Student Bloggers

When the sun goes down, the Historical Center of Rome comes alive. On the long street of Via dei Fori Imperiali that connects the Colosseum all the way to the white monument of Vittorio Emanuele, young tourists bustle along, vendors play loud early 2000’s music, and street artists paint live on the sidewalks. Looming above are the famous monuments of Rome, illuminated by spotlights no matter what direction you turn in. It’s beautiful, and whether by night or by day, it's my favorite area of Rome. 

For the past few months there has been a special exhibition at the Augustus Forum. After dark, there’s a light show that is projected on the ruins of the forum to give the audience an idea of what the forum would have looked like in its original splendor. Nowadays, it's just a tall brick wall with a few marble columns still standing. But back in ancient times, it was a hugely impressive building—it would have stood about four stories high, which is pretty darn tall when you’ve never seen a skyscraper before. It was guarded by an enormous statue of—you guessed it, Augustus himself! From the recreation the light show provided, that thing definitely terrified some children in its day.

The building itself was once a temple and an area for legal proceedings to take place. As the light show explained, lawyers, judges, and scholars used to gather in the courtyard to argue about politics and legal matters. Throughout history, the forum survived earthquakes, fires, and even a few sieges! Still, what struck me most about the show were the stories of the ordinary Romans who used to spend their time there.

In the modern age, I often wonder what my life would have looked like had I been born in a different time. Usually, the game is the most fun when I imagine how different it would be—what would it be like to live in a castle? To run a farm on a prairie like Laura Ingalls Wilder? To walk the streets of Rome in a time when it was the capital of the world? But the most interesting thing about the recreation of life at the now almost barren Augustus Forum was the notion that living as an ancient Roman might not have been that much different than living as a modern Roman. Obviously, ancient Romans would not have had access to the metro, but day-to-day life didn’t seem to be that different! The forum was a place for people to gather, to laugh, to argue about who was responsible for what, to work, or to just hang out. I don’t know about you, but that sounds an awful lot like the ancient version of a Student Center to me! To be fair, I’m getting the bulk of my information from a headset at a light show, but maybe ancient Romans and modern Romans aren’t that different after all—there are a few less togas around nowadays, but our motives, our wants, our joys and sorrows seem to remain the same.