But, when the town was buried by the ash of Vesuvius in AD79 (approximately the same time the forum basilica of London was built), the focus of the elongated monumental space was the Temple of Jupiter, symbol of the Roman state.
Archaeologists from the Museum of London have discovered a well-preserved part of the ancient city of London’s first Roman basilica underneath the basement of an office block.
The city did not have a monumental forum and basilica complex until later, however, when a major programme of public and private construction was undertaken in the Flavian period (AD69–96).
Other walls of London’s basilica and forum have been known by archaeologists since the early 1880s.
The Flavian forum basilica at Londinium is one of the earliest examples to demonstrate this characteristic, along with that at Verulamium (St Albans).
