Originally posted on July 18, 2011 by Canicus
For the first time since I have been here, there were some clouds in the Roman sky. Until today it was totally cloudless, blue, sunny skies. Today a few white fluffy clouds appeared on the horizon which increased until mid-day. Not overcast or threatening rain.
On today’s explorations, I first visited Trajan’s Forum. The Roman Forum grew over the centuries. But beginning with Julius Caesar, various leaders expanded it considerably. Trajan’s Forum is at the opposite end of the Forum from the Coliseum and somewhat of to the north.
One famous feature of the Forum is Trajan’s tower which graphically details the exploits of Trajan spiraling up the entire length of the tower. You can’t really get close enough today to see much detail at the lower level the upper level would be impossible without some sort of “cherry picker.” It also appears that, after nearly 2,000 years, much of the carving has faded.
Another interesting feature of Trajan’s forum arises from the fact that in order to build it, the architect carved out a huge chunk of a hill to make a flat space for the forum proper. To prevent the remaining hill from collapsing he erected a curved building which acts as a horizontal arch against the hill. The building proper is a couple of stories high and contains rooms which served as shops a veritable Roman shopping mall. It is quite well preserved unlike most of the ruins of Rome, although I was not able to get close to it as they are doing some restoration and archeological work in the Forum at this time.
The next quest was to find the Pantheon. The building is quite well hidden, although obviously hundreds of us tourists found it. At least from the direction I approached it, you cannot see it until you are immediately on it and I obviously approached from the rear. It was originally built by Marcus Agrippa Caesar Augustus’ brilliant general and architect as the inscription over the entrance states. I was not able to get far enough away to see the dome from the outside, nor the rather curious fact that the portico roof does not actually match up with the building itself. The building was restored sometime after Agrippa built it and later converted into a church. Inside was quite crowded. It is impossible to get a decent picture of the dome because of the contrast in light between the dome and the oculus an opening at the very top which admits the sun. The dome is constructed of concrete. To lighten the dome the concrete was mixed with hollow amphorae. Also the “paneled” patterns of the dome are not purely decorative, but lighten the weight of the dome.
Finally I visited the tomb of Caesar Augustus. It is not as large as Hadrian’s tomb (aka Castel d’Angelo) but somewhat along the same line. There is major restoration and archeological work going on at the site, so the views are generally through heavy fences and barricades.
Near Augustus’ tomb is the Altar of the Peace of Augustus. The structure is enclosed in a building which, unfortunately, is closed on Mondays so I guess I’ll try again.