The public place par excellence of Torreparedones is the Forum. The square around which some of the most relevant buildings in the city are organized was discovered in excavations carried out between 2009 and 2010. With dimensions of just over 500 square meters, it is quadrangular in shape and stands out Its pavement is based on large slabs of gray micritic limestone, very resistant and similar to those that were placed in the Patricia Corduba Colony Forum. At some of its ends it has a perimeter canal that served to evacuate rainwater to the sewer under the kardo.
The first relevant piece found in this area of the site was the white marble portrait of the deified Emperor Claudius. To this we should add another relevant discovery: an inscription of litterae aureae (at the time large golden bronze letters) that recalls the evergetic action of Marcus Junius Marcellus defraying the costly paving of his own money.
Today, the forum of the Roman city of Torreparedones is the most monumental and attractive sector due to its state of conservation. This large public square would be the nerve center of the city and therefore around it, in addition to the porticoes and the augustal schola (a stone bench reserved for the members of this collegiate body), there are notable public buildings such as the temple ,the basilica civil, the aedicula of Concordia and the curia.
The first, although very devastated, responds to the templa rostrata model with a platform or tribune for speakers that was accessed by two side stairs. Its plan was rectangular, with dimensions of 15 meters long and 9.40 meters wide that would encompass the cella, also rectangular. Its structure was that of a periptero sine postico temple , with a tetrastyle façade probably systila with shafts 3 feet in diameter. At the bottom of the podium, starting from the forensic plaza, three large steps appear that led directly to the wall where, most likely, the bronze plaques with the laws of the municipality would be placed.
The western flank of the Forum is occupied by the great civil basilica where important commercial transactions were carried out but, above all, the judicial matters of the city were attended to. It also served as a meeting place to discuss various matters, protected from inclement weather. It is rectangular in plan with an area of about 350 m2 arranged with the long side in a north-south direction, so that it closed the plaza on the eastern side, being right in front of the temple. The pavement, possibly made of marble, has not been preserved but the 20 pillars that supported the 20 columns of the peristasis (8 x 4) that surrounded the large central nave had at least three access doors from the forum square, one wider central and two other lateral ones. It was, as is usual in this type of construction, two stories high, the first of Ionic order and the second with Corinthian capitals.
On the tour of the Forum, next to the basilica, the North portico stands out , where some reproductions of the sculptures found in situ have been placed, among them, the magnificent thoracata that is exhibited in the Historical Museum of Baena. Below and before accessing the staircase that led to the northern part of the city, there is a small aedicula dedicated in all probability to the goddess Concordia, inside which a stone pine cone belonging to a cornucopia, a ritual brazier, was found. and a stone support where it is possible that a banner related to the first Roman legionaries who arrived in the city was located.
The visit to the Curia will complete the tour of the Torreparedones Forum, a space that responded in every way to the notable urban development that the city experienced during the 1st century AD and that would reach its climax in the time of Tiberius, when it was paved with large slabs were laid on the forensic plaza and the buildings in it were covered with marble ..
Image taken from the North portico in the Torreparedones Forum.
Reproduction of portrait of Claudio; In the background, the city’s civil basilica
Although originally it was just an open space where the people’s assembly met, over time it would end up becoming the commercial, religious, political and judicial center of the Roman cities; a place of “sacred” memories where the main buildings for public use were located and the sculptures of the different members of the imperial family or local heroes to whom tribute was paid. The forum was also the place chosen to host different inscriptions relating to the legal texts that governed the life of the city or its relations with Rome or other cities. The Forum could also be considered as a representation space in which there would be dedicated pedestals and sculptural groups such as those exhibited in the Historical Museum of Baena
For a better understanding of the representative functionality of the Forums and to place many of the sculptures exhibited in the Historical Museum of Baena in their place of origin, you can play the video above where this unique space in Torreparedones has been recreated.