The Rostra, located in the Roman Forum, was the platform beside the Curia from which orators spoke to the assembled people. Its name was taken from the bronze ships' beaks (rostrum) that decorated the front (some of the first of which, were taken from the victories in the battles of Anzio against the Volscians and Mylae in 260 BC),
their supporting vertical slots and large dowel holes still to be seen.
The Rostra was planned by Caesar but given its final form by Octavian (later Augustus) in 42 BC. It was here that Mark Antony delivered his funeral speech for Caesar, and here that the Triumvirs proscribed Cicero and other political foes.
Five honorary columns were erected behind the Rostra: a taller one in the middle, carrying a statue of Jupiter (the patron god of Diocletian), the others, the Augusti and Caesars when Diocletian visited Rome for the first time in AD 303 to celebrate the twentieth year (vicennalia) of his reign and the tenth year (decennalia) of the Tetrarchy.
Adjacent to the Rostra is an unassuming brick-built circular construction, some two meters high and two meters in diameter. This is the Umbilicus Urbi, the nominal centre of Imperial Rome, from which all distances to distant towns and cities was reckoned. The Lapis Niger, the ancient shrine that was said to be the grave of Romulus, first king of Rome, lies next to the Rostra.
The ruins now visible of the Rostra are an early twentieth-century restoration.
