With Phocas, I wasn’t implying that he was a foreign ruler, but rather that one little column (and that nicked from somebody else’s memorial) is pretty sad compared with the various columns and arches dedicated to earlier rulers.

I wondered that about the sphinx lady too — for one thing, it’s not very weathered for something carved so finely and (presumably) exposed to the elements for a lot of centuries. Maybe whoever put there thought it’s something like the Romans might have done?

Arch of Septimius Severus: The side passages were approached by steps. The central passage always had a road passing through it; it’s the Via Sacra that was used for Roman triumphs.

Column of Phocas: It often gets overlooked that Rome was part of the Byzantine (or as they thought of it ‘Roman’) empire at the time of Phocas, so it’s not quite like a foreign ruler making a donation.

Curia Julia: The Curia’s not quite on the same place as the Republican Senate House, but it’s probably adjacent to it. The building was destroyed in a fire of AD 283, and rebuilt by Diocletian after coming to power in AD 284. Maximian did not become emperor until AD 283.

The relief is the so-called Plutei of Trajan (though it may date to Hadrian’s reign). It was mounted in the Forum, opposite the Curia.though that wasn’t the original position.

Temple of Antoninus and Faustina: Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian, and deified him, not the other way round. The rededication of the temple of Faustina happened under Marcus Aurelius.

The next photo shows the Horrea Vespasiani, built as a fish-market. The House of the Vestals is off to the right (it can just be seen in the photo, in front of the retaining walls of the Domus Tiberiana).

Arch of Constantine: Suggestions that the Arch began life as a monument of Hadrian or Domitian are generally not accepted now. However, the Arch does using material almost all reused from other monuments, and most of the architectural (as opposed to decorative) elements come from another unidentified triumphal arch. The decorative programme mostly (though not entirely) comes from imperial monuments of Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. The Hadrianic panels (some of the roundels) may have come from a monument to Hadrian’s lover Antinoos.

The female figure from the Palatine is clearly a sphinx, but I don’t know anything more about her. (She looks post-Renaissance rather than Roman to me, but I couldn’t swear to that.)

Apollo Citaredo is Apollo the cithara player, if that was a problem.

And that is a fountain in the next photo.

The ‘Hippodrome’ is generally (and rightly, I’d say) accepted to be a sunken garden.

Vigna di Valle does look like a great museum, especially all the seaplanes and flying boats. The WWI Caproni bombers would be cool too.

And I really enjoyed the very points made above about Rome, the way you can walk around a corner and encounter some extraordinary ancient thing. I hope to return in 2010.

I have to smile remembering the difficulty we had with the Italian rolled R. Try ordering a Merlot. And my better half’s hilarious encounter in a Trattoria trying to avoid meat (being a vegetarian). We thought carne was pronounced “car-nay” but it isn’t. That’s cane. The whole place was in fits wondering why we were trying to avoid eating dog! Carne is “carrrrh-nay”.

next time don’t miss it ;)

To be honest, I didn’t find the Colosseum or the Roman Forum itself to be quite as powerful as I’d expected — perhaps precisely because I did expect it? The bits which interested me most were probably the ones I hadn’t heard of before, such as Trajan’s Market. And the Capitoline Museums, but that’s pre-empting the next post …

What struck me about the Forum was how casually it was ‘worn’ by the modern city, with lots of weeds and cats and remarkably little in the way of showy information or guided tours etc. Quite refreshing from the ‘heritagised’ UK. I found the Colusseum really disquieting - I’ve been to a fair few battlefields etc. but found confronting the site of the games emotionally troubling in a unique way. Must be getting soft in my old age, or two thousand years of Christian propaganda is getting to me…