midst of a stock-raising and fertile agricultural region; there is an important stockyard and packing establishment just outside the city; and considerable quantities of cotton are raised in the vicinity. Among the products are packed meats, flour, beer, trunks, crackers, candy, paint, ice, paste, cigars, clothing, shoes, mattresses, woven wire beds, furniture and overalls; and there are foundries, iron rolling mills and tanneries. In 1905 the total value of the city’s factory product was $5,668,391, an increase of 62.5% since 1900; Fort Worth in 1900 ranked fifth among the cities of the state in the value of its factory product; in 1905 it ranked fourth. Fort Worth’s numerous railways have given it great importance as a commercial centre. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and the electric-lighting plant.
A military post was established here in 1849, being called first Camp Worth and then Fort Worth. It was abandoned in 1853. A settlement grew up about the fort, and the city was incorporated in 1873. The fort and the settlement were named in honour of General William Jenkins Worth (1794–1849), a native of Hudson, New York, who served in the War of 1812, commanded the United States forces against the Seminole Indians in 1841–1842, served under both General Taylor and General Scott in the Mexican War, distinguishing himself at Monterey (where he earned the brevet of major-general) and in other engagements, and later commanded the department of Texas. In 1907 Fort Worth adopted a commission form of government.
FORTY, the cardinal number equal to four tens. The word is derived from the O. Eng. feówertig, a combination of feówer, four, and tig, an old form of “ten,” used as a suffix, cf. Icel. tiu, Dan. ti, ten, and Ger. vierzig, forty. The name “The Forty” has been given to various bodies composed of that number of members, particularly to a judicial body in ancient Athens, who tried small cases in the rural districts, and to a court of criminal jurisdiction and two civil appeal courts in the Venetian republic. The French Academy (see Academies) has also been known as “The Forty” or “The Forty Immortals.” The period just before the repeal of the corn laws in the United Kingdom is frequently alluded to, particularly by the free trade school, as the “hungry forties”; and the “roaring forties” is a sailor’s name for the stormy region between the 40th and 50th latitudes N. and S., but more particularly applied to the portion of the north Atlantic lying between those latitudes.
FORUM (Lat. from foris, “out of doors”), in Roman antiquity, any open place used, like the Greek ἀγορά, for the transaction of mercantile, judicial or political business, sometimes merely as a promenade. It was level, rectangular in form, surrounded by porticoes, basilicas, courts of law and other public buildings. In the laws of the Twelve Tables the word is used of the vestibule of a tomb (Cicero, De legibus, ii. 24); in a Roman camp the forum was an open place immediately beside the praetorium; and the term was no doubt originally applied generally to the space in front of any public building or gateway. In Rome (q.v.) itself, however, during the period of the early history, forum was almost a proper name, denoting the flat and formerly marshy space between the Palatine and Capitoline hills (also called Forum Romanum), which probably even during the regal period afforded the accommodation necessary for such public meetings as could not be held within the area Capitolina. In early times the Forum Romanum was used for athletic games, and over the porticoes were galleries for spectators; there were also shops of various kinds. But with the growth of the city and the increase of provincial business, more than one forum became necessary, and under the empire a considerable number of civilia (judicial) and venalia (mercantile) fora came into existence. In addition to the Forum Romanum, the Fora of Caesar and Augustus belonged to the former class; the Forum boarium (cattle), holitorium (vegetable), piscarium (fish), pistorium (bread), vinarium (wine), to the latter. The Fora of Nerva (also called transitorium or pervium, because a main road led through it to the Forum Romanum), Trajan, and Vespasian, although partly intended to facilitate the course of public business, were chiefly erected to embellish the city. The construction of separate markets was not, however, necessarily the rule in the provincial fora; thus, in Pompeii, at the north-east end of the forum, there was a macellum (market), and shops for provisions and possibly money changers, and on the east side a building supposed to have been the clothworkers’ exchange, and at Timgad in North Africa (a military colony founded under Trajan) the whole of the south side of the forum was occupied by shops. The forum was usually paved, and although on festal occasions chariots were probably driven through, it was not a thoroughfare and was enclosed by gates at the entrances, of which traces have been found at Pompeii. When the sites for new towns were being selected, that for the forum was in the centre, and the two main streets crossed one another close to but not through it. At Timgad the main streets are some 5 or 6 ft. lower than the forum. The word forum frequently appears in the names of Roman market towns; as, for example, in Forum Appii, Forum Julii (Fréjus), Forum Livii (Forli), Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone). These fora were distinguished from mere vici by the possession of a municipal organization, which, however, was less complete than that of a prefecture. In legal phraseology, which distinguishes the forum commune from the forum privilegiatum, and the forum generale from the forum speciale, the word is practically equivalent to “court” or “jurisdiction.”
For the fora at Rome, see Rome: Archaeology, and works quoted.
FORUM APPII, an ancient post station on the Via Appia, 43 m. S.E. of Rome, founded, no doubt, by the original constructor of the road. Horace mentions it as the usual halt at the end of the first day’s journey from Rome, and describes it as full of boatmen and cheating innkeepers. The presence of the former was due to the fact that it was the starting-point of a canal which ran parallel to the road through the Pomptine Marshes, and was used instead of it at the time of Strabo and Horace (see Appia, Via). It is mentioned also as a halting place in the account of Paul’s journey to Rome (Acts xxviii. 15). Under Nerva and Trajan the road was repaired; one inscription records expressly the paving with silex (replacing the former gravelling) of the section from Tripontium, 4 m. N.W., to Forum Appii; the bridge near Tripontium was similarly repaired, and that at Forum Appii, though it bears no inscription, is of the same style. Only scanty relics of antiquity have been found here; a post station was placed here by Pius VI. when the Via Appia was reconstructed. (T. As.)
FORUM CLODII, a post station on the Via Clodia, about
23 m. N.W. of Rome (not 32 m. as in the Antonine Itinerary),
situated above the western bank of the Lacus Sabatinus (mod.
Lake of Bracciano), and connected with the Via Cassia at
Vacanae by a branch road which ran round the N. side of the
lake (Ann. Inst., 1859, 43). The site is marked by the church of
SS. Marcus, Marcianus and Liberatus, which was founded in the
8th or 9th century A.D. Inscriptions mentioning the Foro-Clodienses
have come to light on the spot; and an inscription
of the Augustan period, which probably stood over the door of a
villa, calls the place Pausilypon—a name justified by the beauty
of the site.
See Notizie degli scavi (1889), 5; D. Vaglieri, ibid. (1895), 342.
FORUM TRAIANI (mod. Fordongianus), an ancient town of Sardinia, on the river Thyrsus (Tirso), and a station on the Roman road through the centre of the island from Carales to Olbia and Turris Libisonis. Many of its ruins have been destroyed since 1860. The best preserved are the baths, erected over hot mineral springs. The tanks for collecting the water and the large central piscina are noteworthy. The bridge over the Tirso has been to some extent modernized. On the opposite bank are the scanty remains of an amphitheatre. Not far off is a group of nuraghi, of which that of St Barbara in the commune of Villanova Truschedda is one of the finest.
See Taramelli in Notizie degli scavi (1903), 469.
FOSBROKE, THOMAS DUDLEY (1770–1842), English antiquary, was born in London on the 27th of May 1770. He was educated at St Paul’s school and Pembroke College, Oxford,
