Once a swampland, the Roman Forum was drained by Tarquinius Priscus around the early 6th century BC; by the 5th century BC, it was an established center for political and religious life in Rome. It is bounded to the south by the Palatine Hill, to the west by the Capitoline Hill, and to the northeast by the Oppian Hill.
Seen here to the right is the Temple of Antoninus and Fasutina, located at the eastern end of the Forum and first built in 142 AD, when the Roman Emperor Antontinus Pius dedicated it to his dead wife Faustina. Following his own death in 161 AD, it was dedicated again to his memory, and in the middle ages, it was rebranded as a Christian church—the Church of San Lorenzo in Miranda—which still stands behind the colonnaded facade of the original temple.
