Page - 109 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

7 Aquatic Pasts& theWateryPresent:Water andMemory in the Foraof Rome 109 freed of standing water.21 By 480BC, at the beginning of the Republic, the forum probably contained theRegia, the Temple of Vesta, the Temple of Castor andPollux, the CuriaHostilia, theTempleofSaturn,and theComitium.22Buildingcontinueduntil almost thebeginningof the Imperial period, when Julius Caesar decided to build his own forum to the northeast of the ForumRomanum, initiatinga trendcontinuedbyhis successors in that area. The (formerly) swampy landscape of the forumbasin is, then, the backdrop for themonu- ments that were installed in the Forum Romanum. The connections that the space has (and had) towater are crucial for our understanding of the choice and placement of the structures in thebuilt environment of the forum.While by the lateRepublic therewasnodirect access to water, save for the springs and the flowingCloacaMaxima, it is thememoryof thispast that is essential in the constructionof thewatery landscapeof the forum. Theinclusionofmonuments tiedtowater inthepreviouslywatery forumstresses the impor- tance of the substance for theRomans throughout the history of this space.When considering the water-related features of the Roman Forum, wemust imagine what is happening for the visitor to the space.Howare they interactingwith the space?Are they remembering themyths andhistorical events that are tied to the structures? There is a relationshipbetween the actual site and the viewing of the site, which is ‘crucial to the cognitive complexities of translating pictures, monuments, and dimensional spaces into intelligible experience’.23What results for certain,however, is ablurred linebetween thepast and thepresent, inwhat somehave termed a ‘synchronous,permanentpresent’.24What thismeans is that thoseof thepresentcanconsider thepast in relation to thebuilt environmentaroundthem.Thus,monumentshaveapastcrucial in theirmeaningand importance,notonly to those in thepast, butalso to those in thepresent, allowing us to graft meaning on to these structures. Indeed, as Adam Rogers argues in this volume, throughout the Roman world, the materiality of water itself impacted urban land- scapes, as not only pre-existingwaterscapes, but also theRomans’ own construction ofwater- related structures ormonuments altered the experience onewouldhavewith a space. The Fo- rumRomanum, then, with a number of waterymonuments, would have evoked for all those encountering them the sheer importanceofwater in theurban landscapeofRome’s past. In addition to the actual past aquatic environment of the forumbasin, there are anumber of monuments within the forum itself that commemorate mythological, historical, or mytho- historical episodes of Rome’s past. Three lacus (Iuturnae, Curtius, andServilius), the Sacellum ofVenusCloacina, the rostra of the forum, and the Temple of JanusGeminus are presented in the ensuing discussion. For themost part, there are no remains of truewater-displays, in that there arenoknownmonumentswithmovingwater, suchas the grand fountains known in the Imperialperiod.TheancientForumRomanumtakesadvantage,however,of the inherentmean- ing ofmonuments’ watery past, whether it ismythical, Regal, or Republican.Many of these structureshadbeen in the forumfor generations,whichgives them their ownpasts andmean- ings for thepassers-by, andwould remindvisitors of the ties the forumhad towater. TheLacusIuturnaeisprobablyoneof themostwell-knownmonumentsof theForumRoma- numconnectedwithwater, given that it is amonumentalisationofanactual springsourceand celebrates one of the best knownof the Romannymphs. Iuturnawas believed to be the sister of Turnus, and shehada cult in Lavinium thatwasmoved toRomeat somepoint in the latter part of theRegalperiod. Thus, shehadanancientmythology thatwasevenpresent in theepic cycle of theAeneid. Her importancewas stressed by her cult’s placement in the forum,where she is associatedwith the spring that is located between the Temple of Castor andPollux and 21 Formoreon thenotionof the fact that theForumwasnot anaccident, seeHopkins 2014, 52f. 22 Ammerman2013, 174. See also the essays inCarandini 2017 on thedevelopment of theForum. 23 Larmour–Spencer 2007, 7. 24 Barkan 1991, 13; Edwards 1996, 29.