Rachel's Adventures in Rome!: Antiquity in Excess

Today, I headed back downtown to visit the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. It was a beautiful sunny day which made the sites explode with color. Trees were blooming and ducks sunned themselves in the Forum. What amazed me most about these sites was how extensive they are, and also how well built. Many of the structures and statues remain largely intact thousands of years later, including an intricately carved triumphal arch. Yet, while the sites seem large as ancient sites, when you realize that the forum served as the center of Roman public life, the place where speeches, processions, trials, gladiatorial matches, and business, were held, you realize just how condensed the city once was. Rome has its origins on Palatine Hill as it is the location of the cave where brothers, Romulus and Remus, were found. Later, the brothers each decide to build a new city on the either side of the Tiber river, but after a quarrel, Romulus kills Remus and founds his city, Rome. I think my favorite part of the sites from today was the stadium on Palatine Hill. It was easy for me to look down and imagine the stadium being used for sporting events, to put myself back in time.