Page 29 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

THE HIST OR Y OF ROME  27

Roman Revelry
Banquets could last Where to See
for up to 10 hours, Imperial Rome
with numerous
courses, between There are relics of Imperial Rome
which guests would throughout the central city, some
retire to a small hidden below churches and
room to relax. palazzi, others, like the Forum
(see pp78–89), the Palatine
(pp99–103), and the Imperial
Fora (pp90–93), fully excavated.
The magnificence of the era,
however, is best conveyed by
the Pantheon (pp114–15) and
Baths of Diocletian the Colosseum (pp94–7).
(AD 298)
Rome’s public baths were not just
places to keep clean. They also
had bars, libraries, barber shops,
brothels, and sport amenities.

The Arch of Titus (p89),
erected in the Forum in AD 81,
commemorates Emperor Titus’s
sack of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Tepidarium (warm room)

Virgil (70–19 BC)
Virgil was Rome’s greatest epic poet. A relief of Mithras, a popular
His most famous work is the Aeneid, Persian god (3rd century AD),
the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas’s can be seen beneath the church
journey to the future site of Rome. of San Clemente (pp188–9).

270 Aurelian
164–180 Plague rages in 212 Citizenship granted to Wall begun
Roman Empire virtually all inhabitants of
the Empire
Section of
Aurelian Wall
100 150 200 250
216 Baths of Caracalla 247 Rome’s Millennium
completed is celebrated
125 Hadrian
redesigns the 284 Empire divided into
Pantheon Mosaic from the West and East
Baths of Caracalla

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