Forum
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Forum. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a Latin word meaning an open place. It corresponds to the Greek agora and to the English marketplace. The most celebrated forum is that of ancient Rome. It was originally a marshy valley lying between the principal hills of the city. When the era of city improvement arrived, it was leveled off and drained into the Tiber by an underground arched sewer known as the Cloaca Maxima . The Forum proper occupied between four and five acres. It was bounded by four straight lines. It had the shape of the lower half of a slender letter "A." It was several times as long as wide. The early tribes met here to consider public business. Questions of life and death, of peace and war, were determined here. For centuries venders of meat, fish, and vegetables displayed their wares in the Forum. In later days special marketplaces were provided for them. The bankers and moneychangers transacted their business in halls adjoining the Forum. Political speakers harangued the populace from a platform known as the rostra, in the rear of which a space was reserved for voting. In time the Forum was surrounded by temples and other public buildings, in the porticoes of which the population might stroll and shelter themselves from the sun or rain. The Roman Forum is probably the most celebrated open air place of meeting in the world. As Rome was the center of civilization, the Forum was the business, religious, and political center of the city. Political issues that make up the history of Rome were decided here. The tumultuous elections of which we read were carried on in the Forum. Mark Antony delivered his famous oration over the dead body of Caesar here. Cleopatra, the famous queen of Egypt committed suicide rather than be led in triumph through the Roman Forum. In the bloody days of the Triumvirates, the heads of political enemies were displayed from the rostra. According to the historians the Forum suffered little from the invasion of the Goths and other modern tribes. In fact its buildings stood intact until the time of the civil wars that followed the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire. The site of the Forum then became covered with a mass of ruins and rubbish over which goats strayed and browsed. During the latter half of the nineteenth century extensive excavations were undertaken, so that the visitor may now have some adequate idea of the Forum as it once existed. See Rome In yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep-- The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the eloquent air breathes--burns with Cicero! --Byron, Childe Harold.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about other peoples, religions, or nationalities that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: ET 2026-07-22) an open space in Roman cities, generally surrounded by a covered colonnade, that fronted an ambulatory, and buildings of various kinds, such as temples, courts of law, prisons, granaries, etc. In the later period of the empire, when Rome had attained the summit of its glory, there were 19 fora within its limits, which were divided into two classes, some being especially set apart for public meetings and the proceedings of the law courts, while others were devoted to business purposes and the requirements of trade. The Forum Romanum, the first that was erected in Rome, served equally for the purposes of trade and all public meetadministration ings, as well as for the of justice by the consuls, decemvirs, and Rome. This forum other magistrates of was subsequently distinguished for its magnificence; the shops were removed, and many temples of the heathen gods, the senate-house, and the comitium, were erected in its immediate vicinity, with it. It was and in communication also adorned with arches, statues, and pulpits, from which public meetings were addressed, and which were called rostra, from being surrounded with the brazen beaks (rostra), or ornaments of the prows of the ships of war that had been captured by the Roman triremes. Exhibitions of gladiators were often shown in the forum. The Roman forum corresponded to the agora of the Greeks, and no Roman city or colony was without this important center for the transaction of business and public affairs. Plans of the forum at Pompeii and the principal forum of Rome are given in "Pompeii," a work published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. See ROME.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
An open space of ground in which the public met for the transaction of public business, and for the sale and purchase of provisions. The number of fora increased at Rome with the growth of the city. They were level pieces of ground of an oblong form, and were surrounded by buildings, both private and public. The principal forum at Rome was the Forum Romanum, also called simply the Forum, and at a later time distinguished by the epithets vetus magnum. It lay between the Capitoline and Palatine hills, and ran lengthwise from the foot of the Capitol or the arch of Septimius Severus in the direction of the arch of Titus; but it did not extend quite so far as to the latter. The origin of the forum is ascribed to Romulus and Tatius, who are said to have filled up the swamp or marsh which occupied its site, and to have set it apart as a place for the administration of justice and for holding the assemblies of the people.