The temple of Minerva remained relatively intact until its demolition by Pope Paul V in 1606 to provide materials for the Acqua Paola fountain in the Janiculum, and the Borghese chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore.

[5] The forum is long and thin (around 160 by 46m) and conforms to the basic layout of the fora before it, with a temple dominating one end and high walls surrounding an open courtyard with a colonnade which supplied shelter and passageways.

[5] In fact, the forum Transitorium was the only large-scale construction initiated by Domitian which was finished during the short fifteen-month reign of Nerva.

The available space was long and narrow (131 x 45 meters), and had outer walls made from blocks of lava stone peperino, covered with marble slabs, and decorated with projecting paired columns.

[5] On the south side of the enclosure wall of the forum is the only surviving evidence of the columns en ressaut, known as the Colonnacce, which surrounded the interior of the space.

The reason for this substitution was purely practical due to the very limited amount of space between the Forum of Augustus and the Templum Pacis (Temple of Peace).

[4] In fact, the constraint of space and the adjacent fora walls not being parallel meant that the forum's width changes depending on where it is measured (from around 135 to 160 feet).

[5] Ancient evidence also suggests that Domitian may have wanted to perpetuate the memory of the Argiletum by placing the shrine of Janus Quadrifons into the Forum Transitorium.

[5] Le Colonnacce is the only surviving portion of the columns en ressaut which ran down the lengths of the Forum Transitorium and stands along the flank of the Temple of Minerva.

[5] The columns support an entablature that was richly decorated with a figured frieze, 21 m of which are in situ out of an original 160 m on each long flank, depicting scenes from myth, the best known being that of Arachne.

[2] Above the cornice originally ran a continuous attic which displayed figures carved in high relief, of which one survives depicting Minerva.

[5] However, the use of columns in this way was Hellenistic in origin and seemingly arrived in Italy in a courtyard Façade at Praeneste and at the Porta Marzia at Perugia.

When the contest is complete, Minerva is enraged at Arachne's cloth's excellent quality and design of sexual acts of the gods, so she destroys it.

After stopping Arachne from committing suicide, she doles out a suitable punishment, turning the young girl into a spider, doomed to spin webs in dark places.

[3] Blanckenhagen offers one of the more detailed analyses of the frieze, viewing it as "depicting the local craftsmen's celebration of Minerva's festival, the Quinquatrus".

[5] Contracts for the removal of stone for construction throughout the city of Rome appear in 1425, 1504, 1522, and 1527, with an attempt to preserve a small section of the forum rejected within the Roman courts in 1520.

[5] A church, perhaps that of S. Maria in Macello, appearing within a contract of 1517, tells us of its location within the forum and statuary which was removed from the space between 1550 and 1555 on the orders of Pope Julius III.