Forum Ruins

The Roman Forum was the heart of the ancient city — the meeting point of religion, commerce, justice, and politics for nearly a thousand years. What remains today is a long, low excavation between the Capitoline and Palatine hills, with the ruins of the Temple of Saturn, the Curia, the Basilica of Maxentius, and the Arch of Septimius Severus still legible above ground. The pavement of the Via Sacra still runs through it, the same stones the Caesars walked on.

Photographed in October 2016 during my first time in Italy. The Forum is the kind of place where you walk slowly and stop often; every column is a different century.