Photo Essay: History Buff or Not, the Roman Forum Is Transfixing

It was a long hike up the Palatine Hill for these 60 year old, out of shape legs, especially since it was literally 98 degrees. The next day I could hardly move after walking the uneven steps up the Palatine and then over to the Coliseum for another several wonderful hours, but it was worth every moment of senoritis for the magnificent view of the Roman Forum. I admit as I walked up the hill, I was actually looking around for an elevator, escalator, trolley, ski lift, anything to get me up the hill, but, duh, this is Ancient Rome. It was stinking hot in August. The city was as deserted as Rome can be because the locals all head to the beaches. For us, it was August or not at all, so here we were. Jane Eyre once said, "Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow." This is one lady who was sweating with the horses, uh, equii.

After centuries of degradation and of accumulated silt, this once magnificent tribute to the Roman Empire was called Campo Vaccino, or the Cow Field. Little remained to be seen of the Temples of Concord, Saturn or Castor and Pollux. After the fall of the Roman Empire, iron clamps were pillaged, marble was melted down for lime to make concrete or stripped to be reused elsewhere, stones were carried away. Even the name of the Roman Empire which once struck fear in the hearts of many would be attackers was little more than a whisper on the winds that blew across the ruins.

Augustus had rightfully assumed the dominance of the Roman Empire after the defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra at Axium in 31 AD. He boasted proudly that he would transform Rome from a city of brick to a city of marble. Here in the Forum was the center of commerce, government, justice and hero worship. In 2006, the house where Augustus himdelf was born was discovered on the slope overlooking the Coliseum. In 2007, a grotto or cave was discovered 50 feet under his house, and some archeologists claim it is the actual cave where the she-wolf raised Romulus and Remus.

Rome was sacked by the Visigoths and the Vandals in the fifth century, and by 472 AD, the Roman Empire no longer existed. We are fortunate so much of the Forum has survived; some of the survival was due to the sediment washing down from the Palatine Hill, covering the ruins but also preserving them. Not all the buildings you see are contemporary with each other because as centuries passed, new monuments were built atop the old, and only exquisitely careful excavation has revealed the oldest layers.

Admire the Arch of Titus and know that Napoleon himself admired it and used it as his model for the Arche du Triomphe in Paris, although the Parisienne arch stayed true to the proportions but is much larger. Titus died of the plague after only a two year reign. Titus was very popular and his successor, his younger brother Domitian, was not, so it is surmised that Domitian built the arch for Titus hoping for some vicarious adulation. The arch probably would not have survived the Middle Ages except that the Frangipani family built around it to construct a fortress. There are so many layers of history entwined around these ancient structures.

The Roman Forum is rather like a heavenly constellation of stars where you summon all your creative abilities to see Orion or the Pleiades. Here, you allow your mind's eye and your imagination to recreate the buildings and monuments. Using the very intuitive skills that the ancients used, the ruins of the glory that was Rome become complete in all their magnificence before you, and you walk the ancient spectral paths alongside the apparitions of its storied past.