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 p237  Forum Tauri

Article on p237 of

Samuel Ball Platner (as completed and revised by Thomas Ashby):
A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome,
London: Oxford University Press, 1929.


Forum Tauri: evidently an open forum in Region V, in the neighbourhood of the Horti Tauriani (q.v.), and perhaps within the limits of the region caput Tauri (BC 1890, 280‑3). References to both are found only in mediaeval literature;​1 to the forum in connection with the martyrdom of S. Bibiana (Catalogus codd. hagiograph. Paris, Brussels 1889, i.522; BC loc. cit.); and to the caput here and also elsewhere (Acta S. Bib. in cod. Vat. 5696 (cf. Jord. II.319; HJ 369); LPD I.127, 258). The forum was therefore probably near S. Bibiana, while the caput Tauri extended some distance around it, and was perhaps separated from the horti Tauriani (CIL VI.29771) by the via Tiburtina vetus. It is not to be confused with the locality known as Ad Taurum (q.v.) near the thermae Traianae. It is also possible that L. Statilius Taurus, consul in 44 A.D., who owned the horti, constructed the forum and adorned it with bulls' heads, which in turn gave the name to the surrounding region. The porta S. Lorenzo was called porta Taurina in the twelfth century and later (Urlichs, pp115, 127‑130, 150).


The Authors' Note:

1 Add Marcell. comes Chron. a.447: Saxa quoque ingentia in forum Tauri dudum super sese in aedificio posita . . . collapsa sunt.


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