ROSTRA

(properly the ships' prows, from rostrum, the iron-Lund prow, lit. "beak," of a ship). The orators' platform in the Forum at Rome, so called because it was embellished wil the bronze prows of the ships of the Latin fleet captured at Antium in 338 B.C. [Livy, viii 14]. Besides these it was also decorated with other monuments of the greatness of Rome, such as the Laws of the Twelve Tables, the columna rostrata of Duilius, and numerous statues of men of mark. Originally it stood between the part of the Forum called the Comitium and the Forum proper, opposite the Curia [no. 18a in Plan s.v. FORUM]; but in 44 B.C. Caesar moved it to the north end of the Forum under the Capitol [no. 6 in same Plan; cp. Cic., Phil. ix 2], and here built up part of it by the employment of the old materials. It was not completed until after his death, by Antonius. This now platform, which was afterwards repeatedly restored, appears by the existing remains to have consisted of an erection 11 feet higher than the pavement of the Forum, about 78 feet in length, and 33 feet in depth. [Cp. Middleton's Remains of Ancient Rome, 244, 246.] The front was decorated with two rows of ships' prows. The way up to the platform was at the back. This platform also was used down to the latest times of the Empire as a place for setting up honorary statues. [The Rostra Iulia, so called to distinguish it from the other rostra, was the projecting podium of the heroon of Julius Coesar, built by Augustus, (no. 21 in plan). Affixed to this were the prows of the vessels captured at Actium: Dion Cassius, li 19 (Middleton, l.c., pp. 262-8).]