Saepta Julia

The Saepta Julia was a multifunctional portico in ancient Rome. The 400 x 60 meters large hall was in the Campus Martius on the Via del Corso, between Piazza Venezia and Piazza Ignatius.

Julius Caesar planned the representative building of marble as a meeting place for the election of the comitia centuriata. It should replace the previous meeting place in which there was a simple fenced and not covered space at the same place, which was called because of its resemblance to a pen ovile (Latin for sheep barn ). However, the realization of this building was not until Lepidus and Agrippa in 26 BC Agrippa dedicated the hall the Julii.

After the abolition of the comitia centuriata by Tiberius in 14 AD the magnificent building was used as a venue for gladiatorial contests and games. So 60 and 65 individual competitions of the Neronia took place there over the years. With the construction of the Colosseum, the Saepta Julia lost its importance as a venue and was converted into a market.

Under the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata, in the cellars of the Palazzo Doria Pamphili, and east of the Pantheon foundation ruins still remain.