Ruins are of course scattered all over the city like weeds, but there is a big chunk of Rome's center entirely occupied by ancient ruins. We approached the area via Trajan's column, which is a column commemorating some great victory of the emperor. The column is completely covered with carvings explaining his greatness in great chronological detail, but since the story winds around the column for hundreds of feet, it's not a very practical way to tell your story to future generations. Far more accessible is Trajan's market, the Harrod's of ancient Rome. This whole area was built by Trajan as a huge expansion project to alleviate crowding in the adjacent Forum, and was considered the most splendid architectural project ever built. Unfortunately, only his column and the shopping mall survive. The market had hundreds of stalls, mostly selling food from all over the empire, and even had a big fish pond so customers could buy fresh fish, something even Harrod's doesn't have.