Standing in the dust of the Forum Romanum at the spot where all roads lead, surrounded by marble shards, echoes from the stones, like voices, speak. Time and history elide, from 750 B.C. until today. Despite generations of neglect and active pilferage at the hands of Renaissance popes, who adorned the face of a burgeoning new Rome with Imperial marble, much remains. Pavers still mark the Via Sacra, the sacred way, through the valley. From the Arch of Titus, a succession of remnants marks the path: the Temple of Romulus, the Temple of Vesta, the Basilica Julia, the Arch of Titus—a captured glimpse of a civilization.
Here, an aedicula with two Ionic columns marks the House of the Vestal Virgins; there, three Corinthian columns on a plinth, the Temple of the Castores—the DNA of another civilization, the architecture of which can still be read, reverberating with us after 2,000 years. Physical facts provide the pattern, erupting intermittently with texture, scale, form, and rhythm, overlaid and smoldering with two millennia of intangibles—culture and time, history and memory and blood. Despite its obvious decay, the Forum attracts us with both otherworldliness and familiarity, and we bathe in the shock of recognition of who we are and who we have been.
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.