This is one of my favorite photos from the entire trip.
We walked 10 km's, climbing the Palatine hill and after spending most of the day in blazing heat outside, my feet gave in with excruciating pain and I had to sit down in a ledge within the magnificent market. Then I noticed the window right across held the best composition: Trajan's Column and the imperial fora, framed by the window of Trajan's market.

Good chunk of history right there composed itself inside the frame.

Trajan's column is one hell of a wonder to behold.

The other wonder built after the Dacia wars is Trajan's Column, which stands in the forum today. The column is about 35 meters (115 feet) tall including its pedestal. It is made of Luna marble, on which hundreds of scenes depicting the Dacia wars is carved. The reliefs are in amazing detail, showing everything from the preparations to the violent battle scenes, sacrifice rituals, enemy acts.

This was the first of its kind, copied by Marcus Aurelius and some others afterwards.
There's a spiral staircase inside the column, and a viewing terrace on top. There used to be a statue of Trajan on top of it, but the popes removed this statue and replaced it with a statue of St. Peter. They did the same to Marcus Aurelius Column and replaced the emperor's statue on top of it with that of St. Paul.

More info on Trajan's column: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan%27s_Column
A specialized site with detailed study of the scenes, lots of photos of them and scholarly info: http://www.trajans-column.org/

Image #1: Trajan's column view with zoom lens. It was fenced off and not possible to get close.
Image #2: C closeup detail of the plaster cast of a scene from the column.
Image #3: Column with the viewing terrace and St. Peter statue from the ground.

revontuli:
The other wonder built after the Dacia wars is Trajan's Column, which stands in the forum today. The column is about 35 meters (115 feet) tall including its pedestal. It is made of Luna marble, on which hundreds of scenes depicting the Dacia wars is carved. The reliefs are in amazing detail, showing everything from the preparations to the violent battle scenes, sacrifice rituals, enemy acts.

This was the first of its kind, copied by Marcus Aurelius and some others afterwards.
There's a spiral staircase inside the column, and a viewing terrace on top. There used to be a statue of Trajan on top of it, but the popes removed this statue and replaced it with a statue of St. Peter. They did the same to Marcus Aurelius Column and replaced the emperor's statue on top of it with that of St. Paul.

More info on Trajan's column: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan%27s_Column
A specialized site with detailed study of the scenes, lots of photos of them and scholarly info: http://www.trajans-column.org/

Image #1: Trajan's column view with zoom lens. It was fenced off and not possible to get close.
Image #2: C closeup detail of the plaster cast of a scene from the column.
Image #3: Column with the viewing terrace and St. Peter statue from the ground.

Hey you,come close...

Revontuli Nice collection of pictures I must say!While in Rome,how many days/weeks/months did it take you to capture all these pictures??

...I replied your mail.

Albertone:
Revontuli Nice collection of pictures I must say!While in Rome,how many days/weeks/months did it take you to capture all these pictures??

...I replied your mail.

This was just 6 days, not enough! Not nearly enough. I walked 10-12 km every single day I was there. There are still loads of photos, more will be coming!

revontuli:


This was just 6 days, not enough! Not nearly enough. I walked 10-12 km every single day I was there. There are still loads of photos, more will be coming!

Keep the ball rolling!..

Gorgeous photos! I wish I could travel to rome https://rove.me/to/rome and be savvy enough to walk around the city without a guide there, haha.. They say there are a lot of tourists there but your photos show peaceful surroundings. How do you do that?

jambei1986:
Gorgeous photos! I wish I could travel to rome https://rove.me/to/rome and be savvy enough to walk around the city without a guide there, haha.. They say there are a lot of tourists there but your photos show peaceful surroundings. How do you do that?

There were millions of tourists, I have some videos showing the horrible crowd. I'll put them on YouTube.
I was patient and waited for the groups to go away in some of the places. We let the big groups pass. I waited quite a bit for some of the shots. We went to San Pietro at 7 am, there was no one then. 3 hours later huge mile long queues all over the place.

Some were at the hottest part of afternoon, I suffered in that heat but it was worth it!


I'll go again and do the virtual reality tours where you look at the ruins, then don the vr glasses and see what they looked like in the days of glory.

revontuli:
Photo 1: Pantheon -This style of dome was used in ancient Roman buildings.
Photo 2: One of the many obelisks of Rome. This is one of the Egyptian obelisks, see the hieroglyphs.
Photo 3: Ancient and modern architecture
Photo 4: Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano

This was one of the very few photos I was able to take, since photos and videos were totally forbidden inside.
This church is peculiar for being home to 3 levels of civilization.

The present basilica you see here was built right before year 1100, at the heyday of middle ages. There is a 4th century church under this, with some surviving frescoes depicting the martyrdom of St. Cyril. There is a huge amount of moisture they are drying out with machines, to preserve and restore the frescoes. You can hear the sound of water, which is a natural spring running under this.
One level below this is the 2000 year old pagan temple of Mithras, with its altar intact. This was the first pagan temple I have ever seen that was not in ruins. It was originally a villa that got converted to the Mithraic temple. The substructures, tunnels and rooms are majestic. Floors are the original fishbone design, which is still used in modern Rome today.

The natural spring is a special, magical thing. My only regret is not filling up a bottle there. The water looked so pure and clean. I managed to sneak a photo of this, since there were no security cameras and no one there. (Groups of tourists were touring the whole building complex)

here is the detailed info about this splendid place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_San_Clemente_al_Laterano

The beauty of Roman architecture is unrivaled. Just look at that oculus.

It reminds one of the pyramids.

Beautiful pictures.

Those old walls and columns, the bridges, arcs they are a reminder of an old enlightened age. Would be fun wearing a toga to all those places.

Revontuli, quite an impressive thread you have here. Good writing too.

Tellemall:


The beauty of Roman architecture is unrivaled. Just look at that oculus.

It reminds one of the pyramids.

Beautiful pictures.

Those old walls and columns, the bridges, arcs they are a reminder of an old enlightened age. Would be fun wearing a toga to all those places.

I'm a big fan of Roman engineering. It's incredible so many of those bridges and structures still stand intact.
Roman concrete is superior to modern concrete.

They do toga parties, it would be great to do it. There are guys who run around in gladiator outfits and charge money to take photos with the tourists. I wore medieval costume in old town Tallinn and walked around like that. It would be fun to go around wearing togas in Rome, it doesn't even look weird cause there are all those gladiators around.

DeeMain:
Revontuli, quite an impressive thread you have here. Good writing too.

Thanks you for the kind words!
There are still hundreds of photos to pick from. Lots of stories to tell, time permitting.

Roman statues weren't white marble as we see today. They were painted in vivid colors. How do we know this? Scientists have found residue of pigments on statues when they analyzed, and could tell what parts were painted in what colors. Pigment residue has been found on the column of Trajan, so the scenes there were also painted in vibrant hues.

Here is the replica of Augustus Prima Porta at a courtyard of the Vatican Museum, painted as close to the original as possible. The original marble statue is in the museum.

Statues and bas reliefs from the Vatican Museums.

#1: Sacrifice scene. Roman centurion pours libation on the altar before the sacrifice of a ram.
#2: A military scene, I have no idea what this was, there was no plaque explaining it. Beautiful details and craftsmanship
#3: Another dramatic scene, again I didn't see any plaque. Those Romans were such a handsome people.
#4: 3 male heads. The middle one is an unknown African. The rightmost one resembles emperor Tiberius quite a bit but I can't be sure.

I'm a big lover of the Roman military garb, togas and and all those vivid scenes carved with such a amazing skill.

Sorry for the dark photos, I was simply too broke to afford camera gear that could take sharp photos in dim lighting without a tripod. This was the best I could do.

Here is the personification of River Nile with the Sphinx and cherubs.
The whole cherub concept is ancient Greek, predating Christianity by millenia. It passed on to the Romans and then Christian art over the time.

Rivers are grammatically male in Latin, so they are always personified as male deities. Roads are female and their personification is in the form of female deities. I've seen a coin from Trajan's time depicting Via Traiana as a nude woman holding a wheel.

#1: A mosaic at the Vatican museum

#2: Views from theterrace of one of the Vatican museum buildings.

#3: Emperor Tiberius -I've seen the photo of this on the internet so many times, it was a strange feeling to see it myself and take a photo.

#4: Emperor Domitian, the great tyrant, one of the most cruel despots of ancient Rome. He is counted among the most despicable. He had many people tortured and executed, including people from his own family. He confiscated the properties of many, broke the back of the citizens with oppression and property seizures. He failed to subdue the enemies of Rome, but terrorized his own citizens instead. His successor Nerva tried to undo as much damage as he could, and Nerva's successor Trajan continued to undo all the evils of Domitian, giving back the confiscated money and properties of the citizens, bringing back the great people who were exiled unjustly.

Jambei1986 was wondering where all the tourists are. Here are some photos of the courtyard and inside of Vatican museums showing the crowd.




cc; jambei1986

#1 St. George the dragon slayer, Vatican museum

#2 Sophocles the slay king

A majestic sarchopagus.
Such glory even in death.

#1 Artemis the Greek huntress gooddess. She is one of my favorites, she always looks so cool and charismatic.

#2 Famous pinecone court and its fountain. I waited quite a bit for the tourists to go away so I could take this photo.

#3 Perseus beheads Medusa, holds the severed head aloft in triumph

Thank you for taking us to Rome...

revontuli:
#1 Artemis the Greek huntress gooddess. She is one of my favorites, she always looks so cool and charismatic.

#2 Famous pinecone court and its fountain. I waited quite a bit for the tourists to go away so I could take this photo.

#3 Perseus beheads Medusa, holds the severed head aloft in triumph

Okay, Rome is an actual dream come true. Rome will be the next place that I travel to after Russia. I am currently in Russia having a good week. You have no idea how actually hard it was to get here. Bad enough that I am a German citizen, the paper work was crazy. I've been lucky online at places like here. To obtain a Russian visa, you must complete the visa application. This happened earlier via the website of the Russian Embassy. Just so you know, Since 10 December 2014, German citizens must have their fingerprints, also known as "biometric data", registered at the visa application center .

revontuli:
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.

I have patiently read your posts dear Revontuli and I must say, I am in awe of your in-dept grasp of ancient Roman history. I am especially enamoured by the several mentions I got here with copious space devoted to educating folks here about me (Trajan)!
Ut but benedicat tibi Deus


I owe you, dear Revontuli. Whenever you visit London, you have a willing host in me.
Do remember to message me, domina mi!

Trajan:

I have patiently read your posts dear Revontuli and I must say, I am in awe of your in-dept grasp of ancient Roman history. I am especially enamoured by the several mentions I got here with copious space devoted to educating folks here about me (Trajan)!
Ut but benedicat tibi Deus

I owe you, dear Revontuli. Whenever you visit London, you have a willing host in me.
Do remember to message me, domina mi

I’m just reading this and I have to say this is wonderful