in Roman Antiquity, signified originally the open space in front of any public building, and was afterwards applied to the central square in the ancient Roman cities where public business was transacted, and where in the early ages of Rome causes were tried. The forum of the Romans corresponded to the agora of the Greeks, being commonly oblong rather than perfectly square in form, and was surrounded with temples, public buildings, and porticos. The Roman fora were of two kinds, "civilia" and "venalia;" the former set apart for meetings of the people and the administration of justice, and the latter for purposes of trade. The city of Rome itself contained nineteen important fora—the forum Antonini, Archemoriun, Argentarium, Augusti, Boarium, Caesaris, Cupidinis, Nerve, Olitorium, Piscarium, Piscatorium, Pistorium, Romanum, Sallostii, Suarium, Trajanii, Transitorium, and Vespasiani. Of these the forum Romanum, Nerve, Trajani, Boarium, and Piscatorium still present many interesting remains of the magnificent edifices with which they were once adorned. By far the most important of the ancient fora was the Forum Romanum, which was for a long time the only one of its kind, and was at first known as the forum. In later times, when their number was greatly increased, it was distinguished from the others by the epithets of retus or magnum. It was seven "ingera" or acres in extent, and was situated in the low ground between the Palatine and Capitoline hills, not very far from the Tiber; but it does not seem possible now to fix its exact limits. It was surrounded on every side by the most splendid buildings of the ancient city—temples, basilica, triumphal arches. It contained also many statues of illustrious Romans, and the rostra or stage from which the people were addressed, so called from its being adorned with the beaks of ships taken from the Antiates in the early wars of that people with the Romans. The forum, in its widest sense, appears to have comprised the comitium (or place of assembly for the curiae), which was separated from the forum (in its narrower sense the place of meeting of the comitia tributa) by the rostra. Originally, orators, when addressing the people from the rostra, looked towards the comitium and the curia; but the younger Gracchus got a law passed compelling them to face the forum, and thus acknowledge the sovereignty of the people. In the comitium or upper part of the forum the laws of the Twelve Tables were exposed for public inspection, and the Fasti were afterwards exhibited there on white tables that the citizens might know on what days it was lawful to transact legal business. In 508 B.C. the forum was adorned with the gilt shields taken from the Samnites, and these trophies of Roman valour were afterwards annually exhibited there during the Ludi Romani. One of the most interesting ornaments in the forum was the Columna Rostrata, on which were hung the beaks of the Carthaginian ships taken by the consul Duillius in the first Punic war. Besides the forum Romanum there were two other fora judiciaria at Rome, one of them built by Julius Caesar, and the other by Augustus, to provide for the great increase of public business during their supremacy. None of the other fora were at all to be compared either in size or splendour with these three. A beautiful restored view of the Forum Romanum was designed by Mr C. R. Cockerell, of which a reduced plan was published in the "Pompeii" of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.