Begun in 42 BC and dedicated by Augustus in 29 BC, the high platform on which the temple was built served as a rostra (Rostra Juli) and, like the Rostra at the opposite end of the Forum, was decorated with the beaks of ships taken at the battle of Actium. In the front was a recessed semicircular niche and an altar that marked the site of the funeral pyre where Caesar's body had been cremated after his death on the Ides of March.
Flowers still are left on the pyre of the deified Julius.