An open-air museum where emperors, popes and everyday Romans piled three thousand years of stone, golden layer on golden layer.
Legend says the twin brothers Romulus and Remus founded Rome in 753 BC on seven hills beside the Tiber. From a village it grew into an empire ruling from Britain to the desert, then became the seat of the popes, who rebuilt it in marble and Baroque splendour. Sacked, flooded and half-abandoned, the city always rose again — earning the name the Eternal City. Today about 2.7 million Romans (2024) live among the ruins, and the Colosseum, Forum, Pantheon and Trevi Fountain still stand where that whole story unfolded.
Step into the Colosseum and imagine the roar. For four centuries, up to 50,000 Romans packed its stone tiers to watch gladiators fight, wild animals hunt, and staged battles play out on the sand — 'arena' means exactly that, the sand spread to soak up the blood. Emperors paid for the shows to keep the crowd fed and content; a poet of the day sneered that the people wanted only two things, 'bread and circuses.' Great awnings on ropes shaded the seats, and beneath the floor a maze of tunnels lifted beasts and scenery up on hidden platforms.
A short walk away lies the Roman Forum, once the beating heart of the empire — its markets, law courts and temples now a field of broken columns. Nearby, on the Ides of March in 44 BC, senators stabbed Julius Caesar, the general turned dictator whose murder helped end the Roman Republic. For centuries after Rome's fall the Forum lay buried under cow pasture, its marble burned for lime; the ground you walk today sits several metres above the ancient streets, still sealed below. When the popes made Rome their capital, they quarried these ruins for stone and raised churches and fountains in their place.
Two survivors show the range. The Pantheon, a temple to all the gods rebuilt around 125 AD by the emperor Hadrian, still carries the widest unreinforced concrete dome on earth, lit by a single round opening — the oculus — left open to the sky and the rain. And the Trevi Fountain, a theatrical wall of gods and sea-horses finished in 1762, keeps a gentler ritual alive: toss a coin over your shoulder and, the legend promises, you will return to Rome. Some 3,000 euros land in its basin every day, scooped up each night for charity.
The making of Rome
The Colosseum
The largest amphitheatre of the ancient world — up to 50,000 spectators once roared here at gladiators and staged hunts.
The Roman Forum
A field of columns and arches that was once the political and commercial heart of the whole empire.
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The Pantheon
A temple to every god, crowned by the widest unreinforced concrete dome on earth and open to the sky at its centre.
The Trevi Fountain
Rome's grandest Baroque fountain — toss a coin over your shoulder and, they say, you'll come back.
Julius Caesar
The general and dictator whose murder in 44 BC ended the Republic and gave his name to 'Caesar' and 'Kaiser'.
Roman food & gelato
Cacio e pepe, carbonara, crisp pizza al taglio and a cone of gelato — the city's four essential tastes.
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