As the site of the original docks of Rome (Portus Tiberinus) and adjacent to the Pons Aemilius, the earliest stone bridge across the Tiber, the Forum Boarium experienced intense commercial activity.

According to legend, when Hercules arrived in this area with Geryon’s oxen, he was robbed of these by the giant Cacus, who lived in a cave at the foot of the Aventine hill.

The Forum Boarium was the site of the first gladiatorial contest at Rome which took place in 264 BC as part of aristocratic funerary ritual—a munus or funeral gift for the dead.

In 215BC, four victims were buried alive by the Romans under the Forum Boarium as human sacrifices to placate the gods after a series of events were seen as portents to great disaster.

When the gods were believed to be duly propitiated, Marcus Claudius Marcellus sent from Ostia 1500 men who had been enrolled for service with the fleet to garrison Rome.

Beginning in the late 1990s, a partnership between the Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Roma and World Monuments Fund resulted in the conservation of both temples in the Forum Boarium.