The Colosseum and Foro Romano:

Another busy day here in Rome, spent entirely at the Colosseum and the Foro Romano, all of which is about 10 minutes walk from my accommodation. I began with the Colosseum first, and after the usual lineup of about 30 minutes (which is of course expected-i mean it is the Colosseum and the Italians seem to be thoroughly disorganised when it comes to efficient queue control) i was able to get in. While obviously quite large, it certainly isn?t overwhelmingly massive as i expected the ground base would be smaller than the average football ground i would imagine)-the thing that is quite impressive though is its height of 50 metres, spread across what would have been 3 viewing levels. This would have given people quite a view from the top tier I imagine.
It was not as busy as i expected in there (probably because everyone was still stuck in the queue outside), which meant that once inside you could get to all of the viewing platforms quite comfortably to take your happy snaps. It was frustrating though to see people posing on top of 2000 year old monuments (such as marble column remains), putting their footprints all over it so they could make some ridiculous pose-also people were smoking and dropping their cigarette butts EVERYWHERE which left a quite unsightly view in some of the areas- i was surprised the authorities allowed this to take place. Perhaps the most interesting part of the entire Colosseum visit was not the colosseum itself, but an exhibition of relics from the Flavian dynasty, and in particular Vespasian (who built the Colosseum to give the area back to the people of Rome after Nero had effectively privatised it with a huge artificial lake before his death). This was really informative and placed the Colosseum into context of the wider social and political aspects of the time (and unlike the Vatican Museums, you could actually stop and read it!!)

Directly opposite the Colosseum is the Foro Romano, or the area which was effectively the seat of government and power in Ancient Rome. This area is quite large and the remains are extremely impressive (since they are mostly from around the period 81 AD). The most well known of these monuments is the Arch of Titus, built by Domitian after the Emperor Titus? death in 81 AD. Domitian and Titus were both sons of Vespasian, and while Titus? short reign (only 2 years) was well regarded by the people, Domitian was quite an authoritarian megalomaniac to tried to centralise all power into himself. He also enjoyed self glorification, building an 18x12 metre statue of himself right in front of the Senate in the Forum (which unfortunately no longer exists). Nevertheless, much of what Vespasian, Titus and Domitian built can still at least be seen in fragments in the Foro Romano.

Tomorrow is my last day in Rome before i head to Florence on Tuesday. As i have seen most of the major sights here i will most likely spend it walking around the areas of the city that i haven?t been to as yet, as well as the shopping-another lovely day for my feet coming up!!!