By Dominique Falla

Today was spent in the very pleasant company of celebrity archaeologist, Professor, and Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Darius Arya. Darius is the executive director of the American Institute for Roman Culture and quite clearly has a wealth of knowledge about the life and times of ancient Rome.

We met Darius at Trajan’s Column, which is an impressive carved column which commemorates Roman emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars. Darius took great pains to tell us that the architect was Apollodorus of Damascus, who was clearly respected as a great engineer and built many buildings, columns, and bridges in Europe.

Over the past week, we have heard and seen many references to the typographic inscription on the base of the column, because it is recognized as one of the best examples of Roman capital letters, but unfortunately we couldn’t access the site today because of seismic testing.

After spending some time at Trajan’s Column, we moved on to the Forum, which is a rectangular plaza surrounded by the ruins of several ancient government buildings. The Forum is located in the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline hills, and we were fascinated to learn that the hills around Rome were actually caused by deposits of volcanic ash and that prior to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, Rome was actually a flat river plateau.

One ruined building, in the Forum, displayed the latin phrase, Senates Populusque Romanus (The Senate and People of Rome) which we now see all a round the city abbreviated to SPQR.

We finished our tour at The Farnese Gardens, which were created in 1550 on the northern portion of Palatine Hill, by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and were treated to a beautiful flower display amongst the ruins. A very tiring but enlightening day.