A sword-and-sandals drama looks set to spark even greater interest in Rome and its must-visit treasures...
Ed Grenby - 9 July 2024
Those about to visit Rome in peak season… we salute you! The Eternal City is undoubtedly deserving of its place on a billion bucket lists and even 2,000-odd years later retains much of its imperial glory. But Rome is the ultimate victim of its own popularity, with tourist crowds descending on it every summer that dwarf the Barbarian hordes who menaced the Caesars’ borders in the third century AD.
Amazon Prime’s new swords-sandals-and speeches epic, Those about to Die, is only likely to increase visitor numbers (as is Gladiator 2, when it’s released in cinemas this winter), but there are ways to see the Italian capital’s most impressive ancient sights that won’t leave you as weary as Anthony Hopkins’s Vespasian…
THE COLOSSEUM
WHY Amazon Prime will need quite a budget if they want the premier of Those about to Die to beat the Colosseum’s first-night spectacle. When the 80,000-seat arena opened in AD 80, 9,000 wild animals were killed: slaughter on a scale that actually resulted in the extinction of North African lions and elephants. Gladiator games, too, were every bit as brutal as those depicted on screen – they were largely devised, say some experts, to desensitise Roman legionnaires to the idea of death. The spectators weren’t much better, demanding ever more gory events and cheerfully betting on their deadly outcomes. Today, despite only a third of the original Colosseum still standing, it’s not just visually impressive but a hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck experience to enter its arches and imagine all that once happened here.
HOW Tickets go on sale a month in advance(ticketing.colosseo.it)but get snapped up fast, so you’ll need to get online early in the morning. You’ll be offered a choice of timed entry – aim for 8.30am, when the place opens, for the smallest crowds and the chance to see the marble and travertine glow honey-coloured in Rome’s “golden hour” light. It’s well worth paying the extra to take in the views from the “Attic” area and soak up the ominous ambience of the underground levels, too: the latter are where those doomed to die (both man and beast) spent their last moments before entering the arena.
Image: The majestic amphitheatre of the Colosseum
THE FORUM
WHY Stand here and you’re at what was once the very centre of the civilised world – and still has a claim as the ancient epicentre of western civil society today. For more than a millennium, this (very) glorified town square in a small dip between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills was the heart of the Roman Empire – or belly button, since the Umbilicus Urbis or navel of the city was here and can still in part be seen. Here were the Senate, law courts, temples and triumphal arches, the Vestal Virgins, elections, marches, parades, gladiatorial contests and such epoch-defining moments as Mark Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar. With typical Italian insouciance, the whole place was later forgotten for centuries – locals knew the area only as Campo Vaccino (“the cow pasture”), until 19th-century excavations revealed its remnants – but a few of its proud columns and elegant arches now stand as graceful and atmospheric as ever.
HOW All Colosseum tickets include entry to the Forum, but pay the extra £5 for the two-day ticket rather than the standard 24-hour one, so you can visit the pair separately and avoid history fatigue. Consider a guided tour, too, as so much of the magic here is in the stories and histories (try viator.com). There are two gates: use the quieter Palatine entrance at Via San Gregorio 30.
THE PANTHEON
WHY The Pantheon is perhaps the best-preserved ancient Roman building in the world and the reason, thrillingly, is that it’s still used for something like its original purpose. Constructed by Hadrian, in AD 125 as a temple to “all the gods”, it was converted into a Catholic church 500 years later, and remains a functioning one today.
The history is one thing and the architecture another: behind the stately classical portico is a round main body topped with what is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. But it’s the magical atmosphere inside that makes this a must-visit: the 43m dome is pierced at its apex by the oculus: a 9m-wide hole. In good weather, a shaft of light picks out tombs and altars like a beam from a sci-fi ray gun; and even in bad weather you can watch the rain drop through and add a glistening intensity to the colours of the marbles on the temple floor.
HOW Free until last year, it now costs just £4 to get in, with tickets available on the door or online (museiitaliani.it/en/buy-tickets). That’s unlikely to put a dent in the seven million visitors the Pantheon receives annually, though, so time your trip for the quieter end of the day: closing time is 7pm (last entry 6.30pm), and crowds get noticeably sparser later in the day. By the time you come out, you’ll be thinking about a few aperitivos and a spot of food. “Those about to dine…”?
Image: The rotunda and oculus of the Pantheon
Those about to Die - Episode 1 available Friday on Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime’s new swords-sandals-and speeches epic, Those about to Die, is only likely to increase visitor numbers (as is Gladiator 2, when it’s released in cinemas this winter), but there are ways to see the Italian capital’s most impressive ancient sights that won’t leave you as weary as Anthony Hopkins’s Vespasian…
THE COLOSSEUM
WHY Amazon Prime will need quite a budget if they want the premier of Those about to Die to beat the Colosseum’s first-night spectacle. When the 80,000-seat arena opened in AD 80, 9,000 wild animals were killed: slaughter on a scale that actually resulted in the extinction of North African lions and elephants. Gladiator games, too, were every bit as brutal as those depicted on screen – they were largely devised, say some experts, to desensitise Roman legionnaires to the idea of death. The spectators weren’t much better, demanding ever more gory events and cheerfully betting on their deadly outcomes. Today, despite only a third of the original Colosseum still standing, it’s not just visually impressive but a hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck experience to enter its arches and imagine all that once happened here.
HOW Tickets go on sale a month in advance (ticketing.colosseo.it) but get snapped up fast, so you’ll need to get online early in the morning. You’ll be offered a choice of timed entry – aim for 8.30am, when the place opens, for the smallest crowds and the chance to see the marble and travertine glow honey-coloured in Rome’s “golden hour” light. It’s well worth paying the extra to take in the views from the “Attic” area and soak up the ominous ambience of the underground levels, too: the latter are where those doomed to die (both man and beast) spent their last moments before entering the arena.
Image: The majestic amphitheatre of the Colosseum
THE FORUM
WHY Stand here and you’re at what was once the very centre of the civilised world – and still has a claim as the ancient epicentre of western civil society today. For more than a millennium, this (very) glorified town square in a small dip between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills was the heart of the Roman Empire – or belly button, since the Umbilicus Urbis or navel of the city was here and can still in part be seen. Here were the Senate, law courts, temples and triumphal arches, the Vestal Virgins, elections, marches, parades, gladiatorial contests and such epoch-defining moments as Mark Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar. With typical Italian insouciance, the whole place was later forgotten for centuries – locals knew the area only as Campo Vaccino (“the cow pasture”), until 19th-century excavations revealed its remnants – but a few of its proud columns and elegant arches now stand as graceful and atmospheric as ever.
HOW All Colosseum tickets include entry to the Forum, but pay the extra £5 for the two-day ticket rather than the standard 24-hour one, so you can visit the pair separately and avoid history fatigue. Consider a guided tour, too, as so much of the magic here is in the stories and histories (try viator.com). There are two gates: use the quieter Palatine entrance at Via San Gregorio 30.
THE PANTHEON
WHY The Pantheon is perhaps the best-preserved ancient Roman building in the world and the reason, thrillingly, is that it’s still used for something like its original purpose. Constructed by Hadrian, in AD 125 as a temple to “all the gods”, it was converted into a Catholic church 500 years later, and remains a functioning one today.
The history is one thing and the architecture another: behind the stately classical portico is a round main body topped with what is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. But it’s the magical atmosphere inside that makes this a must-visit: the 43m dome is pierced at its apex by the oculus: a 9m-wide hole. In good weather, a shaft of light picks out tombs and altars like a beam from a sci-fi ray gun; and even in bad weather you can watch the rain drop through and add a glistening intensity to the colours of the marbles on the temple floor.
HOW Free until last year, it now costs just £4 to get in, with tickets available on the door or online (museiitaliani.it/en/buy-tickets). That’s unlikely to put a dent in the seven million visitors the Pantheon receives annually, though, so time your trip for the quieter end of the day: closing time is 7pm (last entry 6.30pm), and crowds get noticeably sparser later in the day. By the time you come out, you’ll be thinking about a few aperitivos and a spot of food. “Those about to dine…”?
Image: The rotunda and oculus of the Pantheon
Those about to Die - Episode 1 available Friday on Amazon Prime