Originally created as a market place, with the passing of time the forum would become a proper meeting point where all citizens would go to participate in the administrative, political and economic affairs of the territory.
The most important cities had more than one: the forum boarium for cattle exchanges, the forum holitorium for herbs, the forum vinarium for wine and the forum piscatorium for fish.
The forum was also where justice was served: that is why, in Italian, the word indicates the competent court in a given territory.
