The Rostra located in the Roman Forum was the platform from which orators spoke to the assembled people, its name taken from the bronze ships' beaks that decorated the front (the first were from the victory at Antium in 338 BC), their supporting vertical slots and large dowel holes still to be seen. Planned by Caesar but given its final form by Augustus in 42 BC.

It was here that Mark Antony delivered his funeral speech for Caesar, and here that the Triumvirs proscribed Cicero and other political foes.

Five honorary columns were erected behind the Rostra: a taller one in the middle, carrying a statue of Jupiter (the patron god of Diocletian), the others, the Augusti and Caesars when Diocletian visited Rome for the first time in 303 AD to celebrate the twentieth year (vicennalia) of his reign and the tenth year (decennalia) of the Tetrarchy.

The ruins now visible of the Rostra is an early twentieth-century restoration.