Rostra
(properly “the ships' prows,” from
rostrum, the
iron-bound prow [literally, “beak”] of a ship). The orators' platform in
the Forum at Rome, so called because it was embellished with the bronze prows of the ships of
the Latin fleet captured at Antium in B.C. 338 (
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 (q.v.) 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;
but in B.C. 44 Caesar moved it to the north end of the Forum under the Capitol (
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 new platform, which was afterwards repeatedly restored, appears by the existing
remains to have consisted of an erection eleven feet higher than the pavement of the Forum,
about seventy-eight feet in length, and thirty-three feet in depth. 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 Hero üm of Iulius Caesar, built by Augustus. Affixed
to this were the prows of the vessels captured at Actium (Dio Cass. li. 19; Middleton,
Ancient Rome, p. 179). See
Forum.
