The Forum Holitorium was the market for vegetables, herbs and oil forum venalium

Forum Venalium

A Forum Venalium was a food market in Ancient Rome during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. These mercantile forums were extensions of the Roman Forum and contained numerous buildings and monuments erected under the Republic and the Empire.In Politics Aristotle proposed that a city should have...

 of early ancient Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, by the Tiber

Tiber

The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...

 at the foot of the Capitoline

Capitoline Hill

The Capitoline Hill , between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the seven hills of Rome. It was the citadel of the earliest Romans. By the 16th century, Capitolinus had become Capitolino in Italian, with the alternative Campidoglio stemming from Capitolium. The English word capitol...

 and Palatine

Palatine Hill

The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city...

 hills. Once the site of an early temple of Venus

Venus (mythology)

Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...

, the centre of buying and selling was transferred in 388

388

Year 388 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus without colleague...

 to the Campus Martius

Campus Martius

The Campus Martius , was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about in extent. In the Middle Ages, it was the most populous area of Rome...

 (Forum Holitorium), leaving the old Roman Forum

Roman Forum

The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum...

 to the business of the State.

Temples

Four Republican

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

 temples once stood in the market:

• the temple of Pietas
  Pietas (goddess)
  In Roman mythology, Pietas was the goddess of duty to one's state, gods and family and a personification of the Roman virtue of pietas. One of the di indigetes, her main temple was a 2nd century BC one in the Forum Holitorium....
  
   ("duty", built by Acilius Glabrius
  Manius Acilius Glabrio (consul 191 BC)
  Manius Acilius Glabrio was a consul of the Roman Republic in 191 BC. He came from an illustrious plebeian family whose members held magistracies throughout the Republic and into the Imperial era....
  
  , consul in 191 BC) It had two squares with one being dedicated to Diana, and was destroyed to make way for the Theatre of Marcellus
  Theatre of Marcellus
  The Theatre of Marcellus is an ancient open-air theatre in Rome, Italy, built in the closing years of the Roman Republic. At the theatre, locals and visitors alike were able to watch performances of drama and song. Today its ancient edifice in the rione of Sant'Angelo, Rome, once again provides...
  
  .
• the temple of Juno
  Juno (mythology)
  Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...
  
   Sospita (Juno the savior)
• the temple of Janus
  Temple of Janus (Forum Holitorium)
  Temple of Janus , temple to the Roman god Janus in the Forum Holitorium, Rome.-Construction:It was built by C. Duilius after the victory at the battle of Mylae...
  
  
• the temple of Spes
  Spes
  In ancient Roman religion, Spes was the goddess of hope. Multiple temples to Spes are known, and inscriptions indicate that she received private devotion as well as state cult.-Republican Hope:...
  
   ("hope").

Under the present church of San Nicola in Carcere

San Nicola in Carcere

San Nicola in Carcere is a titular church in Rome near the Forum Boarium in rione Ripa. It is one of the traditional stational churches of Lent.-History:...

 are the ruins of three temples, standing side by side with the same orientation and facing the forum Holitorium. Besides some of marble of the later restorations, the architectural fragments are republican period work in travertine

Travertine

Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, and cream-colored varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot...

, tuff

Tuff

Tuff is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly when used as construction material, although tufa also refers to a quite different rock. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered...

 and peperino

Peperino

Peperino is an Italian name applied to a brown or grey volcanic tuff, containing fragments of basalt and limestone, with disseminated crystals of augite, mica, magnetite, leucite, and other similar minerals...

 (previously decorated in stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

):

• The central and largest of these temples is Ionic
  Ionic order
  The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
  
  , and is probably that of Spes
• The northernmost temple is next in size and also Ionic, and is generally assumed to be the temple of Janus which is mentioned in the written sources, and is usually dated to about 90 BC
  90 BC
  Year 90 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Lupus...
  
  . It is hexastyle, peripteral except at the back, and six of its columns, 0.70 metre in diameter, are still standing, built into the wall of the church.
• The southernmost temple is the smallest and Doric
  Doric order
  The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
  
  , and probably that of Juno
  Juno (mythology)
  Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...
  
   Sospita.

These ruins are incorporated and lie beneath the church (possibly after being incorporated into a prison, called carcere, which means prison). Remains of other temples lie under and around the Church of Sant'Omobono

Sant'Omobono

Sant'Omobono is a church in Rome at the foot of the Capitoline Hill in rione Ripa.It was built in the 15th century and called San Salvatore in Portico...

.