the Empire, constituting aqueducts, fountains, porticoes, baths, roads, a voting precinct, a theatre, a bridge, and a harbour ^[54].

Agrippa built up the area around the complex to include gardens with nice walks and colonnades with resting places and shelters from the sun. Wright claims that “The total effect was somewhat like the Athenian gymnasia, the Lyceum, or the grove of Academus, but on a very much larger and more sumptuous scale.” ^[55]. Wright goes on to say that the bath itself would have served a multitude of functions, serving as a type of club with “a restaurant, a reading-room, and a bathing establishment with every kind of bath then known, hot, tepid, cold, vapour, and shower” ^[56]. Indeed, it would appear as though bathing had begun to become more complex around the time of the late Republic going into the early Empire, introducing three different types of rooms and pools: The frigidarium (cold pool), the tepidarium (or luke-warm to room temperature pool), and the caldarium (hot room and pool) ^[57]. Whether or not the caldarium within the Baths of Agrippa contained window glass to sufficiently heat up the room and keep the heat in, as was the case within the Baths of Trajan and other later examples of Imperial bathing facilities, remains unknown due to the scant archaeological evidence of the site.

However, as Lloyd has pointed out, the baths, being a highly experimental project within the city of Rome, seem to have lacked a larger swimming pool, present in later Imperial bathing structures ^[58]. It has been pointed out that this need could have been met with the man-made Stagnum (lake) of Agrippa or, more likely, the Euripus (canal) which allowed for runoff from the Stagnum to flow into the Tiber (please see below for more information on both the Stagnum and the Euripus.

Agrippa’s baths, along with his other work within the Campus Martius, was burned down in the great fire of 80 AD in the reign of Titus ^[59]. These appear to have been restored almost immediately during the reigns of either Titus or Domitian as Martial mentions they they were often frequented ^[60]. Repairs and rebuilding were completed again under the Antonines as well as the Severan emperors ^[61]. More reconstructions were completed during the reigns of the Antonines as well as the Severan Emperors. There was a further reconstruction during the reign of Constantius and Constans in 354-355 AD which was noted on an inscription found near S. Maria di Monterone which was found not far from the west side of the baths ^[62].

By the late Republic and into the early Principate, bathing within Rome had started to become more complex ^[63]. This can be traced through Imperial bathing structures becoming more and more grand and complex. Indeed, it would appear as though the building of public bathing complexes was not taken on for some time due to the somewhat shady nature of the activities which took place within them. Recent studies have in fact shown that while the building of certain structures was considered virtuous (temples, fora, roads, aqueducts, et cetera), building of other types of structures (brothels, taverns, and other lowly structures) were symbolic of vice ^[64]. It would appear as though the building of baths occupied a greyish middle-ground in between, “standing somewhere between useful public monuments and lowly havens of corporeal dissipation” ^[65]. As Fagan (2002) points out, this is a likely explanation as to why there were no senatorially decreed bathing complexes during the Republic. Although senators likely did not avoid the baths altogether, they did not want to spend public money on their construction ^[66].

During the Roman Republic, water which was brought into the city via one of its many aqueducts was not used for baths. Owners of private bathing complexes were forced to purchase water which had run off from publicly accessible troughs ^[67]. Agrippa innovated here as well, servicing his baths with water fed directly from his freshly built aqueduct, the Aqua Virgo. However, it must not be forgotten that the Baths of Agrippa began as a private bathing complex as well, paid for personally by Marcus Agrippa himself who was, by this time, one of the most wealthy men in the Roman world. However, upon his death in 12 BCE, the baths were bequeathed to the Roman people in Agrippa’s will, making it the first public bathing complex in the city of Rome (although not the first in the Empire) ^[68]. This action caused a change in the attitudes within the Senate towards bathing complexes, removing their construction from the grey area and placing them into the realm of virtuous structures, although Agrippa’s example wouldn’t be followed until Nero constructed his baths in the early to mid 60s AD ^[69].

Indeed, it would seem as though the technological achievement of the baths was not lost on the Roman people, being able to control and contain vast amounts of water and even control the desired temperature at which certain pools were kept ^[70].

Evidence suggests that bathing began to become much more popular within Rome during the first century BCE, when far greater numbers of Romans began bathing in public with more frequency ^[71]. These numbers would again drastically increase during the first century AD. A passage within Varro states that when baths were originally introduced within the city of Rome there were separate sections for men and women, which is hinted at archaeologically within Republican baths which often feature an architectural division ^[72]. In a passage of Cicero, detailing a particularly heated exchange between L. Licinius Crassus and M. Junius Brutus, it is brought to light that it was considered improper at the time for father and son to bathe together ^[73]. However, the passage also indicates that, although the senators were not building baths at the time, they were still frequenting the private bath houses.

A trip to the baths was meant to be a pleasurable experience. According to Lucian, commenting on a trip to the Baths of Hippias, they were “brightly lit throughout, adorned with marbles from Phrygia and Numidia, and inscribed with citations from Pindar” ^[74]. There appears one inscription that mentions a museum which was attached to a bathing complex where art was put on display and where discussions and lectures could be organized ^[75]. Indeed, the baths of Rome have been recognized as social hubs within the Roman world, where members of the senatorial class would rub shoulders with the lower classes of society, even slaves, marking a strangely egalitarian feature of Roman life ^[76].

The Baths of Agrippa appear to have featured the main three types of pools and rooms which were the staple of Roman baths: the frigidarium (cold pool), tepidarium (mild/tepid pool), and caldarium (hot room and pool). There is research that suggests that these rooms could be visited in both orders, going from cold to hot, or hot to cold ^[77]. The hottest of the rooms, the caldarium, would have relied on both heating from under the floors, created by fanning hot air from fires underneath the water basin, as well as heat from the sun, a feature which exploded after window glass became increasingly popular throughout Rome. It has also been suggested that the ringing of a bell (tintinabulum) may have communicated to nearby Romans that the hot pools were open. However, this has also been criticized for various reasons of practicality, preferring the more reasonable explanation that bells were used to mark the imminent clothing of the bathing complex ^[78]

Baths in the Roman world were a one-stop-shop of socialization, health, and entertainment. Where one could exercise, play sports or ball games, play board games, philosophize, create business arrangements, and wash away the dirt and grime of everyday life within ancient Rome. There is no doubt that these complexes were microcosms of Roman life and even potentially small embodiments of the Roman world itself ^[79]

The Aqua Virgo was completed in 19 BCE and was the last of a series of constructions initiated by Agrippa concerning water management within the city of Rome ^[80]. Without a proper water supply the Baths of Agrippa would not have been able to function. The Aqua Virgo provided this water, along with supplying regions VII, IX, and XIV. This complemented the Aqua Julia which Agrippa also built in 33 B.C. to supply regions II, III, V, VI, VIII, X, and XII ^[81].

The source of the water transported by the aqueduct was located within the villa of Lucullus, 8 miles from the city along the Via Collatina ^[82]. In antiquity, the Aqua Virgo travelled past the Baths of Agrippa, bringing water as far as the Trans Tiberim (across the Tiber), potentially using the Pons Agrippae (bridge of Agrippa) to do so ^[83]. Today the Aqua Virgo is still in use, almost 2000 years after its initial opening, terminating at, and supplying the waters for, the Trevi Fountain ^[84].

The Euripus was a canal which ran from the area of the Stagnum and drained into the Tiber. It was originally thought that Agrippa’s lake was fed exclusively by the Aqua Virgo, using the canal to drain the lake directly into the Tiber ^[85]. However, Strabo’s mention of Agrippa setting up a statue (“The Fallen Lion” of Lysippus) in a grove which lay between the Stagnum and the Euripus leads one to believe that the two were actually distinct features of the landscape ^[86]. Therefore, it seems likely that the canal was indeed fed exclusively by the Aqua Virgo with water that was mentioned to have been quite cold ^[87]. In fact, Frontinus mentions that the waters were given to the Euripus by the Aqueduct which gave it its name, Euripus Virginis, essentially meaning the canal of the Aqua Virgo ^[88]. Seneca also stated that he enjoyed bringing in the new year with a good-luck plunge into the Virgo, which he did in the Euripus. Thus, as Lloyd has suggested, the Euripus could have served as a cold plunge-pool for the Baths of Agrippa. The large size of the Eurpius could also lead one to believe that it could have stood in as a swimming area for the baths.

The Stagnum, along with the Euripus were very likely added into the landscape as features to compliment the pleasure gardens which Agrippa placed around his baths ^[89]. The lake is most often placed to the west of the bath structure and, as previously mentioned above, there are, in fact, no references to anyone swimming in the Stagnum, using it in lieu of the lacking swimming pool in the bath structure. It appears as though the lake was lined with quays, suggesting that boating on the lake may have been popular ^[90]. Lloyd also suggests that the Stagnum may have been fed by runoff waters from the baths. This runoff of used water would certainly have dissuaded people from swimming in the lake. However, it might appear more likely to some that the Aqua Virgo fed most of the water into the lake. The answer to this question will unfortunately remain unknown.

The Stagnum was indeed quite large, being able to host a large banquet for Nero, hosted by Tigillinus, which was held on a raft towed by other boats ^[91]. The lake could also have served a more practical purpose, serving as a drainage area for the low-lying region of the Campus Martius, which was prone to flooding throughout antiquity ^[92].