Forum Hadriani, in the modern town of

Voorburg Voorburg () is a town and former municipality in the west part of the province of South Holland, Netherlands. Together with the town Leidschendam and the village Stompwijk, it merged into the municipality of Leidschendam-Voorburg in 2002. Sit ...

, was the northernmost

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

city on the European continent and the second oldest city of the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. It was located in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

Germania Inferior ''Germania Inferior'' ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed ''Germania Secunda'' in the 4th century AD, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Cl ...

and is mentioned on the , a Roman road map. Established probably between 69-70, soon after or during the

Batavian Revolt The Revolt of the Batavi took place in the Roman province of Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") between AD 69 and 70. It was an uprising against the Roman Empire started by the Batavi, a small but militarily powerful Germanic tribe that inhab ...

, and initially called Municipium Cananefatium (Town of the Cananefates), the site Forum Hadriani formed the nucleus of the

civitas In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (; plural ), according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the , or citizens, united by Roman law, law (). It is the law that binds them together, giving them responsibilitie ...

of the

Cananefates The Cananefates, or Canninefates, Caninefates, or Canenefatae, meaning 'boat masters' – or less likely, 'leek masters' – were a Germanic tribe, who lived in the Rhine delta, in western Batavia (later Betuwe), in the Roman province of ''Germ ...

, who lived west of the

Batavians The Batavi were an ancient Germanic tribe that lived around the modern Dutch Rhine delta in the area that the Romans called Batavia, from the second half of the first century BC to the third century AD. The name is also applied to several mil ...

. It was situated along the ''

Fossa Corbulonis The Fossa Corbulonis (Dutch: ''Kanaal van Corbulo'') was a Roman canal that was dug around 50 AD under the direction of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. The project was mentioned by the historians Tacitus and Cassius Dio,Tacitus ''Annales'' XI 20; Cassiu ...

'' or ''Corbulo-canal'' (largely following the route of today's Vliet). This waterway was established about 47 AD by the Roman general

Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo ( Peltuinum c. AD 7 – 67) was a popular Roman general, brother-in-law of the emperor Caligula and father-in-law of Domitian. The emperor Nero, highly fearful of Corbulo's reputation, ordered him to commit suicide, which t ...

, forming an important shortcut between the rivers

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

and

Meuse The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper ...

. After the

Batavian Rebellion The Revolt of the Batavi took place in the Roman province of Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") between AD 69 and 70. It was an uprising against the Roman Empire started by the Batavi (Germanic tribe), Batavi, a small but militarily powerful G ...

, in which they participated, the Cananefates became loyal allies of the Romans. In 121, emperor

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

made a long voyage along the northwestern border of the empire, during which he probably visited the Cananefate town. It is theorized that during this period, the town adopted the name Forum Hadriani to honor the ruler, a common practice at the time. As a regional capital, the town would have already had the right to organize markets before Hadrian's reign. An alternate name, maybe the only official name, was Municipium Aelium Cananefatium (Aelius being the family name of Hadrian). The shortened version of this name, MAC, has been found engraved in a couple of Roman milestones found in the neighbourhood. Yet, the old name of the town was still in use during the reign of

Decius Gaius Messius Quintus Trajanus Decius ( 201June 251), known as Trajan Decius or simply Decius (), was Roman emperor from 249 to 251. A distinguished politician during the reign of Philip the Arab, Decius was proclaimed emperor by his troops a ...

(249-251). About 270 AD, after several plagues and attacks by

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

pirates and the reconquering of the region from the

Gallic Empire The Gallic Empire or Gallo-Roman Empire are names used in modern historiography for a secession, breakaway part of the Roman Empire that functioned ''de facto'' as a separate state from 260 to 274. It originated during the Crisis of the Third Cent ...

, the Romans abandoned Forum Hadriani. In 1771 a bronze right hand was excavated during garden work on the Arentsburg estate. This hand was used by

Étienne Maurice Falconet Étienne Maurice Falconet (1 December 1716 – 24 January 1791) was a French baroque, rococo and Neoclassical sculpture, neoclassical sculptor, best-known for his equestrian statue of Peter the Great, the ''Bronze Horseman'' (1782), in St. Pet ...

as model for the equestrian statue of

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

, ''The

Bronze Horseman The ''Bronze Horseman'' (, literally "copper horseman") is an equestrian statue of Peter I of Russia, Peter the Great in the Senate Square (Saint Petersburg), Senate Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was opened to the public on 7 (18) Augu ...

''. The first scientific excavations at the site of Forum Hadriani were carried out by Caspar Reuvens, between 1827 and 1833. Reuvens held the world's first professorship of archaeology. Reuvens died before he could publish his findings. More excavations were done between 1908 and 1915 by Jan Hendrik Holwerda, who published the results of Reuvens together with his own discoveries in a comprehensive monograph in 1923. The park Arentsburgh in modern Voorburg roughly corresponds with the site of the ancient town, but further excavations cannot currently be undertaken due to it being part of a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

. File:Bronze Roman hand excavated in Voorburg, The Netherlands in 1771.gif, Drawing (1800) of a bronze hand found in 1771 File:Fragments of a monumental statue found in Forum Hadriani, bronze, 2nd-3rd century AD, Voorburg, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (9549210648).jpg, Same hand on display in the Museum van Oudheden in Leiden

References

External links

Photos

Livius.org: Forum Hadriani
{{Coord, 52.0601, 4.3494, type:landmark_region:NL, display=title 40s establishments in the Roman Empire 1st-century establishments Former populated places in the Netherlands Roman towns and cities in the Netherlands 19th-century archaeological discoveries Roman towns in Germania Leidschendam-Voorburg

See also

References

External links