Onto the Forum!!

 

After licking our gelato bowls clean, (& turning our spoons over to Camden, who now has a prized collection - it may even be his most favorite souvenir), the kids were up for more, so onto the forum we went!  We had actually seen parts of it the night before on accident; we tried to enter, but took a winding path parallel to the Palatino Hill which we thought would allow us entrance, but it didn't, & then they closed.  On our somewhat disappointed walk home that evening, we came to an amazing point for viewing that looked out over the whole site.  It was welcomed consolation for this disappointed mama.  We went further along the cobblestoned path & it dropped us right into a beautifully lit piazza in front of the Capitolini Musei, which we realized accepted our Roma card, thereby giving us free admittance, & we had 30 minutes before closing, so we unexpectedly got to see various parts of the massive statue of Constantine, which had originally been at the Basilica of Constantine, which we were about to see the ruins of, now that we were actually entering the Forum! Or as the Italians would say, "Foro."  How's that for a wordy sentence?!  So with ipods in hand, our free audio guide downloaded on each, we headed into the Forum and enjoyed some of Rome's most plentiful ruins. 

Pictured below is the Arch of Titus.  Its graphic display of Roman's ultimate victory in 70 AD over the Jewish rebellion is sobering.  In the more detailed pictures, you see Rome carrying off sacred plunder from the  temple and from that point on the Jewish nation is obliterated.  While in captivity, as prisoners of war, they were forced to build, carve & beautify the arch that glorifies their own destruction.  The Diaspora (the scattering) commenced & any remaining Jews were taken to the far corners of the earth; literally.  They loaded them on different ships & sent them off.  As a people, they remained scattered for 2000 years; it was post WWII, in 1947, when they were finally able to recover a national identity and became the nation of Israel, as we know it today.

It blew me away to stand before this Arch, to look with my own eyes & to consider what it must have been like for the men who built it; the men who had survived horrifying & bloodied combat, whose women & children were either murdered or enslaved & they had to endure wretched cruelty & despair and by forced labor, build a symbol that would mock their desecration and celebrate their worst nightmare for thousands of years.  Fast forward to WWII and the Third Reich and picture the sunken eyes of boys in striped pajamas, starving girls without their mothers, 6 million in open graves, mountains of ash, and a world out of control....there is no doubt that the world has problems today & an election year certainly highlights our country's own, but the terrors of history certainly have a way of putting things in perspective.

It's harder to see in this picture, but it shows Titus in his chariot, leading the victory parade of the Jewish plunder being brought into Rome for all to see & celebrate.

This corner of the Forum conjures images of families & their daily home life unlike anything else I saw.

Ah, bella Roma!!  It would take months & months to adequately experience a small portion of what this city has to offer, but we're grateful for the 5 days we called Rome, home.