Down below, the ancient forum, with its temples and colonnades and courtyards, spreads out towards the the Colosseum.
The larger decumanus ("main road") forms one side of the quarter of the ancient forum with its public buildings.
These include a well-preserved triumphal arch and the ancient forum with its surrounding buildings, including two temples, an arch erected in honour of Hadrian, and a theatre.
The lugubrious tone of the second (and final) season that begins on Sunday night may mark the mood at HBO more than that of the ancient Forum.
The only cars that could get to the ninth-century church, nestled in the ancient Forum a block from the Colosseum, were city vehicles -- buses, police cars, ambulances -- or cars with Vatican plates.
Other Roman locations for the shoot reputedly included the ancient Forum, though the scenes of Oberhauser's Illuminati-like gathering were likely shot at the very British Blenheim Palace.
After 500,000 people walked with candles to recreate the Stations of the Cross along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, next to the ancient Forum, the entire street was closed off for four hours the next day so sanitation workers could scrape up the melted wax on the pavement.
There should be nothing obscure about this concept for those who've spent even an hour at the ancient Forum, where visitors wander through (demolished) walls as well as around them, creating what landscape architects call "desire lines" in the soil.
Strolling through the capital's ancient forum on the eve of a meeting with the pope, he described Rome this evening as a "very romantic city" and seemed to have quickly put the traumas and tensions of the summit meeting behind him.
What they did not realize until they arrived was that the event was to take place in the ancient Forum, where thousands would gather in the summer wind to listen to a poet read before a crumbling arch; he would be standing on a dais, lit by pink spotlights, with an orchestra playing Philip Glass pieces between each poem.
