We continued our river walk south of the Forum, in one of the oldest parts of Rome. This area is where the bulk of Romans worked and lived during the empire, and it's littered with dozens of ruins from that period. It gets very few tourists because the ruins are spread out and surrounded by the modern-era city, so it's a bit of a chore to see them. And for the most part they're rather small so there's no particular reason to try to see all of them. But it's one of the most interesting parts of Rome to wander around, because around every corner there's an unexpected surprise waiting. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the largest ruin in the area, the Theatre of Marcello. The theatre was started by Julius Caesar, and was to be the preeminent venue for live theatre performances. Unfortunately, the Roman public couldn't care less about bloodless drama, so the shows quickly degenerated into the usual bloody carnage to compete with the Colosseum. During the Middle Ages the theatre was converted into a fortress and fought over by the Colonna and Orsini families. More surprisingly, the ruin is now an apartment building, with some very fashionable apartments.

After Rome burned in AD 64, Nero decided to use the tragedy as a real estate opportunity, building his new palace over one quarter of the charred remains of the city. As per the previous post, he built a lake where the Colosseum now stands, and a huge statue of himself. The thousands of room were covered in gold and jewels, perfume was sprayed from the ceiling, the dining room rotated for no particular reason, etc. etc. You get the general idea. Despite the over the top grandeur, the palace was used mostly for orgies and torture. When Nero killed himself only two years after the palace was complete, subsequent emperors abandoned the place to put distance between themselves and the hated Nero. The city grew over the palace and the whole thing was forgotten until a wing was accidentally uncovered during construction in the fifteenth century. This discovery caused quite a stir among Renaissance artists, as it was crammed full of classical paintings and sculpture more advanced than anything being done at the time.



Unfortunately all the good stuff has long been stripped from the place, so what you're left with is a large number of huge, empty brick rooms. To make matters worse, only a few people are let in each day, and you've got to take a long, boring guided tour of the bricks. Historically important, but quite a bore.

The Colosseum of course needs no introduction. It's the template for all the football and soccer stadia around the world, and its incredibly violent games and bloodthirsty mob of spectators are a stock feature of every film about ancient Rome. As a ruin, it makes an incomparable impression. Even two thousand years later the elegance and sheer size of the thing, plus the fact that it largely survived the ravages of time and the rapacious Romans of later years, is awe inspiring. As you tour the holding pens for the animals, slaves and gladiators who would all fight and die here for the crowd's amusement, tanks to catch the runoff of all the blood and the plumbing system that allowed the place to be flooded for naval battles, it's very easy to picture what it must have been like when it was in use and people and animals slaughtered more or less continually just for fun.

The Colosseum, Rome's most famous landmark, is separated from the Forum by the Arch of Constantine. There are lots of these triumphal arches in Rome, as each emperor liked to commemorate some trumped-up victory by building one. This one tends to be more famous than others because of its ground zero location. Constantine became emperor in the twilight years of Rome, though, so the people couldn't be sufficiently bothered to build a proper arch. Instead they covered the arch with stuff stolen from other arches, and called it a day.

Emperor Nero, of the fiddling while Rome burned fame, used the famous fire as a great opportunity to build the biggest palace the world had ever seen. While his new digs covered much of Rome, he also built a huge lake, and an even huger bronze sculpture of himself near the lake. Clocking in at the equivalent of a ten story building, it was called the Colossus, which as you probably guessed gave the world the words collosal and Colosseum. After his death, the lake was drained and given to the city as a new park, the centerpiece of which was the state of the art Colosseum. The bronze Colossus stayed, with a new head being put on with the coronation of each new emperor. Amazingly, this giant statue somehow disappeared, with no record of anyone ever taking it, melting it down or moving it.