Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sleep. In this first light, the ancient pillars sparkle and the shadows dance below
the columns.
At the top of the ramp stairs, walk past the massive statues of the mythical
twins Castor and Pollux and the replica of the emperor Marcus Aurelius in the
center (the original is just a few feet away behind glass in the museum courtyard).
This square, designed by Michelangelo in the 1530s, is now flanked on either side
by the glorious Capitoline Museums, which you should come back to visit after
you've fully explored the ruins below. Most of what's in the museums comes from
there, so it's more fulfilling to first visit the source.
For now, head around the back of City Hall to see the entire spread of the
forum complex
below, which is divided broadly into four segments: the Imperial
Fora (Fori Imperiali), the Roman Forum (Foro Romano), the Palatine Hill
(Palatino), and the Colosseum (Colosseo; www.capitolium.org). It is vital to see
the outlines of these buildings, as well as the original forum layout, from up here,
before delving in. From down inside the forums, you just don't get this sort of per-
spective; instead, you are dwarfed by the giant pillars and ruins of antiquity.
The modern street to the left of this vista is the
Via dei Fori Imperiali,
built
by Benito Mussolini in 1932 as a convenient traffic thoroughfare and as a means
to connect his famous
Palazzo Venezia balcony
(p. 57) to the Colosseum. Today,
archaeologists are slowly digging out more artifacts and chipping away at the ruins
without sacrificing the street, which would cripple the public transportation net-
work of modern Rome. Do not let this street confuse you, and don't be distracted
by the way the forums are divided by fences, entrance gates, sidewalks, and
benches, which sit above still-unexcavated ruins. You have to overlook the sugges-
tion that all these forums are separate entities, because in reality they were an
intricate network of small streets and alleyways—much like the present city.
You should definitely come back up here another time to explore Piazza
Venezia and the rest of the Campidoglio, but for now take the back steps down
to the Via dei Fori Imperiali.
The Imperial Forums
Almost more complicated than figuring out what you are looking at is determin-
ing in what order to visit these forums. Start on the left-hand side of the Via dei
Fori Imperiali (facing the Colosseum) with a brief sweep through the Imperial
Forums of Trajan, Caesar, Nerva, and Augustus, which were built between 42
B
.
C
.
and
A
.
D
. 112. The best preserved is the semi-circular
Trajan's Market
(entrance
Via IV Novembre, 94;
€
3.50; daily 9am-sunset),
which gives you an idea of what
an ancient 150-store Roman shopping mall looked like, though you wouldn't find
Gucci and Prada here (these were primarily stores for grains, oils, spices, and sup-
plies for the ancient Romans). It is not necessary to enter this site unless you are
an archaeology buff; you can just as easily get the idea from the perimeter. From
here you will also see the intricately carved
Torre delle Milizie (Tower of the
Militia)
on top of the market. Many poets have written that Nero stood here to
watch Rome burn, but historians differ and say he watched from the Colle Oppio
(p. 54). Farther down the street is the
Colonna Traiana (Trajan's Column),
which is a white column carved with war scenes from Emperor Trajan's defeat of
the Dacians (who occupied what is now Romania). The statue on top is St. Peter,
which fills the spot where a golden statue of Trajan was pilfered in the Middle Ages.
