Pillar of Shame

The Pillar of Shame stands at the northern edge of the Roman Forum, a lone fluted column about two metres high. It is what survives of a Roman votive monument; in the city's medieval centuries it was put to a more lurid use.

Today it is one of the favourite stops on guided tours, partly for the story and partly because the column is one of the few photogenic standing pieces in the otherwise rubble-strewn forum. The iron rings are still visible at adult chest height.

things to do sight
A story
A single column from the Roman forum, with iron rings still set into the stone. In the medieval and early-modern period the column was used as a stocks: offenders were chained here for hours or days, with the precise crime — debt, theft, blasphemy, infidelity — often written on a placard beside them.

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