The Scholar's Forum
Just outside of the Unversity campus rests the Scholar’s Forum. The Scholars' Forum is an open, public gathering place that forms an excellent backdrop for diverse intellectual activities, from philosophical discussions and poetry recitations to political debates, theatrical performances, speeches, and orations. According to the few surviving pre-Valterrian maps and chronicles of the city, the Forum was originally built a few years after the University of Zeltiva was first established during the Royal period. On those maps, it was usually depicted as a ring of imposing granite columns surrounding a green, grassy park with scattered statues and flower bushes.
However, the cataclysm of the Valterrian was enough to topple most of the Forum, which had stood exactly on the boundary between the part of Zeltiva that was devastated by the Valterrian and the much smaller part that was spared the worst of the destruction. The once-grand Scholars' Forum was reduced to a few free-standing, fractured columns poking above a pile of rubble. It was several decades after the University of Zeltiva was reestablished before the city undertook the project of reconstructing the Scholars' Forum. With dedicated Zeltivan ingenuity and practicality, the city's architects and builders managed to rescue or restore many of the columns from the ruined structure and redesigned the Forum in the spirit of its original purpose as a meeting place.
Thus, today the Scholars' Forum consists of a double row of magnificent white marble columns that form the graceful, quarter-circle peristyle around an open, cobbled square. Each stalwart column soars upward to support a simple, classical entablature with an unadorned golden-yellow frieze. A narrow corridor stretches between the rows of columns, providing a shadowed shelter from which to admire the view of the square. At the feet of the columns, a set of broad, curving steps leads down into the cobbled square and provides an excellent place for speakers and orators to make their announcements in full view of everyone passing by. At the center of the square, a number of stone benches ring a small gated off garden positioned directly in front of the forum.
Original location credit goes to Avari.
