The Rostra (Italian: Rostri) was a large platform built in the city of Rome that stood during the republican and imperial periods.

[1] Speakers would stand on the rostra and face the north side of the Comitium towards the senate house and deliver orations to those assembled in between.

[3][4] It derives its name from the six rostra (plural of rostrum, a warship's ram) which were captured following the victory which ended the Latin War in the Battle of Antium in 338 BC and mounted to its side.

Magistrates, politicians, advocates and other orators spoke to the assembled people of Rome from this highly honored, and elevated spot.

Before the Forum Romanum, the Comitium was the first designated spot for all political and judicial activity and the earliest place of public assembly in the city.

[9] The practice was continued by Sulla[10] and Mark Antony, who ordered that Cicero's hands and head be displayed on Caesar's Rostra after the orator's execution as part of the Proscription of 43 BC.

[10] Caesar spoke from the Rostra in 67 BC in a successful effort to pass, over the opposition of the Senate, a bill proposed by the tribune Aulus Gabinius (the lex Gabinia) creating an extraordinary command for Pompey to eliminate piracy in the Mediterranean.

[12] Millar comments that during the late Republic, when violence became a regular feature of public meetings, physical control and occupation of the Rostra became a crucial political objective.

After about 145 BC, the voting population of Rome grew too large for the Comitium, and tribal assemblies were then held at the opposite end of the Forum around the Temple of Castor, the steps of which served as an informal Rostra.

[18] For trials held in the Comitium, the Rostra served as the tribunal upon which the magistrate sat in his curule chair with a small number of attendants.

In addition to the prows of captured ships, the Rostra bore a sundial[22] and, at various times, statues of such important political figures as Camillus, Sulla and Pompey.

The structure was described by Christian Charles Josias Bunsen, based on his examination of two Roman coins depicting the Rostra, as "a circular building, raised on arches, with a stand or platform on the top bordered by a parapet; the access to it being by two flights of steps, one on each side.

John E. Stambaugh, professor of classics at Williams College, described the new arrangement as "a reflection of contemporary taste and the relentless Augustan desire for order.

"[23][29] In November 2008 heavy rain damaged the concrete covering that has been protecting the Vulcanal and its monuments located in the Imperial comitium space since the 1950s.