Day 6: Ancient Rome

This post was written by Arron Long-Lewis:

Anybody who enjoys history must learn to use their imagination, this was certainly true today. As we woke up at 7:00 AM, (or a tad bit earlier for some) we ate a quick breakfast and made our way down to the Palatine Hill from our apartment. According to the myth of Romulus and Remus, the Palatine hill was the hill on which Rome was founded on by Romulus. It is also where Aeneas was welcomed to Italy by king Evander in the other famous founding myth. Because of the hill's significance, many emperors have built palaces and planted gardens on the hill. Many great ruins are left of places such as the palace of Domitian, a rather gaudy and over-the-top palace that is only smaller than Nero's palace. The remains of the baths of the emperor Septimius Severus can also be seen as well as a series of temples like the Temple of Apollo.

As we walked down from the Palatine hill, we came to the Roman forum. Once the heart of ancient Rome, the Forum served as a place where many goods were exchanged between people and many political and religious events were held. The oldest building in the forum is known as the Temple of Saturn, built in 498 BC and renovated twice. This building served as the treasury for the State Repository and was also a place where written laws were kept. The main reason the building was constructed however was for the reason that the Romans wanted to thank the god saturn for their prospering economy and agriculture. According to a lesser known myth, Saturn was descended from the Titan Cronos who was banished by Zeus and would later become the first king of Italy. Besides the Temple of Saturn, the forum also boasts two triumphal arches and the senate meeting house as well as many other religious buildings tied to myths.

From the Forum we move on to the Capitoline Museum and see many works of art including the original statue of Marcus Aurelius and of Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf. However, the first thing we did was to see the Hall of the Horatii and the Curiatii; where the battle between the triplet sets took place. We then moved on through the Hall of Hannibal, Tapestries, Emperors, and finally, Philosophers. When we finished with the museum we went walked to the final two monuments of the day. The first monument was Trajan's Forum which he built to replace the Forum we saw earlier today and to show off his military exploits. Trajan had this place built between the years of 107-113 AD, and when it was new it looked even better and much more grand than the first Forum. Trajan's column, which is located inside of the Forum is also considered one of the greatest sculptural artworks of all time. The friezes themselves are incredibly detailed and show some of Trajan's greatest battles. As we walked out of the Forum, we had an unexpected visit to the Vittorio Emanuele the Second monument. While this building is grand and is a great tourist site because it is the location where the Italian unknown soldier is buried; Italians despise it because it was built under Mussolini.