Rostra

Rostra, Rostra Vetera

The Rostra of the early Republican era, as depicted on a Roman coin
Lapis Niger
Comitium
Julius Caesar
Roman Government	Political institutions
Social classes	Patrician, Senatorial class, Equestrian class, Plebeian, Freedman
The Rostra was a specific platform for oration in ancient Rome

The Rostra (Italian: Rostri) was a large platform built in the city of Rome that stood during the republican and imperial periods. Speakers would stand on the rostra and face the north side of the comitium towards the senate house and deliver orations to those assembled in between. It is often referred to as a suggestus or tribunal, the first form of which dates back to the Roman Kingdom, the Volcanal.

It derives its name from the six rostra (plural of rostrum, a warship's ram) which were captured during the victory at Antium in 338 BC and mounted to its side. Originally, the term meant a single structure located within the Comitium space near the Forum and usually associated with the Senate Cūria. It began to be referred to as the Rostra Vetera ("Elder Rostra") in the imperial age to distinguish it from other later platforms designed for similar purposes which took the name "Rostra" along with its builder's name or the person it honored.

Magistrates, politicians, advocates and other orators spoke to the assembled people of Rome from this highly honored, and elevated spot. Consecrated by the Augurs as a templum, the original Rostra was built as early as the 6th century BC. This Rostra was replaced and enlarged a number of times but remained in the same site for centuries.

Julius Caesar rearranged the Comitium and Forum spaces and repositioned the Senate Curia at the end of the republican period. He moved the Rostra out of the Comitium. This took away the commanding position the curia had held within the whole of the forum, having advanced extremely close to the Rostra during its last restoration. Augustus, his grand-nephew and first Roman emperor, finished what Caesar had begun, as well as expanded on it. This "New Rostra" became known as the Rostra Augusti. What remains in the excavated forum today, next to the Arch of Septimius Severus has endured several restorations and alterations throughout its historical use. while a few different honorary names are attributed to those restorations, scholars, archeologist and the government of Italy recognise this platform as the "Rostra Vetera" encased inside the "Rostra Augusti".