La genesi dei primi spazi forensi nei centri minori della Cisalpina in età repubblicana

In studies on the Cisalpina, a controversial aspect concerns the earliest phases of the forum areas of the smaller towns, their history, the location of buildings and the architectural appearance. I believe that the data available to us can, at least, provide food for thought, although it should be noted that, in many cases, the fora of many small towns have yet to be systematically excavated or even identified. There are very few examples known today of monumental installations of fora prior to the age of Augustus and high imperial period in the smaller Cisalpine towns. In Regiones VIII and IX, at the present state of research, there are no documented cases; in Regio X, in only two sites, Iulium Carnicum and Concordia, have late Republican phases for their respective for spaces. The third and final context which has a forum prior to the beginning of the empire, is Sassina, on the borders of south-western Cisalpine. It is evident that the transition from forum or conciliabulum or vicus to municipium and fictive colony, with the acquisition of Latin citizenship and then Roman, which took place in stages between 89 and 49 B.C., did not generate an immediate monumental campaign in most of small towns in question, especially when one considers that for many of them, a real city system only came with the principate of Augustus. The dynamic process of reorganization and planning of the whole Cisalpine territory, started by Caesar and systematically developed by Augustus, was an epochal historical transition for many small towns, so decisive as to influence heavily the refurbishment and modernization of urban spaces and forum areas. However, we know that many fora and conciliabula already existed in the Cisalpina in the II century B.C. and that their role was of primary importance as a point of reference for the administrative control of territory. For these smaller towns, in their pre-municipal phase, we should still imagine public spaces as probably essential, and specifically useful for the performance of many administrative functions assigned to them.