Tim Leath ’18 — You would think that traveling a city for eight hours a day that you would run out of things to explore. That is the complete opposite case here in Rome. It seems as though every building you explore leads you to another. We spent a lot of time looking at the surviving pieces in the Roman Forum, which at the time was a great focal point for the city. In the forum, we could see the types of buildings that would have been put up at that time. Types of structures such as temples dedicated to gods, but also structures like the Basilica Nova that would be placed by the Emperor (Constantine at the time) to exemplify his power. These buildings were not normal sized, this one in particular was over 100 of feet tall, approximately 350 feet wide, and approximately 150 feet wide. By no means were these small buildings, but built on a grand scale to show how much power the emperor would have held. When I saw the forum, I was blown away with the amount of building that has survived for over a thousand years. It is also worth mentioning the detailed artwork that would be put onto the buildings that gives them character and bring them to life. The Roman Forum is a site that offers a look at the past directly and is a great opportunity that I am glad I had.
