The present level of the Forum is many feet lower than that of its immediate surroundings. During the three thousand years that separate us from the beginnings of the city the valleys have been gradually filling through the accumulation of debris of ruined buildings, the washings of earth from the surrounding hills, and various other means. Recently scholars have excavated nearly the whole Forum down to the earliest level, laying bare the lower parts of buildings, the earlier pavements, altars, a primeval cemetery, and many other objects. Nearly everything found has been identified and clothed in the historical imagination with the associations of the time when it had a purpose and a meaning. But the spot, once the abode of intense life, is now still; it seems the burial place of a dead society and government; state officials keep drowsy guard over the remains. Tourist and scholar walk undisturbed through this sepulcher of a mighty empire, their senses awakened to the ancient life only by the rush of waters through the subterranean Cloaca Maxima, and to the life of our day by the roses, geraniums, and wild Italian flowers that grow luxuriantly wherever a bit of soil is left.
THE ARCH OF TITUS
Beyond the Forum and on the summit of the ridge known as the Velia is the Arch of Titus. We can read the inscription: SENATUS POPULUSQUE ROMANUS DIVO TITO DIVI VESPASIANI F. VESPASIANO AUGUSTO (The senate and people of Rome (dedicated this arch) to the deified Titus Vespasianus Augustus, son of the deified Vespasianus.) Consider this inscription. Both the Greeks and the Romans propitiated the spirits of the dead with sacrifice and prayer. The founder of a city or any specially great benefactor of the community they venerated after death as a hero, a being intermediate in dignity and power between man and the gods.
THE COLOSSEUM FROM THE NORTH
It was with this idea that the senate by decree deified (more strictly, heroized) a deceased emperor who seemed to that body to have been a specially worthy ruler. Thus they had deified Vespasian, and after him his son and successor Titus. This arch, therefore, was dedicated by the senate and people to the memory of Emperor Titus after his death. A monument of the kind commemorated a victory so great as to entitle the general to a triumph,—a procession of the victorious commander and his army along the Sacred Way, past the Forum, and up the Capitol to the temple of Jupiter on the summit. The spoils of war were carried in the procession, while games and other festivities rejoiced the hearts of the populace.
This arch is a memorial of the war waged by Titus against the Jews, in which he besieged and destroyed Jerusalem, their holy city. During the conflict the Jews resisted with superhuman energy; and when everything was lost they killed one another and their wives and children as the lot determined, in order not to be slaves. The fame of their heroism is as imperishable as the military renown of the conqueror. The triumphal arch, accordingly, represents the slaughter of innocent people, the crushing of national liberty, the brutal sacking of cities, the merciless sale of captives into slavery. While casting this gloomy shadow, it reflects on the sunlit side the glory of victory and the extension and solidification of Roman power.
THE COLOSSEUM
This immense amphitheater was built by Vespasian and dedicated by Titus. It is a gigantic oval four stories in height. From the north side, which is still nearly intact, the first three stories present simply a series of arcades; the fourth story is a closed wall. Four entrances lead into the arena; seventy-six others into vaulted corridors, whence the spectators passed up various stairways to their seats, which extended in tiers from near the floor to the top of the highest story. The seats have disappeared, but careful measurement places the capacity at 45,000, with standing room for perhaps 5,000 more. Hidden from view were the cages of wild beasts and the cells for gladiators, and beneath the arena were machines for elevating animals to the surface.
