Julius Caesar as Second Founder of Rome & the Evolution of the First Imperial Forum

Art Matters Lecture with Chris Hallett, Ph.D.
Professor of Roman Art with the Department of History of Art, University of California, Berkeley

Julius Caesar spent a vast amount of money on building projects in the late 50s and early 40s BC, constructing an extension to the Roman Forum, a great Basilica in the Forum itself, and a temple to Venus. Because Caesar was assassinated with most of his building projects left unfinished—and with some of them not even started—his impact on the city of Rome, and the nature of the interventions he made, is today disputed. The new joint Danish-Italian excavations of Caesar’s Forum, now already underway, offers a quite exceptional opportunity for scholars to re-open this and other important questions about Caesar’s original intentions, and to offer a comprehensive re-evaluation of his legacy as a builder.