First 2 photos: An ancient+modern bridge hybrid on Tiber river. The original ancient Roman bridge has partially collapsed cause earthquake damage, they fixed it with a metal patch so the bridge is still in use.

Last 2 photos: The mouth of Cloaca Maxima, the grand sewer of ancient Rome opening to Tiber river. They built this sewer system 2400 years ago (4th century BC), and it is still in use as flood drainage when there are heavy rains. Roman civilization was such a wonder to behold. They brought their drinking water from far away places with aqueducts and removed the wastewater with sewer systems. Their civil engineering and sanitation was way ahead of their time.

Strabo, a Greek author who lived from about 60 BC to AD 24, admired the ingenuity of the Romans in his Geographica, writing:

The sewers, covered with a vault of tightly fitted stones, have room in some places for hay wagons to drive through them. And the quantity of water brought into the city by aqueducts is so great that rivers, as it were, flow through the city and the sewers; almost every house has water tanks, and service pipes, and plentiful streams of water...In short, the ancient Romans gave little thought to the beauty of Rome because they were occupied with other, greater and more necessary matters.

19th century London wasn't nearly as developed, since they dumped the city sewer into river Thames and drilled wells right next to the heavily contaminated river, drawing their drinking water from those wells and as a result they had massive cholera outbreaks which killed tens of thousands. Romans knew to separate drinking water from waste, British couldn't figure out the problem until way later. Here is the info on cholera epidemics of London: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/100519

This one is good fun to read and packs all the interesting info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink

Temple of Portunus, one of the best preserved Roman pagan temples. The temple was originally built in the 3rd or 4th century BCE but was rebuilt between 120–80 BCE. It overlooked the ancient harbor on Tiber, it is very close to the river and a short distance from Cloaca Maxima which I covered in the previous post. The temple owes its state of preservation to its being converted for use as a church in 872 and rededicated to Santa Maria Egyziaca (Saint Mary of Egypt).
It is open to visitors on limited days, info it on the last photo I attached.
Unfortunately it was closed when we stopped by.

This was a much admired building, people have made drawings of it throughout the ages.
There was another well-preserved pagan temple a few yards from this, I will post its photos next.

Here is the detailed info about this temple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Portunus

cc; PAGAN9JA

This is the second impressively well-preserved pagan Roman temple above Tiber river, Temple of Hercules Victor. It is very close to Temple of Portunus I covered in the previous post.
This temple is Greek peripteral design completely encircled by a colonnade. It is dated to later 2nd century BC.

Like its sister, this was also open on limited dates/times. Now that I have the info, I should visit them both next time I go to Rome.

More info about this temple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Hercules_Victor

Hi revontuli,

I'm pleased with these photos and your knowledge about those places.How come you know so much about these places??

Very impressive photos with accompanied short histories. Are you a historia? Rome is a masterpiece. I hope to visit soon. Enjoy your trip.

Albertone:
Hi revontuli,

I'm pleased with these photos and your knowledge about those places.How come you know so much about these places??

History is my passion, I get interested in something and read everything I can find.
I went to Trajan's market and got so fascinated, I ended up reading the entire collection of Trajan's correspondence with Pliny the Younger while waiting for the flight

I looked up a the buildings, fountains, other landmarks as I went along. I didn't know the Romans personified rivers, I learned that and a lot of other things while I was visiting.

revontuli:


History is my passion, I get interested in something and read everything I can find.
I went to Trajan's market and got so fascinated, I ended up reading the entire collection of Trajan's correspondence with Pliny the Younger while waiting for the flight

I looked up a the buildings, fountains, other landmarks as I went along. I didn't know the Romans personified rivers, I learned that and a lot of other things while I was visiting.

Wow!that's brilliant.I'm impressed.

I am back!

It took forever to sort through hundreds of photos, and life issues got in the way, keeping me away for some time. I won't be able to post as frequently, since I'm working on my book and have little free time until I finish it. But I will be posting the travel photos more or less.

Rome is such a city of wonders. Ancient history is everywhere, even embedded into modern buildings.
Here are some more examples of historical elements of building facades and a spectacular view of a wonderful district where 2000 year old ancient Roman and 18-19th century construction is melded together.

Following the thread

revontuli:
I am back!

It took forever to sort through hundreds of photos, and life issues got in the way, keeping me away for some time. I won't be able to post as frequently, since I'm working on my book and have little free time until I finish it. But I will be posting the travel photos more or less.

Rome is such a city of wonders. Ancient history is everywhere, even embedded into modern buildings.
Here are some more examples of historical elements of building facades and a spectacular view of a wonderful district where 2000 year old ancient Roman and 18-19th century construction is melded together.

Hmm, is that u on ur dp?
U a white gurl?

This is wow .so expository

Good job. Thank you so much for making us see Rome and the other places you've visited in your sojourn and travel adventures...Honestly, seeing you here on Nairaland made me think you are a Nigerian. BWT how come you find your way to a Nigerian online platform like this? Just being curious.

Nice collections OP. Thanks you for virtually working us through the streets of Rome. One day, our legs will touch where our eyes has been to.

edehgeorgeC:
Good job. Thank you so much for making us see Rome and the other places you've visited in your sojourn and travel adventures...Honestly, seeing you here on Nairaland made me think you are a Nigerian. BWT how come you find your way to a Nigerian online platform like this? Just being curious.

I ended up here when I was searching something on Google, can't remember what it was, but I started reading the threads like an addict, it is amazing how you guys keep a forum where people from different ethnicities and religions co-exist without a bloodbath and how it's so unlike the horribly polarized facebook groups and platforms. We can't even have a book club without political fights and drama ruining everything. There is sometimes drama here too but it never gets out of control. You guys have hell of a lot more tolerance and positive attitude than anything I've seen on any western social media and forums.

And the stories. There are so many interesting stories and fascinating cultures.

revontuli:


I ended up here when I was searching something on Google, can't remember what it was, but I started reading the threads like an addict, it is amazing how you guys keep a forum where people from different ethnicities and religions co-exist without a bloodbath and how it's so unlike the horribly polarized facebook groups and platforms. We can't even have a book club without political fights and drama ruining everything. There is sometimes drama here too but it never gets out of control. You guys have hell of a lot more tolerance and positive attitude than anything I've seen on any western social media and forums.

And the stories. There are so many interesting stories and fascinating cultures.

Well said. Thanks for observing well the positive aspects of us as a people. I wish you success in your future adventures. Meanwhile, I would like to be like you when I grow up...LOL #winks#

revontuli:


I ended up here when I was searching something on Google, can't remember what it was, but I started reading the threads like an addict, it is amazing how you guys keep a forum where people from different ethnicities and religions co-exist without a bloodbath and how it's so unlike the horribly polarized facebook groups and platforms. We can't even have a book club without political fights and drama ruining everything. There is sometimes drama here too but it never gets out of control. You guys have hell of a lot more tolerance and positive attitude than anything I've seen on any western social media and forums.

And the stories. There are so many interesting stories and fascinating cultures.

Hmm interesting.

Thanks for the compliments and your e-persona is very likeable.

Lovely thread.

Did you learn anything about their culture? Male-female interactions?

Movies depict Romans as wanton people however, when I read some sites about the lives of their ancient women, it seems quite the opposite as they were portrayed as very restricted and quality of life heavily dependent on their fathers'/husbands' blessings and goodwill.

bukatyne:


Hmm interesting.

Thanks for the compliments and your e-persona is very likeable.

Lovely thread.

Did you learn anything about their culture? Male-female interactions?

Movies depict Romans as wanton people however, when I read some sites about the lives of their ancient women, it seems quite the opposite as they were portrayed as very restricted and quality of life heavily dependent on their fathers'/husbands' blessings and goodwill.

Thank you for the kind words!
Rome was a multicultural, vast empire with many different facets. The wanton behavior was common in the upper class and nobility, as I can deduce from the historical records. Men and women keeping multiple lovers was not uncommon -great historian Tacitus criticizes them for that decadent way of life and compares them to the Germanics, who were looked down on as unwashed barbarians, he says Germanics have better morals than the Romans since they are monogamous.

Women of upper classes, such as senators' wives kept popular gladiators as lovers while their husbands were busy with mistresses. They used herbs for birth control, as a result many such couples never produced children. At some point emperor Augustus noticed the low birthrate of the upper class and too many people dying with no heir, worried about that, he issued an edict to reward them for producing children (it's been a long while since I've read that stuff, can't recall the details.)

Looking at the epigraphical evidence, it is obvious there were women who had land, property and shops. I've seen the shop sign of a merchant woman who was an exporter of olive oil and wine. There were also female gladiators, called gladiatrix, although popular culture, movies, tv shows covered only the male gladiators. General public has no idea whatsoever gladiatrixes existed, they were mostly rich and noble women, fighting to the first blood (never to death since they were relatives of the patricial class, senators, generals etc.) here are reliefs depicting women fighting in the arena.

I love taking photos and looking at them on my laptop, but absolutely hate sorting and resizing them.
I use a Unix shell script to do batch resizing. I realized the images were a bit too low res, so I changed the script to resize them to 1280x1024 and better quality.
Don't worry they are still under 200 kb and shouldn't eat up the data quotas.

Here is one of the most important historical figures of Rome, Julius Caesar who is responsible for ending the republican era and beginning the empire. His name is immortal as the month of July is named after him.

#1: Bronze statue of Caesar in front of his forum, in the forums of the caesars district. There are several forums of the emperors here, the first one was built by Julius Caesar.

#2,#3, #4: This is a place called Largo di Torre Argentina, the site of the temple where Julius Caesar was assassinated. There is a cat sanctuary next to it, stray cats of Rome started congregating at the ruin site, so the good people opened a shelter and took all the cats in, vaccinated and provided vet care to them. One of the kitties was named Brutus.

I am not very well versed on Julius Caesar other than the superficial common knowledge, I downloaded his Gaul war chronicles so I can remedy my ignorance soon.


Caesar is reputed to be a great writer, his war diaries are counted among the greatest classics of Latin.

This is the ancient grave where Julius Caesar is buried. It is located in Forum Romanum, Caesar fans visit there and put flowers on the grave tumulus on the ideas of March (March 15th), the anniversary of his assassination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March


Some barbarian tourists threw thrash, as you can see, for the site is visited by millions every year and not all of them are so civilized.
Quite a few others threw coins which glitter like a dragon's hoard. There are coins from many different countries.

Beware the ides of March!
Rest in peace Julius Caesar.

Here comes Marcus Ulpius Nervae Traianus, otherwise known as Trajan, the greatest emperor of Rome in my opinion, the best of the "five good emperors" along with Marcus Aurelius.

(The angle of the sun was not right, so the photos of those statues aren't so great, but I took better shots of the marble statues inside museums.)


Trajan stands in front of Trajan's forum and Trajan's market, which is adjacent to the forums of Caesar, Augustus and Nerva.
Now there is a tale to tell: I could literally tell you volumes about Trajan's reign. Comparing his magnificent rule and deeds to our times will make you weep, I sure as hell wept after reading a good bit of material about him.

Some of the majestic public buildings and infrastructure he had built still stand today, and the ruins of those that didn't speak of past magnificence and beauty. You can clearly see how splendid the forum used to be, even in ruins it is quite a sight.
I spent an entire day there, and yearning to go back to see better -and take better photos.

I gotta sleep now, but I will be back to post the photos I took at this amazing place and tell you all I know about Trajanic era and the epitome of Roman engineering that is Trajan's legacy.

The inscription says optimo principi - Emperor Trajan was the first ruler to receive the title Optimus Princeps (the best ruler) from the senate, for his incredibly good deeds.
Trajan is depicted holding a scroll on most statues, in fact I haven't seen one without a scroll other than the nude ones.

saintkeppy:
.

Please mention me when you're done postin' the pictures, to enable me learn few things about Italian's Ancient Architectural history.

Sometimes I travel by Readin'&Reseachin' most especially when it comes with pictures, Lol &over time this has help me intellectually, enlighten me as well as being well informed.

New photos and info incoming!

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Trajan was one of the five good Roman emperors, and the greatest of them, along with the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Trajan was born in Hispania, outside of Italy, and was the first emperor that was from a foreign territory. He distinguished himself as a highly skilled commander in the Germania frontiers, and was on duty there when he was declared caesar.

His predecessor, Nerva (also one of the five good emperors) was very old and sickly, even though he had living relatives, he decided to adopt Trajan as heir, for he valued ability and merit above bloodlines and place of birth. Nerva passed away shortly after declaring Trajan as his heir.
Trajan was 42 when he became the emperor of Rome on 98 AD. He stayed in the Rhine frontier for a whole year afterwards, putting the things in order and arranging the troops before returning Rome.

When he finally came to Rome, he didn't enter with great pomp on a majestic stallion, but on foot, in a simple and humble manner, embracing the common people. That act won the hearts of the citizens and created a positive image that would last for millenia. He became famous for his humble character during his reign, he didn't want to be seen as a supreme overlord, but a father figure dedicated to serve the citizens of Rome.

He also gained the trust of Senate by promising not to execute or dishonor any senators. That was a brilliant strategy, since it always brought great trouble to be at odds with the Senate or make them feel threatened.

Not long after coming to power, Dacian king Decebalus started trouble at the Roman borders, raiding the border settlements of Rome and stirring all kinds of mischief. He had cheated Domitian, Nerva's predecessor, taking protection money from him with false promises, to protect the broders of Rome, but he hired engineers, fortified hills and built war machinery with that money. Trajan received the reports of trouble and decided to march on Dacia in 101 AD. Roman army was slowed by the ferocious river Danube, which was quite hard to cross. They tied ships together to build a makeshift bridge, which is not the best way of crossing such a great river. Imagine moving horses through that! (We know this, cause they left solid records, in the form of awesome relief carvings. I will show them in good time!)

So the Romans, even though they gave Decebalus a good beating, suffered great losses themselves. Many were wounded, and Trajan withdrew to avoid more casualties. The wounded were so many, the field doctors ran out of bandages in short order. At this point, according to the great Roman historian Cassius Dio, Trajan cut up his own clothes to make bandages.

He set off to go back, but Decebalus attacked the rearguard of the Romans, which was a dumb move, Trajan turned around and beat the living crap out of the Dacian army. He terrified Decebalus into submission in the end, and the Dacian king threw down his arms and kneeled before the emperor, promising to take down all the fortifications and war machines, deliver the engineers to Rome, be a friend to the friends and an enemy to the enemies of Rome, all that jazz. Of course he was not sincere and doing this to buy time, just like he did to Domitian.

Trajan returned Rome as a victor on in 102 AD and the Senate gave him the title Dacicus, which means the conqueror of Dacia. He already had the Germanicus title for fighting at the frontiers of Germania. He was the first Roman emperor to gain the title Dacicus. (Many others had Germanicus, they cheapened the title so much, at some point even the emperors who went to Germania for sightseeing called themselves Germanicus. LMAO )

Here are two of the reliefs depicting a war scene from the Dacian wars I took at the Trajan's forum & market museum.
Dacians are the bearded guys wearing leggings and capes. Romans are clean shaven and wear the classic Roman armor. Unwashed barbarians versus the civilized and developed.

Trajan remitted all tax debts when he returned to Rome, and ordered gladiator fights, pantomine shows, concerts to entertain the people for a few weeks in celebration of the first victory he won. Circus Maximus -the greatest arena of Rome- was in horrible shape, falling to ruin, Trajan restored it good as new, which won the hearts of the people once again.He restored great many things that were not maintained properly, for his predecessor Nerva ruled only a little over a year, and Nerva's predecessor Domitianus the tyrant confiscated people's properties and did many cruel acts instead of maintaining the public facilities.



I have so many photos (well over 1500!) I will share the best ones as I go, along with the stories as I am able.

Decebalus, the Dacian king started stirring trouble again, setting the neighboring barbarian tribes agianst the Roman settlements around Danube frontier. He built more fortifications and siege engines, armed his people and formed alliances with the other tribes, including the Sarmatians.
Reports of this reached Trajan and he gathered the legions to march on Dacia once more in 105 AD.

Romans clashed with the Dacians again and suffered casualties. Decebalus knew he would never be able to beat Trajan in open battle, so he resorted to dirty plots and sent two assassins to murder the emperor. Trajan, being humble and down-to-earth in absurd levels, never hid behind guards and made himself available to anyone who wanted an audience. He was also famous for eating the same fare and dirnking the same watered down wine as his soldiers, sleeping rough in the army camp and not having any luxuries like an emperor would.
But the plot unravelled, the assassins drew suspicions and got caught.

Decebalus tricked one of Trajan's generals into a meeting to relay peace terms to the emperor, but he captured the man and took him prisoner. This general was called Longinus, and he was helped by a freedman who was also a captive of Decebalus. The freedman gave him poison, and Longinus gave him a message to take to the emperor in secret. Once the freedman escaped, he drank the poison and died.

When Decebalus got the news, he sent a missive to Trajan demanding the freedman back, in exchange of the body of Longinus. Trajan neither sent him back nor surrendered the freedman, deeming his safety more important for the dignity of the empire than the burial of Longinus.
That was one hell of a reply, a slap in the face.


This time Trajan got hell-bent on winning a decisive victory and putting an end to the Dacia trouble once and for all.

He had his genius master architect Apollodorus of Damascus build a magnificent arched bridge on the furious, savage waters of Danube.
This was the greatest bridge the Roman empire had ever built in history, and its like would not be seen again for centuries.
This is what ancient Roman chronicler Cassius Dio has to say about this wonder of engineering:

"Brilliant, indeed, as are his other achievements, yet this surpasses them. For it has twenty piers of squared stone one hundred and fifty feet in height above the foundations and sixty in width, and these, standing at a distance of one hundred and seventy feet from one another, are connected by arches. How, then, could one fail to be astonished at the expenditure made upon them, or at the way in which each of them was placed in a river so deep, in water so full of eddies, and on a bottom so muddy?

Yet the very fact that river in its descent is here contracted from a great flood to such a narrow channel, after which it again expands into a greater flood, makes it all the more violent and deep, and this feature must be considered in estimating the difficulty of constructing the bridge. This, too, then, is one of the achievements that show the magnitude of Trajan's designs, though the bridge is of no use to us; for merely the piers are standing, affording no means of crossing, as if they had been erected for the sole purpose of demonstrating that there is nothing which human ingenuity cannot accomplish."

The bridge was dismantled by Trajan's successor after his death and only few ruins remain today. We know what the bridge looked like cause they carved it on the reliefs and minted coins to commemorate it. Coins in good shape showing Trajan's bridge where you can see the details go for a king's ransom in the ancient coin market.

Now I am going to post a picture that is not one of my own. Here is the relief showing the legendary bridge, emperor pouring libation on the altar and the architect of the bridge, Apollodorus of Damascus, bearded shirtless guy standing on the left of the altar. I am particularly fond of the scenes showing pagan ceremonies.

Note the depiction of the furious waters of Danube.

I will continue the story below and add my own shots. I will continue with other views, including breathtaking bird's eye views which I have endured so much pain to get to, after I finish the tale of Trajan.


cc; PAGAN9JA

This relief above is from Trajan's column, one of the most majestic works of art made by the hands of men.
I will get to that soon. I promise the upcoming photos of mine will make much better sense with the history tales accompanying them.

Trajan was able to get his legions to cross the river in a rapid manner, thanks to the awesome bridge, he ripped through Dacia like a ferocious storm, taking Decebalus's fortresses one by one. In the menawhile, holed up in his great castle at Sarmizegetusa regia, the capital of Dacia, Decebalus realized he was in serious trouble and fled. But he got cornered by the Roman cavalry, and when he saw he couldn't flee anymore he took his own life rather than being taken prisoner by the Romans. A Roman cavalryman called Tiberius Claudius Maximus beheaded Decebalus and brought his head to the emperor.

We know his name, cause Romans wrote EVERYHTING down. This man got rich with his cut of the war booty and built a marble grave for himself while still alive, and wrote his deeds on it. All what happened during the wars is also carved in relief in great detail, I'll come to all that later.

Trajan levelled Dacia, they didn't have much in the way of urban settlements since they were not a civilized and developed nation. They didn't even have a written language or any skills of carving statues. Trajan built up new cities there and moved the capital 40 km away, which was called Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (here is the Wikipedia link of it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpia_Traiana_Sarmizegetusa)
He had lots of public facilities built there, ruins of the city are open to visits in modern day Romania.

The emperor settled some of the war veterans there, to establish the colony and Romanize Dacia, rebuilt the country with Roman infrastructure, amphitheaters, roads, temples, forums. This is why Romania, an Eastern European country surrounded by Slavic nations, speaks a Latin language.

Now we are coming to the good part -and photos taken by yours truly.

But before that I gotta share one bit of little known historical info: There was an African division fighting in the Dacian wars. Trajan's favorite general was a North African called Lusius Quietus, who rose to such rank by military genius merits, and he brought his African soldiers all the way to the Balkans to fight in the Roman army. He accompanied the emperor conquering a good part of the world later on.

Here is the relief depicting the Numidian cavalrymen with dreadlocks.
Roman empire was multicultural, they didn't have the concepts of racism and discrimination the world has today, anyone could rise anywhere so long they had the merit.

Trajan assigned Quietus as the governor of Judea, where the general put down Jewish revolts and got a mention in Talmudic sources for that.

Here is the Wikipedia page on Lusius Quietus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusius_Quietus


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Once the Dacia conquest was complete, after starting a whole building campaign, Trajan returned to Rome in 106 AD.
Dacia was rich in gold mines, so this conquest meant great wealth flowing in. Trajan held a grand victory parade on the avenues of Rome, parading the carriages full of war booty, arms and armor captured from the enemy, prisoners of war in chains, treasures of Decebalus and all that good stuff.

There was so much, so much loot to be had. The emperor, being of incredibly virtuous character, spent all that gold not to build palaces and villas for himself, but magnificent public buildings for the citizens. He had some of the greatest works of engineering and architecture ever in the history of Rome built by Apollodorus of Damascus (another foreigner from a remote province who became the imperial chief architect by skills and genius.)

Trajan built a majestic forum, complete with a grand building which housed administrative offices, a hall for public meetings, a basilica, the ever so magnificent Trajan's Column flanked by two beautiful libraries, one housing scrolls in Latin and the other in Greek. The forum was damaged by earthquakes and the emperors centuries later took away reliefs and other decorations to adorn their own victory arches.

This forum was the greatest of all time, and influenced the later emperors centuries after. Even the forum Tauri in Constantinople -built 4 centuries after Trajan- is modelled after Trajan's forum.

The forum is in ruins today, but you can see how grand it used to be once. Even in ruins it speaks of glory.
Here are some photos I took when I visited Trajan's forum.

The last photo is a scale model of the grand forum building in the museum. Its entrance is depicted on the coins minted to celebrate the forum's opening. There was a colossal statue of Trajan riding a stallion in the middle of the Forum, which was also printed on the coins and mentioned in chronicles.

Here is the forum view from the terraces of Trajan's market.

The road dividing the forums of the caesars is Mussolini's doing.

Trajan's Forum became a busy center of social activities, culture, arts and justice. Many trials were conducted here, quite often by the emperor himself in times of peace.

Here is a computer simulation showing what it used to look like.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUqYx70ZWcM

The next architecture and engineering marvel is Trajan's market. This is where I took the bird's eye photos from.

That was an experimental novelty thing for that era. They ran into interesting challenges and solved them in ingenius ways.
They carved up a hill to build it, the whole thing leans on the hill so it stands completely intact today. It is built as a great hemicircle, looks quite impressive. My camera can't do the proper justice.

It is said to be the first shopping mall ever in human history. There are dozens of rooms connected to each other and the corridors. Marvelous arched gateways and windows overlooking the imperial fora.

Entrance floor has a great hall, where they hosted concerts and public celebrations, and merchants sold their wares in the upper rooms. It now serves as a museum and I was lucky enough to see the special 2018 exhibit. They made a whole Trajan exhibit for remembrance of the 1900th anniversary of his death, borrowed pieces from other museums in Italy and other European countries. There was also a cool multimedia exhibit.

Here are photos of various views of the market building from the outside.

Here is a short documentary video showing the history and the engineering wonders of the market.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKDArdktteY