Portico d'Ottavia

Lonely Planet review

You'll need to set your imagination working to turn the columns and fragmented pediment you see today into the enormous square colonnade that the Portico d'Ottavia once was. Originally erected by a builder called Octavius in 146 BC, the portico was rebuilt in 23 BC by Augustus who, surprisingly, kept the name in honour of his sister Octavia.

The vast rectangular portico, supported by 300 columns, included temples dedicated to Juno and Jupiter (the latter was the first temple in Rome to be built entirely of marble), a Latin and a Greek library, and numerous magnificent statues. From the Middle Ages until the end of the 19th century, it formed part of the city's main fish market. On one of the brick pillars a stone plaque states that the fish sellers had to give city officials the head usque ad primas pinnas inclusive (up to and including the first fin) of any fish longer than the plaque itself. Fish heads, and particularly those of the sturgeon that lived in the Tiber, were prized for soup.