What suggests Jacques Plassard taking part to this site, is a splendid view of the centre of the Roman Forum. On the left side, the Basilica Julia, the seven votive columns and the equestrian statue of Constantine. In the distance, on the right side, the Arch of Septimius-Severus and the dark mass of the Basilica Æmilia, which in the same perspective, casts a shadow on the lower Sacred Way. In the middle stands the column of the Father of the Nation.





Still in the centre of the Forum, but looking towards Augustus’s Arch, in the centre of the picture, between the temple of Cæsar, left, and the temple of the Dioscuri, right. In the foreground you recognise the Statue of Constantine.












From the top of the podium of the temple of Saturn, we discover the steps leading to the Rostra, or tribune of harangues. The dark building is the Curia.














This surprising view of the Forum is through a window of the Tabularium. In the foreground, the roofs of the temple of Vespasian, on the right, and of the Concord on the left. The triumphal column facing the Basilica Julia, might be Phocas’s Column, erected a long time after the Rome of Constantine, since it was set up in 608 to honour the Byzantine usurper Phocas.




In this perspective the Tabularium closes the Forum in the west and covers the depression between the Arx and the Capitolium. Through the great opening of the Arch of Septimius-Severus you can see the first steps of the Gemoniæ Stairs, and at the top of the arch the red roof of the small temple of the Concord, built on the promontory of the Arx.