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A Magical 3 Days in Rome Itinerary

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While three days in Rome may not sound like much, I can speak from personal experience that it’s plenty of time to eat spaghetti until you forgetti your regretti…

While doing some of that sightseeing stuff as well, I suppose.

I’ve explained before in my Rome travel tips post that you should dedicate at least four days to exploring Rome properly, but hey – I’m a big fan of challenges, and that’s how this three day Rome itinerary came to be.

Forged from the wisdom of three visits, I’ve designed this itinerary for spending three days in Rome with efficiency in mind, ensuring you see all of Rome’s top highlights, alongside some lesser known gems along the way.

So, if you’re spending three days in Rome in the near future, feel free to copy this itinerary, filled with fun facts, restaurant recommendations and a do-able plan of attack.

Save this 3 days in Rome itinerary for later!

You’ll be very glad you did.

Things to Book in Advance for Your Three Days in Rome

When in Rome….. get ready to plan ahead.

Honestly, one of my top Rome travel tips is to book everything in advance, from big attractions to popular restaurants. It’ll save you a ton of headaches (and often moola) in the long run.

If you are following my itinerary for three days in Rome, here are some bookings to make in advance:

• Colosseum Tour : I would advise booking for the early morning of your 2nd day, or a night tour like this one if you really want a unique experience without crowds
• Vatican Museum: If you wish to see it, book tickets for the Vatican Museum in late afternoon of the 3rd day, or splurge on a night-time tour like this one to avoid crowds
• Museum Tickets: I’d advise pre-booking tickets for any museums you want to visit (e.g. the Galleria Borghese ), although with only three days in Rome, I wouldn’t advise visiting too many museums as this can take up a lot of time
• A nice experience: I highly recommend booking a nice experience at some point like a street food tour , cooking class , or Vespa tour to make this trip truly unforgettable!

My Efficient Rome in 3 Days Itinerary at a Glance

Below, you’ll find my detailed 3 day Rome itinerary, where I’ll liberally blab about the context/history behind each attraction.

For your convenience and sanity however, here is a quick breakdown of each day:

Day 1 – Centro Storico, Jewish Ghetto and Trastavere

• Spanish Steps, Piazza di Spagna & Piazza Mignanelli
• Rinascente Roma Tritone (Optional)

Trevi Fountain

Galleria sciarra, chiesa di sant ignazio di loyola.

• Elephant and Obelisk 
• Pantheon & Piazza della Rotonda

Piazza Navona

Chiesa di sant’ivo alla sapienza.

• Campo de’ Fiori & Passetto del Biscione (Optional)
• Largo di Torre Argentina 
• Piazza Venezia & Il Vittoriano

Piazza del Campidoglio

• Teatro Marcello, Fontana delle Tartarughe (Turtle Fountain) & Tempio Maggiore (The Great Synagogue)
• Tiber Island

Day 2 – Ancient Rome & Aventine Hill

• Sunrise at the Roman Forum (Optional)

Colosseum Tour

• The Roman Forum & Palatine Hill

Circo Maximo (Circus Maximus)

Santa maria in cosmedin.

• Giardino degli Aranci 

Day 3 – Vatican City, Castel Sant Angelo & Villa Borghese

• Vatican City

Castel St’Angelo

• Villa Borghese
• Terrazza del Pincio

Day 1 – Centro Storico, the Jewish Ghetto & Trastavere

We’re kicking off our three days in Rome with a whirlwind tour of the city’s most famous monuments in the Centro Storico, along with a visit to the Jewish Ghetto, and an evening in romantic Trastavere. The goal of Day 1 is to have you fall hopelessly in love with Rome… 

So, get ready to rome-anticize your day.

The starting point of our Rome 3 Day Itinerary is the Spanish Steps , but before embarking on our epic journey of sightseeing, it’s important we address a vital need: coffee.

In Italy, coffee is most often slurped down at the bar for about a euro a piece, with a plain caffè (espresso) as the norm, although cappuccinos in the morning (usually about €1.30), paired with a cornetto, are a popular way to start the day.

In the vicinity of the Spanish Steps, you have a lot of fancy and historic options for coffee. Most coffee bars will give you a pretty consistently tasty and affordable coffee, but here are two unique options:

IMPORTANT: Make sure to have your coffee at the bar to avoid exorbitant sit-down prices.

• Antico Caffè Greco is the oldest coffee bar in Rome, dating back to 1760 with countless big names who have enjoyed coffee there over the years, from Goethe and Hans Christian Andersen to Princess Diana. Again, sit-down prices can be as much as 9 euros for a coffee, so make sure you order and drink yours at the bar.
• Atelier Canova Tadolin is a workshop turned restaurant/cafe that is packed with sculptures and plaster models, creating one of the most unique atmospheres for any caffeine hit in Rome… Just make sure you have your coffee at the bar, rather than sitting down.

Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti (Spanish Steps)

After you’ve hit your first of many espresso hits, it’s time to begin our three days in Rome with one of the most iconic sights of the city: the Spanish Steps!

These famous Baroque steps were designed by Francesco de Sanctis in the 1720s, who actually snagged the gig thanks to a competition held by a French diplomat turned financier, Étienne Gueffier.

The competition’s goal was to prettify the hilly terrain connecting Piazza di Spagna and Piazza Trinità dei Monti above, and props to Gueffier – I’m sure the thousands of tourists who photograph it daily would agree – mission accomplished!

PS: In case you’re wondering how many steps there are top to bottom, the answer is a steep 135, which means you’re definitely earning your gelato! That is, unless you decide to drive down like this drunk Colombian guy back in 2007 . Don’t worry though, no one was hurt!

Piazza di Spagna 

Now, time to explore a bit more of the square – Piazza di Spagna , a square famous for a number of reasons (only one of which is the Spanish Steps!)

Firstly, famous English poet John Keats spent the final days of his life here, at 26 Piazza di Spagna which is today home to the Keats-Shelley House .

Standing in this square also puts you steps away from some of the top shopping streets in Rome, the most famous of which are Via dei Condotti (packed with luxurious brand names) and Via del Corso (packed with all the usual suspects of any High Street like Zara and the Disney Store).

As for the fountain at the foot of the steps, this often overlooked beauty is called Fontana della Barcaccia, AKA Fountain of the Boat.

It may be tough to see if there are (as usual) a bunch of tourists sat around it.

It depicts a half-sunken ship and was designed by none other than Pietro Bernini, father of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose works you’ll find all over the city.

Piazza Mignanelli

After capturing all your photos, it’s time to move onto the next stop: Piazza Mignanelli, home to the Column of the Immaculate Conception.

As you walk towards this column, you’ll pass by the Spanish embassy for the Vatican, said to be the oldest embassy in the world! Little wonder why it’s usually guarded at all hours by military in full camo.

The column itself dates back to Dec 8, 1857, exactly three years after Pope Pius IX published the Ineffabilis Deus , the decree which officially defined the dogma of the Immaulate Conception.

In other words, this was the decree that (after centuries of controversy) cemented the Catholic Church’s belief that the Virgin Mary conceived Jesus “free from all stain of original sin”.

… And that’s what this column (topped by a statue of the Virgin Mary herself) commemorates.

Every year on Dec 8 (the Feast of the Immaculate Consumption), they even host a ceremony here (usually attended by the Pope) during which local firefighters place a floral wreath on the statue’s right arm, a nod to the fact that it was firefighters who helped erect the statue all those years ago.

Optional Stop: Rinascente Roma Tritone

From Piazza Mignanelli to the Trevi Fountain, it’s only a 7 minute walk, but if you’re willing to make a short detour, then you can admire one of the lesser known ‘hidden gems’ in this tourist-heavy slice of Rome.

At Rome’s Rinacscente flagship location on Via del Tritone, you’ll find a department store where you can marvel at wonders from Gucci, Prada, Versace and…. perhaps most wonderfully, a piece of Acqua Virgo, a 2000 year viaduct that, at its peak, would provide up to 100,000 cubic metres of water to the city a day.

This part of the Acqua Virgo was only uncovered recently when restoration work began on the palazzo, and is part of the reason why the store was under construction for 11 years, delaying its opening date many times until it finally opened its doors in 2017.

Today, the “Acqua Vergine” viaduct (a successor to the ancient Acqua Virgo) continues to supply fresh water to Rome’s many fountains, including famous names like the Trevi Fountain… which is conveniently our next stop!

Next, let’s move onto the Trevi Fountain, perhaps one of the most famous fountains in the world and one of the most beautiful sights in Rome… especially after its gleaming new makeover in 2015 funded by fashion giant, Fendi!

Situated at the end of the famous Acqua Vergine Viaduct, its name comes from its location at the crossroads of three streets (tre vie). At 65 feet wide, this monumental fountain is best known for its impressive marble sculptures and of course its dreamy blue hues.

Today, millions of tourists come for a chance to ogle the fountain and partake in the classic tourist ritual of throwing a coin (or three) over their left shoulder… The 1st to ensure a return to Rome, the 2nd for romance, and the 3rd for marriage. So hey, maybe you should too. It’s cheesy, but “when in Rome”…

From the Trevi Fountain, it’s time to escape the crowds and take a quick 2 minute walk over to one of the prettiest hidden courtyards in Rome: Galleria Sciarra.

This unassuming walkway (tucked behind a McDonalds, no less) is a lovely hidden gem full of beautiful frescoes and artwork to admire, with a gorgeous glass and iron ceiling that makes the space feel impossibly grand.

… Especially when you consider that it’s simply home to offices these days!

Snap away, and let’s keep moving.

After you’ve had your fill of art nouveau eye candy, a 5 minute walk will take you from Galleria Sciarra to the Chiesa di Sant Ignazio di Loyola, a Jesuit church where another wonderful neck workout awaits.

This church is home to one of the most extravagant frescoes in Rome, and best of all – they’re free to admire and with a tiny sliver of the crowds that you might find at the Sistine Chapel.

These delightfully deceptive trompe l’oeil frescoes are the work of Andrea Pozzo, a master of Baroque (and a Jesuit brother) who painted the illusion in the late 17th century.

Want to make the most of the church’s unique optical illusions? Keep an eye out for marble disk markers on the floor that show you the best spots to stand.

Elephant and Obelisk 

A 5 minute walk from the church will bring you to the smallest of Rome’s ancient obelisks, perched upon an elephant designed by Bernini.

Why the curious combo? Well, as a Latin inscription on the base of the pedestal notes “Let any beholder of the carved images of the wisdom of Egypt on the obelisk carried by the elephant, the strongest of beasts, realize that it takes a robust mind to carry solid wisdom”.

So yes, all in all, the monument is an homage to wisdom.

Pantheon 

Now, onwards to Rome’s iconic Pantheon, which is only a 2 minute walk away.

Of all the buildings that remain from Ancient Rome, the Pantheon is by far the best-preserved, dazzling visitors even 2000 years after it was originally constructed.

And there’s a lot of reasons to visit – after all, the Pantheon houses tombs for some of Rome’s most famous figures, including Italy’s 1st King, King Vittorio Emanuele II and Ninja Turtle namesake, the famous painter Raphael.

The Pantheon’s dome is also the largest unsupported concrete dome in the world.

At the apex of this dome is the 27 feet wide oculus, which floods a bright ray of light into the Pantheon… and rain when the weather feels moody. That’s why you’ll find 22 manholes on the Pantheon’s floor – to filter said rain when it pours.

Piazza della Rotonda

Once you’ve had your fill of the Pantheon’s epicness (truly, visiting is one of my favourite things to do in Rome!), step outside and let’s admire this bad boy’s exterior from Piazza della Rotonda, so-named for the Pantheon’s lesser known title as the church of “ Santa Maria Rotonda ”.

While standing in front of this impressive 2000 year old tourist magnet, take note of the 16 giant granite columns that hold up Rome’s swankiest front porch.

Believe it or not, these columns were actually brought here all the way from Eastern Egypt – a pretty remarkable feat considering their epic size.

As for the inscription on the front facade of the building, that reads “M. Agrippa L. F. Cos. Tertium fecit”, which translates to “It was built by Marco Agrippa, son of Lucio, in the year of his third consulate”.

This is a nod to the original Pantheon’s designer, Marco Agrippa. Today’s version is actually the Pantheon’s 3rd iteration though, after the first two were destroyed by fire and lightning.

Lunch: Armando al Pantheon

While dining near tourist attractions is usually a rookie mistake in Rome, a notable exception is Armando al Pantheon, which serves excellent food at fair prices, literally steps away from the Pantheon.

I can highly recommend the Spaghetti Carbonara, which was top notch. My friends also spoke highly of their Cacio e Pepe. 

Coffee: La Casa Del Caffè Tazza D’oro

If you need a little pick me up after lunch, La Casa Del Caffè Tazza D’oro is just around the corner and has super delicious coffee for a very fair price.

Slurp it up at the bar standing up (the sit-down prices are much higher), and let’s keep moving!

From the Pantheon, it’s only a 5 minute walk to Piazza Navona, one of the grandest Baroque squares in Rome. 

The first impression for most visitors here is the oblong shape of the piazza, which stretches lengthways far more than a conventional square. 

Well, that can be explained by Piazza Navona’s history.

It stands over top the ancient Domitian Stadium, which was built back in the 1st century to introduce Greek-style athletics and (non-violent) sports to the Roman public, whose main source of entertainment was pretty much watching slaves murder each other with cameos from lions, tigers, and bears.

Unfortunately, Romans far preferred their bloody gladiator games, and over the centuries, the stadium fell into disuse, eventually being pillaged for building materials.

It wasn’t until the 17th century that (under the command of Pope Innocent X), the space was transformed into a gorgeous Baroque piazza, complete with works from big names like Bernini and Borromini. 

Today their masterpieces can still be admired in the square, most notably the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi ( Fountain of the Four Rivers) by Bernini and the Sant’Agnese in Agone which was designed by Borromini alongside father and son duo Girolamo Rainaldi and Carlo Rainaldi.

For more Baroque splendour, you can walk two minutes over to the Chiesa di Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, which sits in a beautiful courtyard now belonging to Rome’s State Archives.

This is a great place to escape from the crowds a bit, and learn more about the pettier side of Rome’s Baroque turf wars. According to popular legend, the church was originally meant to be Bernini’s project, but it was handed over to Borromini when Pope Urban VIII died.

It is said that Borromini sculpted some donkey ears on the construction site to taunt Bernini (who he saw as a bitter rival), and Bernini (who lived next door) sculpted a phallus right back.

Optional Stop: Campo de’ Fiori

Translated literally to “Field of Flowers”, the Campo de’ Fiori is a square found south of Piazza Navona, so-named for the lush meadow that was once found there.

By day, it’s home to a busy market selling produce and flowers. By night, it’s a gathering spot with terraces filled with people eating, drinking, and making merry. In my opinion, it’s not the most beautiful piazza in Rome, but it’s worth checking out during the day if you’re curious to see a Roman market in action.

Most interesting to note here is the statue of Giordano Bruno in the center, which serves as a reminder of the square’s dark past. 

Once used for public executions, the Campo de’ Fiori is where Bruno (a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician) was hung and then burned at the stake for his so-called “heretic” beliefs that ran contrary to the Church.

… But yes, today you can honour his memory by buying vegetables and jam where he was brutally burned to death. Isn’t tourism fun?

Passetto del Biscione

BONUS TIP:  From Campo de’ Fiori, walk through the Passetto del Biscione for a fun hidden treasure – a narrow tunnel-esque valley adorned with frescoes. 

Here, you’ll find (a copy) of a famous Madonna painting that sent the people of Rome into a spiral of hysteria back in 1796, when it was reported that the painting’s eyes were moving… a miracle that drew countless worshippers to visit for themselves.

Funnily enough, the hidden nature of the passage made the task quite difficult, which inspired the popular Roman saying “ andare a cercare Maria per Roma”, which translates to “looking for Mary in Rome”, a phrase now used to describe the difficulty of finding something.

Largo di Torre Argentina 

From the Campo de’ Fiori, you’re about a 6 minute walk from some of the most interesting ruins in Rome, set among an ensemble of modern shops, cafes, and restaurants.

Discovered in the 1920s during city building works, the Largo di Torre Argentina includes ruins from four ancient temples (likely built to commemorate victories), the ancient Theatre of Pompey and, most significantly, the Curia of Pompey, which is where Julius Caesar was famously stabbed to death by traitors in his Senate back in 44 BC.

Of course, despite this (huge) historical significance, the ruins are perhaps best known these days for being home a thriving cat sanctuary, so don’t be surprised if you spot a furry friend or two frolicking around the ancient site.

Piazza Venezia 

It’s less than a 10 minute walk from Largo di Torre Argentina to Piazza Venezia, an overwhelmingly large and chaotic square that connects the Centro Storico with some of the best preserved monuments of Ancient Rome. 

On the West side of the Square, you’ll find Palazzo Venezia, which has served multiple functions over the years, from its status as a papal residence in the 15th century, a Venetian embassy in the 16th century, and Mussolini’s office in the 20th century.

In fact, it was on the small balcony still seen today on the palazzo’s front facade that Mussolini declared war on France and Britain in 1940.

Today, the building houses the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia.

Il Vittoriano

The focal point of the square however is no doubt the gleaming Neoclassical monument in the center that goes by many names, from the Vittoriano and the Altar of the Fatherland (which refers to the central altar of the monument), or much more whimsically, the “Wedding Cake” or “Typewriter”.

This pristine marble monument was constructed in the late 19th century to commemorate Vittorio Emanuele II, the 1st king of a unified Italy. It was officially inaugurated in 1911, 40 years after unification.

Since 1921, the monument has also housed the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier”, a shrine dedicated to those who perished and sacrificed their lives during World War I. The tomb is guarded by two eternal flames and two soldiers, who stand there at all hours of the day.

While it’s controversial, this mammoth structure is (to me) a must-see in Rome because It’s completely free to visit, with only an additional fee for the elevator ride up the terrace if you so choose. I’d highly recommend checking it out!

Our next stop is Piazza del Campidoglio, the last remaining Renaissance Square in Rome, designed by Michelangelo.

You know the phrase “all roads lead to Rome”? It’s this part of Rome that they were specifically talking about.

Once upon a time, this square is where the roads on Ancient Rome converged, although it looked very, very different back then. It wasn’t until the 16th century that makeover plans began.

Panicked by an impending visit from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Pope Paul III recruited the help of Michelangelo to beautify the square and (fingers crossed) impress the emperor.

And while the square wasn’t fully completed until a full century after Michelangelo’s death, the efforts paid off, and today Piazza del Campidoglio is truly one of the most beautiful squares in the entire city, lined with elegant palazzos that house important institutions like the Capitoline Museums and Rome’s City Hall.

SCENIC DETOUR: If you follow Via del Campidoglio downhill for a bit from the Piazza del Campidoglio, you reach one of the most beautiful viewpoints in Rome, a glorious vista overlooking the Ancient Roman Forum! Don’t worry – if you follow this 3 days in Rome itinerary, we’ll be visiting this site tomorrow.

Teatro Marcello

From Piazza del Campidoglio, it’s less than 10 minutes on foot to the Teatro Marcello, a Colosseum mini-me that once served as an open air theatre for musical and dramatic performances. 

While it’s only possible to admire it from the outside, it’s nonetheless an interesting monument that predates even the famous Colosseum, and one that was commissioned by Julius Caesar himself.

The Teatro Marcello is sometimes referred to as the Jewish Colosseum, thanks to its location in Rome’s Jewish Ghetto, so-named for its centuries-long stint as a walled neighbourhood in which Roman Jews were forced to live, often in appalling conditions.

It may be difficult to imagine today, given that the Jewish Ghetto is one of the most picturesque neighbourhoods in Rome, but lurking beneath those pastel facades and cobblestone streets is a sad and sinister history, ranging from the establishment of the Ghetto in 1555 all the way to the Nazi occupation of Rome, when over 1000 Jewish residents of the Ghetto were detained by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Today, the Jewish Ghetto is one of the quieter and more peaceful parts of Rome’s city center in terms of tourism, but those who visit are treated to a number of popular bakeries, restaurants, and interesting sights like The Great Synagogue (home to the Jewish Museum of Rome). 

If you have some extra time in Rome, exploring the Jewish Ghetto is a great way to get a bit more off the beaten path.

Fontana delle Tartarughe (Turtle Fountain)

A short walk around the neighbourhood will bring you over to the Fontana delle Tartarughe (Turtle Fountain), a pretty Renaissance fountain in Piazza Mattei originally designed by Giacomo della Porta, perhaps made all the more famous by small bronze turtles attributed to Bernini.

The fountain depicts four young adolescent men (known as Ephebes), perched over giant conch shells. The original design had the Ephebes holding up dolphins who spouted water, however water flow issues meant that these needed to be removed.

It wasn’t until a restoration many years later that they decided to fill the empty space left by the removed dolphins with cute little turtles, which give the fountain its name today… although the turtles you see now are copies of the original (which are now safely kept in the Capitoline Museums),

Tempio Maggiore (The Great Synagogue)

Before we leave the Jewish Ghetto, we have a final stop – the Tempio Maggiore, known in English as the Great Synagogue of Rome.

It’s a little known fact that the Jewish community in Rome is actually considered the oldest in Europe, with stories of settlement dating back to 160 BC.

And despite the Ghetto’s dark history, the Great Synagogue stands today as a symbol of the resilient Jewish community that continues to call this neighbourhood home. 

Inaugurated in 1904, this synagogue is the largest of the 13 synagogues in Rome, with a striking eclectic design topped with a unique square-shaped dome. 

Today, the synagogue complex is also home to the Jewish Museum of Rome.

Cross Ponte Fabricio onto Tiber Island

Now, it’s time to visit the only river island in Rome… and we have a very historical route for getting there.

Two minutes away from the Great Synagogue, you’ll find the Ponte Fabricio – the  oldest bridge in Rome that still stands in its original form, which dates back to 62BC! 

From the Jewish Ghetto, we can cross this bridge to access Tiber Island, a suitably epic way to enter the birthplace of some of Rome’s proudest citizens (more on this below).

Isola Tiberina (Tiber Island)

Crossing the bridge will bring you over to the Isola Tiberina (Tiber Island), a legendary bite-sized island that has been connected to the Roman ‘mainland’ since the Ancient Times. 

Due to its tiny size (less than 300m long and 70m wide), it is considered one of the smallest inhabited islands in the world, home today to a hospital and two churches.

In fact, it is said that those born at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on Tiber Island use it as a point of pride – claiming that they are true Romans for having been born there.

Much legend and mystery swirls around the island’s millenia-long history, but one consistent theme is that the island has always been a place of of refuge and healing, a legacy that began in the 3rd century BC when a temple to Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing, was constructed.

This spirit of refuge is embodied by my personal favourite story about the island, dating back to 1943, when doctors at Fatebenfratelli Hospital diagnosed Jewish refugees with a fabricated illness known as “Syndrome K” to prevent their deportation.

Today, Tiber Island is a quiet escape from the chaos of the Eternal City, that is unless you visit during the summer, when they host a full program of outdoor movies.

Evening: Trastavere 

Crossing the Ponte Cestio, you will arrive at one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Rome – Trastavere, famed for its abundance of restaurants, cafés and beautiful medieval streets, all tied up in a mega-photogenic package.

While some might have considered Trastavere a local secret years ago, such is no longer the case, and the tasty charms of the neighbourhood are now irresistible to both tourists and locals like.

Nonetheless, it’s a must-visit when in Rome to see a different side of the city, relaxed and vibrant, away from the historical center.

This is the ideal place to wrap up a day of sightseeing, because you’ll find no shortage of restaurants and bars here to keep you busy. 

Exploring Trastavere without a plan is the way to go. Every street here seems to be filled with flower-entwined balconies, tall golden buildings trailing with ivy, and twinkly lights to create the most romantic possible ambiance. 

Unlike the Centro Storico, Trastavere is not a neighborhood filled with must-see landmarks (although the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere is quite pretty) – instead, it’s a place to meander without agenda, grab an aperitivo, and unwind a bit after some relentless sightseeing.

Dinner: La Tavernetta 29 da Tony e Andrea

For a tasty, affordable and fun dinner in Trastavere, I can definitely recommend La Tavernetta 29 da Tony e Andrea. The servers here are hilarious, and the whole place has a chaotic ‘crazy family dinner’ sort of energy that completely made our evening. 

Of course, the food here was awesome too. I can definitely vouch for the Cacio e Pepe, but the Fried Zucchini Blossoms were also really good.

Otherwise, there’s no shortage of great restaurants in Trastavere. If you’re looking for a to-go option, Trappizzino is a classic street food option that originated in Rome, but now has locations across Italy and even one in New York.

Drinks: VinAllegro

If you’re still not ready to leave Trastavere after dinner, I can recommend checking out VinAllegro, a really cute wine bar that’s covered in ivy. 

It’s a little off the main drags of Trastavere so it has a quieter and more romantic atmosphere, plus the drinks are very affordable. I’ve heard the food is nice too, but it’s a great stop even if you’re just having a glass of wine… which would be much deserved after this whirlwind 1st day on our three day Rome itinerary!

Day two of our three day Rome itinerary will tackle some of the most famous sights of Ancient Rome, along with some glorious, unforgettable viewpoints. Make sure our cameras are properly juiced up for this day, because you’ll likely capture entire SD cards’ worth of photos.

Optional: Sunrise at the Roman Forum

I know this sounds like a LOT, but if you’re feeling especially motivated, then I’ve heard seeing sunrise by the Roman Forum is absolutely magical.

As I mention in my Rome travel tips post, particularly in peak season, the best way to avoid crowds and feel like the city is all yours is to get up early… and nothing beats sunrise early, if you can handle it after all those vinos last night in Trastavere.

The best vantage point would definitely be from Via del Campidoglio (downhill for a bit from the Piazza del Campidoglio), a photographer favourite for sunrise shots in Rome.

If you value sleep over snapshots, then there’s zero shame in getting up at a more reasonable hour. 

Today’s itinerary is heavy on sights and history, so you’ll need plenty of coffee for this one. I’d recommend pillaging any local coffee bar near your hotel to prepare for the busy day ahead.

NOTE: This requires advanced booking for sure. Try to book the first time slot available (usually 9:30am) or any time before noon to minimize heat in peak season – it can get horrifyingly hot.

Anyways – it’s the most famous monument in Rome, and an enduring symbol of Italy as a whole, so it makes sense to start Day 2 of our three days in Rome at the Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre.

This incredible structure dates back almost 2000 years, and remains the largest standing amphitheatre in the world.

For centuries, it was here that Rome’s infamous gladiator fights and animal hunts took place, often to crowds as large as 80,000. Today, it can receive up to 30,000 visitors a day, making it one of the most visited monuments in the entire world.

And, thanks to a recent development, the Colosseum’s Underground area is open to visitors in full for the first time in its almost 2000 year history, making a visit to the inside an absolute must-do.

A SPLURGEY OPTION : If you don’t mind paying extra for a truly unique experience, you can also book a tour to visit the Colosseum at night when you’ll have it pretty much all to yourself. Click here to check out prices and reviews.

PRO TIP: It can be difficult to get a good photo of the Colosseum due to its ginormous size, but the perfect vantage point for a shot or two is Via Nicola Salvi, where a perfectly photogenic perch awaits

I’d really recommend grabbing lunch before powering through to the Forum, because that’s a lot of sightseeing to do all at once. 

If however you want to avoid the worst of the heat, then doing the Forum first might be a good idea.

Regardless, since today is super full-on with sightseeing, I’d recommend a quicker lunch to maximize your time. I can wholeheartedly recommend Pane & Vino on Via Ostilia , which has tons of super tasty sandwiches (the Porchetta is amazing!) for fair prices considering their location.

For a sit-down lunch, I’ve had good experiences twice at Trattoria Luzzi (the prices are a very fair for the area and the food really good!), but I haven’t been there in a few years and more recent reviews are less promising.

The Forum & Palatine Hill

Alright, let’s power through now to The Roman Forum.

It may be hard to imagine, but this giant expanse of ruins was once the epicenter of commercial and government activity in Ancient Rome. 

This multi-purpose space would have been used for countless aspects of daily life, from elections and social gatherings to religious ceremonies and criminal trials. 

In other words, you are staring directly at the heart of Ancient Rome… or what remains of it, anyway.

To be honest, I find the Forum and Palatine Hill a little bit difficult to enjoy without a guide (or a guidebook) mainly because you don’t have any context as to what you are looking at.

I would highly recommend booking a tour guide for this portion of your three days in Rome itinerary, or at the very least find a free guide online that will teach you more about the sites’ history.

While in the Forum, you can walk right up to Palatine Hill, which yields wonderful views. Many consider this hill to be the birthplace of Rome, since according to Roman legend, it was here that the city’s founders Remus & Romulus were found & saved by a she-wolf (it’s a long story).

For centuries, Palatine Hill was one of the swankiest neighbourhoods in Rome, beloved by emperors and the city’s elite. Sadly, the few ruins that remain make it hard to imagine how glamorous it would have all looked in its hey day, but the views are fantastic.

Exploring the monuments of Ancient Rome is a LOT, and (particularly when the weather is hot), it can take a lot out of you.

Before we soldier on to our next stop, I’d recommend stopping somewhere for a refreshing gelato or drink. You deserve a treat after filling your brain with all that history! 

When you’re ready, let’s head to our next stop: the Circus Maximus, one of the world’s first large-scale sporting arenas.

This is where Rome’s famous chariot races would have taken place back in the day, along with plays, gladiator fights, and other athletic displays.

It may be hard to imagine now, but back in its hey day, the Circus would have been able to host over 150,000 spectators. Today, only a few ruins here and there allow you to imagine its grand past, although a new VR experience at the site is hoping to help!

Because so little remains of the Circus, I wouldn’t necessarily class this as a must see in Rome, but it’s a nice stop en route to some beautiful viewpoints, as you’ll soon see.

Moving onto our next stop – let’s go see the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin.

This is an 8th century church that is home to a legendary lie detector, Rome’s tallest medieval belfry, and the literal heart of Saint Valentine.

The Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth) is a famous marble mask that (according to legend) bites off the hands of liars. It first made its way into popular culture through an appearance in Roman Holiday, and has been a check off every tourist’s bucket list ever since. 

Sure it’s little more than a cheesy photo opp, but it’s a fun one, especially if you want to watch your travel partners sweat a little… before promptly bringing them over to see the flower crowned skull said to belong to St Valentine himself. 

Il Buco della Serratura dell’Ordine di Malta (AKA the Roman Keyhole)

Nearby, you’ll also find another of Rome’s most beloved photo opps – Il Buco della Serratura dell’Ordine di Malta , known more popularly as Rome’s Keyhole.

This famous keyhole can be found at the entrance of the Villa del Priorato di Malta (the Villa of the Priory of the Knights of Malta). 

Its claim to fame is the unique view of St Peter’s Basilica that you can access through the keyhole, which is perfectly framed by hedges to create a surreal and dreamy postcard view.

While waiting in line to look through a keyhole does indeed make you feel like an irreprehensibly cheesy tourist, the perspective is indeed very cool, and well worth a quick peek…

Sunset: Giardino degli Aranci 

Ahh, with all that sightseeing done, now it’s time to relax and enjoy some amazing views. 

The Giardino degli Aranci , also known by its official name, Parco Savello, is a leafy garden on Aventine Hill that is lined with its namesake orange trees, offering some much-needed relief from the sun in peak season. 

The garden’s current design by Raffaele De Vico dates back to only 1932, when the scenic viewpoint/terrace was installed to give visitors a better view over the city. 

And what a view it is! 

This is definitely one of the prettiest panoramic vantage points you can enjoy in the city, with an ultra-romantic atmosphere too. This is a great place to watch sunset before enjoying some well-deserved dinner.

From Giardino degli Aranci, you’re close to both Trastavere and Testaccio, two neighbourhoods filled with a wonderful choice of restaurants.

If you’ve followed this three days in Rome itinerary closely, you’ll have already enjoyed the wonders of Trastavere last night, so consider spending your evening in Testaccio, known as Rome’s ultimate foodie neighbourhood.

Overwhelmed by the choices? I recommend reading some local Roman food blogs like Testaccina for stellar food recommendations.

Day 3 – Vatican City & Castel Sant Angelo

For the final day in our three day Rome itinerary, we are visiting the Vatican, Castel Sant Angelo, Piazza del Popolo and Villa Borghese. Nope, no rest for the wicked. Let’s get moving!

NOTE: Make sure to check the Vatican website to ensure that your visit won’t overlap with a Papal Audience, unless you are wanting to attend one. Otherwise, this will mean huge crowds which is not ideal.

Breakfast: Osteria Café del Monti

Vatican City is not only the smallest country in the world, it’s also one of the most popular sights in Rome, which means tourists and tourist traps galore.

Of course, to conquer this, we need coffee… and to wake up early! 

There are a lot of bad cafés and restaurants near the Vatican, so give them a miss and head to Osteria Café del Monti , which has fair bar prices and really tasty pastries.

Consumed at the bar, our cappuccinos and pastries were only 1.50 each, a total bargain for its central location near the Vatican (where you’ll find many foot spots swarming with negative reviews of high prices and scams).

Again, remember that you will be charged double for sit-down service, so treat this as a quick breakfast stop, slurp your coffee at the bar and get back to sightseeing.

Visit St Peter’s and Climb Up the Dome

Arriving early to St Peter’s is key to avoiding the huge crowds that arrive here en masse no matter the season.

After all, this is the largest church in the world, and among the most beautiful. In fact, we can almost look at St Peter’s as a collaborative effort spanning over a century from some of the most famous names in art, from the original architect Donato Bramante to Raphael, Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Today, stepping into St Peter’s Basilica is a truly breathtaking experience, with its monumental interiors made of marble, bronze, and gilding as far as the eye can see. 

In fact, turn immediately right and you’ll see Michelangelo’s Pietà, considered one of the most spectacular sculptures ever carved… although tucked behind bulletproof glass now, after a crazed Hungarian geologist hammered at it back in 1972 .

Of course, the dome of the Basilica is also considered to be the largest dome of its kind in the world, so if you have the time and stamina, I highly recommend the climb (or the elevator ride + climb if you prefer). It’s not possible to book this in advance, so you can just make your choice the day-of.

As I mention in my Rome travel tips post, the ideal way to visit St Peter’s is the following: 

• Enter the cathedral, have a quick look around to get a feel of the grandeur of it
• Head down to the papal tombs, and the exit will take you back outside, conveniently where the ticket office is for the climb up the basilica dome
• Climb up the tower (time your visit for the hour mark to hear the bells ringing across Rome!), enjoy the views from above 
• Climb back down (the exit will actually bring you back into St Peter’s) and finish your explorations 

Send a postcard from the Vatican Post Office

After experiencing the grandeur of St Peter’s Basilica, it’s time to head back out to St Peter’s Square.

If you want to, the Vatican Post Office is strategically placed right by the exit, giving you the unique opportunity of buying/sending a postcard from the world’s smallest country. 

Is it a little cheesy? Maybe… it’s definitely a cheap and memorable souvenir.

TIP: Bring a pen for your visit – they charge 1.50 for their cheapest pens (no joke!) and sometimes they even sell out.

Explore some of the interesting secrets of St Peter’s Square

If you haven’t had your fill of Vatican City yet, I’d like to point you towards some often overlooked parts of St Peter’s Square that are worth checking out.

First off, if you head close to the right side screen in the square, you may see a plain marble plaque embedded in the dark cobblestones.

This plaque is engraved with the coat of arms of Pope John Paul II, who survived an assassination attempt on this very spot back in 1981.

And from interesting assassination monuments to interesting architecture, make sure you check out the most unique perspective of the colonnades that St Peter’s Square has to offer.

These two colonnades run 4 columns deep, and were expertly designed by Bernini himself to resemble welcoming arms outstretched for an embrace. But while countless visitors pass through the colonnades every day, many fail to appreciate the coolest vantage point of these columns.

So, don’t make that mistake! When in St Peter’s Square, look for the two iron circles on the ground (halfway between the central Obelisk and the fountain on each side) and look forward.

Those columns that run 4 rows deep will now align perfectly, creating the illusion that there’s only a single row of columns. Pretty wild!

Lunch: Bonci Pizzarium

Okay, after all that sightseeing, you deserve a good feed. 

Pizza is an Italian superfood beloved the world over, but if you want to try a Roman style pizza, then Bonci Pizzarium is a great place to visit for Pizza al Taglio, a Roman style of pizza that is served in rectangular slices and sold by weight.

The pizzas here are beautiful and the toppings are unique, plus the entire experience is a little different since you pay by weight and indicate how big you want your slice to be before watching them snip away at it with scissors.

The downsides though are…

• The pizza is more expensive than you’d find elsewhere in the city
• The toppings can be pretty creative, so you might chance upon one you don’t like
• There can be long line-ups and crowds
• There’s nowhere to actually eat the pizza on-site (no tables)

So, if you’re looking for more of a laid back and relaxing lunch, then I have another recommendation – Borgo 36, only a 5 minute walk from St Peter’s Square. The food here is unpretentious, fairly priced, and delicious! 

Optional: Vatican Museums

After lunch, you might consider visiting the Vatican Museums. I personally would mark this as a very optional visit, and here’s why.

I may get some flack for this, but I don’t think the Vatican Museums are necessarily a must-do when you’re visiting Rome, especially if you’re trying to make the most of Rome in 3 days.

I get it: it feels like one of those things you MUST do because everyone says it is (akin to the Louvre in Paris ), but I’ve visited twice and am still pretty lukewarm about it, because…

Firstly, it can be SO crowded with large tour groups that you can barely move. Yes the architecture and artwork are fantastic, but the crowds can really take away from the experience.

Secondly, the Sistine Chapel (arguably the museum’s most famous attraction) is very dimly lit, and the atmosphere is incredibly bizarre. 

Not only is it crowded in there, guards inside demand utter silence yet ironically have to “SHUSH” tourists super loudly every 5 seconds. Photography is also prohibited, although everybody and their mom’s cousin will still try to sneak a blurry photo. 

All in all, yes the frescoes are magnificent, but if you’ve seen them before thanks to infinite references in pop culture, seeing them in real life doesn’t really blow you away.

That’s my personal experience anyway.

If you do still want to visit though, here are some tips I can offer:

• Time your visit for the last entry time. Going before it closes is usually less crowded than the mornings as most tours have left by then
• Book a private after hours tour. This is a VERY pricey option but well worth it if you want the ultimate Vatican Museum experience – this tour takes place only once a week (so you must prebook) but allows you to experience the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel with literally no other tourists.
• Book this early morning tour, which gives you entry to the Sistine Chapel before it opens. The downside is you’ll be touring the museums once it’s open to the public, so you won’t be protected from those crowds, but if the Sistine Chapel is your #1 priority, this could be a good middle ground option.

Alright, it’s time to say goodbye to the Vatican and move on to our next stop: Castel St’Angelo.

NOTE : If you can time your visit with sunset (easier in winter months), then absolutely do. The views at this time are spectacular.

The Castel Sant’Angelo is a really special Roman attraction because of its colourful history. Few monuments in Rome have evolved with the city’s history and power struggles as much as this one, which has been around since the 2nd century.

Originally built as a mausoleum for Emperor Hadrian, it was later converted into a castle by the Popes, who from the 14th century onwards began to add their own little flourishes like chapels and statues to glam up the place to their liking.

Luckily they got a lot of use out of it – not only has Castel Sant’Angelo been a fortress and safe haven, it has also been used as a prison, and more recently, even a film set, where it starred as a key location in Angels & Demons and Eat, Pray, Love.

There aren’t many attractions in Rome that quite capture the city’s evolution from the Ancient Roman Empire  to its present day pop culture stardom, so this Castel is definitely worth a visit.

Piazza del Popolo

Our next stop is a 20ish minute walk from Castel Sant’Angelo to Piazza del Popolo, or (much quicker) a quick 7 minute taxi ride. 

TIP: If you are ever getting a taxi in Rome, I recommend ordering one through an app like FREE NOW to avoid getting scammed. 

Translated as “The People’s Square”, Piazza del Popolo is considered one of Rome’s most important (and aesthetically pleasing) squares, housing a number of attractions including the Leonardo da Vinci Museum, the twin churches of Santa Maria in Montesanto and Santa Maria dei Miracoli, and the Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo. 

Where you’re standing now is actually the far northern end of the Aurelian Walls, ancient defensive walls from the 3rd century that still (to this day) serve an important purpose – they use them as a marker for deciding taxi fares from the airport, with any destination within the walls qualifying for a single flat rate.

In fact, the Porta del Popolo (the monumental gate at this end of the walls) served for centuries as a popular entry point for visitors. They also used to love this square for public executions, but that’s another story for another time.

Enjoy Villa Borghese

From Piazza del Popolo, a short walk up some stairs will bring you to Villa Borghese, one of Rome’s prettiest and largest public parks, home to a number of villas and museums, including the Galleria Borghese, one of Rome’s most famous art galleries.

Since we’re nearing the end of our three days in Rome, I wanted to leave this last stop as fairly open-ended and relaxing. 

There is a lot to do in Villa Borghese – I can recommend renting a rowboat at the little lake by the Temple of Asclepius – it’s 4 euros per person for twenty minutes (which is more than enough to enjoy a quick paddle around the lake as it’s really small).

This is a really lovely and cheap activity that you’ll remember for years to come.

Alternatively, if you’re big into museums, you can visit the Galleria Borghese.

As one of the more famous attractions in the city, I can recommend visiting just before their last admission time – this way it’s less likely to be heaving with crowds as most groups will have left by then, although they do control the number of visitors here so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

OPTIONAL: From the Galleria Borghese, it’s only 15 min on foot to one of the most unique neighbourhoods in Rome – Quartiere Coppedè, which is peppered with spectacular art nouveau buildings that create a sort of fantasy dreamscape unlike anywhere else in Rome.

Sunset at Terrazza del Pincio/Belvedere Terrace

Alright, now are you ready for a true showstopper?

To cap off this jam-packed Rome in 3 days itinerary, let’s finish off with a sunset at the Terrazza del Pincio, widely regarded as one of the most amazing places in Rome to enjoy sunset… all the better if you bring yourself a bottle of wine!

If you aren’t completely exhausted, I think booking a night tour of Rome (whether by E-Bike like this one or Golf Cart like this one ) would be a wonderful way to finish off the trip, especially since you might have missed seeing many of these monuments at night. 

Otherwise, head straight to dinner, and treat yourself a little for your final night in Rome! 

Or, maybe get the best of both worlds and enjoy a final cooking class like this one where you make your own dinner (and take home some treasured secrets of Roman pasta and tiramisu)… no matter how you choose to celebrate your final evening in Rome, make sure it’s special!

Extra Tips if You Have More Than 3 Days in Rome

The 3 day itinerary for Rome I created above covers most of your bases in terms of the must sees, but if you have additional time to play with, here are some recommendations.

Book a unique experience

Sightseeing non-stop is a great way to enjoy your three days in Rome, but what would make it even better (for those with additional time) is booking an unforgettable experience.

I promise this is the perfect way to round out your trip, whether you’re simply having a nice splurgey dinner, or doing something more hands-on like a cooking class.

Here are some additional ideas for your Rome itinerary:

• A Vespa tour like this one
• A street food tour like this one
• A pasta and tiramisu making class like this one

Explore some of the cool gems around Termini Station

Rome is such a historic city that the 3 day itinerary above barely scrapes the surface in terms of all the cool sights you can find.

Particularly around the Rome Termini Station, you’ll actually find a few interesting sights that are bit more off the typical tourist path, like:

• Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri: A church designed by Michaelangelo in old bath house ruins with a cool Meridian Line
• Fontana dell’Acqua Felice: A unique fountain with a giant Moses statue
• Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria: Home to the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, possibly the most famous of Bernini’s sculptures
• Quattro Fontane: An intersection with four late Rennaissance fountains perched elegantly on each corner
• Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli: A church home to the chains said to have held St Peter prisoner in Jerusalem, and Michelangelo’s famous Moses statue

Take a day trip to Tivoli 

If you have additional days in Rome, I can highly recommend a day trip to Tivoli, which is only 33km away. The gardens at Villa d’Este are truly some of the most beautiful gardens I’ve seen in my entire life.

If you don’t have a car, this is a day trip I recommend doing with a guided tour, because getting between villas is a bit cumbersome with public transport. Here is an affordable option that includes lunch.

Take a day trip to Pompeii 

While this is a much lengthier day trip, it’s a must-do for history lovers. After all, how often do you get to ‘time travel’ back to the year 79AD?

This is another experience I recommend booking with a tour guide, because context is SO important with Pompeii.

Here is an option from Rome with 1000+ positive reviews.

Explore some of Rome’s other less famous neighbourhoods

Lastly, while Rome is a great city for tourists, I’ve been told by local birdies that it’s also a wonderful place to live.

So, if you have more than three days in Rome, make sure you pencil in some time to discover the more local side of Rome by exploring neighbourhoods beyond the touristy classics like the Centro Storico and Trastavere.

I’ve heard wonderful things about Testaccio in particular, if you love food as much as I do. 

I hope this Rome in 3 Days Itinerary was Helpful!

Let me know in the comments if you have any more questions, or suggestions for my next trip.

My Go-To Travel Favourites:

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📷 Sony A7IV: My (amazing) camera

✈️ Google Flights : For finding flight deals

🌎 WorldNomads: For travel insurance

🎉 GetYourGuide: For booking activities

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This 3 day itinerary looks like a week of sightseeing, taking notes already of all the places I can go. Thank you.

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Search Discover the World Education

20th century history trip to rome italy.

4 Days from £540pp

Based on 40 students travelling with 4 teachers (free places)

All around the vibrant city of Rome, there is still evidence of its turbulent past with the effects of the rise and fall of Mussolini and the Fascist party imprinted on the city.

History students can develop their understanding of remarkable eras throughout Italy’s history with stops at Colosseo Quadrato, Circeo National Park, the Museum of the Liberation of Rome, and much more. As you explore Rome, you will visit key locations lifted straight from the pages of your textbooks to bring learning to life.

Below is an example itinerary showing what your visit to Rome could include. We also provide a fully bespoke service, and our internal Travel Specialists will help you design the perfect trip unique to your school.

What's included

• Return flights to Rome from Gatwick
• Hold luggage for all passengers
• 3 nights' accommodation
• Half board basis (breakfast and evening meals)
• Guide and/or tour assistant where specified
• All activities mentioned in the itinerary
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Free time in Rome

Upon arriving in Rome you will immediately get your first taste of the architecture and vibrant mix of culture that makes Rome the iconic urban metropolis it is known for being. You will have free time to get to know the city and perhaps see some of the iconic key sites of Rome.

After some time exploring the city, you will get your first taste of that tasty Italian cuisine before a good night’s sleep ready for your first full day in Rome.

Mussolini‘s fascist vision

Day 2 begins in the EUR district, which is renowned for Fascist-era architecture. This area was initially dreamt up by Mussolini in the 1930s to celebrate 20 years of fascism by opening a grand new city centre. Now, 20th-century history and modern Roman life perfectly combine as alongside the buildings and statues of Mussolini’s imagination and artwork honouring the fascists even after their fall, is a range of high-end restaurants, the headquarters of Italian fashion house Fendi and even a filming location for some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.

One of the star attractions of the district is the Colosseo Quadrato or Square Colosseum. Students will be in awe of this modern building, which is a masterpiece of rationalist architecture with its rows of 216 arches. The building was completed in 1943, just before the fall of the fascist party. For most of its history, the building stood unoccupied. Today, the building is the headquarters of Fendi and regularly hosts contemporary art exhibitions.

Next, you will visit Foro Italico, the renowned sports complex. Built between 1928 and 1938 as the Foro Mussolini (which means Mussolini’s Forum), was intended to be the jewel in fascist Italy’s bid to host the Summer Olympic Games of 1940 in Rome. This vision wouldn’t be carried out until 1960 when Rome did host the Olympics. Nowadays Foro Italico has not lost any of its draw, as it now hosts the Italian Open and Italy national rugby union team.

Here, students will also find Mussolini’s Obelisk. This huge marble structure is not only monumental for its height and weight, but it is also the only public commemoration of Mussolini, as when after the Second World War, all memorabilia of Mussolini was removed, it was impossible to delete the writings on the 36M high memorial.

The final stop of the EUR District, is another icon of the Fascist era, the Basilica of St Peter & Paul. Created for the World Exhibition (that never happened), the building started in 1939, but quickly halted because of the war and was not completed until 1955 and became a parish church three years later.

After a busy day, immersing yourself in the Fascist vision of the EUR District, you will have a chance to enjoy some delicious Italian cuisine!

Circeo National Park

Founded in 1934, Circeo National Park was established by order of Mussolini, to preserve the last area of Pontine Marshes which were being reclaimed during this period. Led by the fascist government, the marshlands were drained and cleared to settle hundreds of families.

Students will learn all about the reclaiming of the marshlands in the Piana delle Orme land reclamation and the agriculture museum in the park. At the museum, the recreation of the building and vehicles set the scene and help to immerse students in their learnings.

One of the outcomes of this marshland being drained was that agriculture now thrives in the area. You will see this first hand at the Casearia Bianca buffalo dairy farm and vineyard tour where you will stop for lunch.

Next, students will get a chance to explore the sandy dunes of the Circeo Beaches, before heading to the coastal town of Sabaudia, a live example of one of the towns built on the reclaimed marshland, just an hour and a half south of Rome. The town features plenty of fascist architecture for students to explore.

It is time for your last taste of a beautiful Italian dinner ahead of your final day in Rome.

Museum of the Liberation of Rome

After a few days of getting to really understand the fascist vision, it is time to see what came next by visiting the Museum of the Liberation of Rome.

That said, the building the museum stands in is also steeped in history. Previously home to the German Embassy’s Cultural Office, the German link does not stop there. In the first half of 1944, the SS used the building to torture members of the Italian Resistance. On 4 June 1944, the day of the Liberation of Rome, the population entered the building and freed the prisoners who remained.

Now, the museum remembers and educates on, not only the turbulent history of the building itself but also the second world war, fascist rule and the effect on the Roman people.

Bid farewell to Rome as you are transferred for your flight home.

Introducing Italy’s ‘Big Three’ Volcanoes…

Italy is one of the most tectonically active areas in Europe and home to world famous volcanoes that have impacted its people, shaped the landscape, influenced economic activities and increased our understanding of volcanoes.

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When in Rome: a new era for the city's ancient sites

A walk through the neighbourhoods of Palatino and Campitelli throws up examples of the innovative archaeology taking place city-wide — an approach that’s helping to weave threads from the Eternal City’s ancient past into modern-day life.

I’m used to looking down when I’m at the Colosseum , but not today. Thanks to a new itinerary allowing access to its subterranean chambers, I’m looking up from the underground spaces where gladiators and wild beasts waited before entering the stadium. Walking through dark corridors, you can feel the horror and the drama that once unfurled here: the terror of the animals, the adrenaline of the gladiators about to fight for their lives, the roar of the crowds. Gazing up through the lift shafts at the seating above, suddenly the violence feels real.  

Two millennia since its heyday, the Roman Empire is constantly throwing up new surprises. The Domus Aurea, Nero’s former palace, opens new rooms as and when they’re excavated, and digs at the Circus Maximus have unearthed underground shops. In 2019, the Domus Transitoria — Nero’s other home, on the Palatine Hill — opened to the public.

It’s not just the city’s big-name attractions revealing fresh surprises, either. Earlier this summer, it became possible for the first time in centuries to walk the Aurelian Walls, built in the third century and expanded in AD 401. Seemingly impervious to attack, the fortifications were destroyed by 19th-century Romans intent on urban expansion, reducing much of the walls to fragments.  

“Lots of cities have walls, but we have the Forum and Colosseum in Rome, so people think ‘walls — meh’”, says archaeological curator Antonella Gallitto. We’re walking a newly opened stretch of the Aurelian Walls at the top of Via Veneto. As we stroll — elegant palazzos one side, the tall pines of the Borghese Gardens the other, she tells stories of the walls: how they saved Rome countless times against invasion, how 19th-century artists set up ateliers in the towers, and how 20th-century squatters tried to buy them for housing. The Aurelian Walls are anything but forgettable.

They’re just one among a flurry of new openings this year. In September, the Horti Lamiani — the gardens of emperors Caligula and Claudius — were revealed beneath an office block in Piazza Vittorio. A painstaking excavation has revealed hints of past decadence — ostrich, bear and lion bones — and some of the 90,000 pieces of painted wall have been reconstructed to form a panel depicting a port scene. “It’s a new approach, integrating the past into the modern city,” says director Mirella Serlorenzi. “We’re not taking [the remains] away to a museum. We’re giving the city back its history.”

A similar project has opened over on the Aventine Hill, home to the Roman aristocracy for two thousand years. Digs have revealed an ancient domus (mansion) below a block of flats, but instead of having the remains removed, the owners of the site donated the basement to the city. Twice-monthly tours now showcase this grand, first-century villa.  

But perhaps the year’s biggest opening was the Mausoleum of Augustus , where Rome’s first emperor was buried, along with a number of his successors, including Caligula and Claudius. I meet with Sebastiano La Manna, director of the restoration, to walk around the inner sanctum, in which the emperors were buried. The air sizzles with intrigue. “That’s Tiberius,” he says casually, pointing at a broken slab of marble inscribed with Latin. We also pass the resting place of Augustus’s sister, Octavia Minor, and his prodigy, Marcellus. “It’s emotional,” Sebastiano admits, noticing me well up.  

Guided tours of the site weave the strands of history together. We see elegant turn-of-the-century marble staircases, fascist graffiti and Roman vaulting, as perfect today as it was in 29 BC. The Eternal City is constantly changing, and this year, we’re part of it.  

How to do it: Private tour guide Agnes Crawford offers three-hour bespoke tours from £258, excluding entrance fees.

Published in the November 2021 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK)

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National Gallery of Modern Art

Paul Cezanne, Antonio Canova, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh… Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna is one of the best art museums in Italy.

Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (National Gallery of Modern Art) was created in 1883 to hous e the newly unified Italian state’s contemporary works of art . The gallery was originally located in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni until 1915. The collections were then moved to the Palace of Fine Arts, where works of contemporary and modern Italian art are still on display.

Exhibitions

The museum’s collection includes over 5,000 paintings and sculptures , including works of art dating from the neoclassical period to the abstract works from the 1960s .

The permanent exhibitions, housed in enormous halls, are very interesting and include works of art by renowned artists.

The ground floor is dedicated to the nineteenth century, where visitors can find works by Paul Cezanne, Antonio Canova, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh .

The top floor, on the other hand, is devoted to twentieth century art , including Futurist, Cubist, Dadaist and abstract art movements.

Unlike other contemporary art museums

The Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna offers an impressive collection of Modern Art , with a large number of pieces of art by renowned artists. It is definitely a very interesting museum with a wide range of art movements.  

Viale delle Belle Arti, 131.

Tuesday – Sunday: 8:30am – 7:30pm Monday: closed

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Travel in the Roman World

Dartmouth College

• Published: 07 March 2016
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This article examines Roman travel. It seeks to show how deeply travel was woven into the fabric of the ancient world and how many aspects of the Roman experience relate to it. Rather than pretend to total coverage, this article, which is divided into four sections, offers some ways of thinking about travel and its place in the Roman world, exploring the practice, ideology, and imagination of travel. Moving from a top-down perspective on Roman infrastructure and the role of travel in the practice of Roman power, the article turns to a bottom-up view of the experiences of individuals when traveling, concluding with a survey of the imaginative representation of travel in the literature of the Roman world.

Introduction

I see you know that I arrived in Tusculum on November 14th. Dionysius was there waiting for me. I want to be in Rome on the 18th. I say “want,” but really I have to be there—it’s Milo’s wedding. (Cic. ad Att. 4.13.1 = no. 87 SB; trans. Shackleton Bailey)

So Cicero writes to Atticus in the middle of November 55 BCE, asking for an update on the political situation in the capital. His tongue-in-cheek tone—he has ( cogimur ) to be in town for a wedding—belies both his urgent request for information and the complex network of roads and technologies of travel on which his upcoming trip depends. Neither Cicero’s letter nor his mini-break away from the city are out of place in his correspondence from the mid-50s. On Shackleton Bailey’s dating, twenty-nine letters survive from the years 56 and 55; nearly half were written outside Rome. We learn from those letters that Cicero traveled to Tusculum, Cumae, Napes, Pompeii, and Antium. In other years he ventured even farther afield. When he was reluctantly made governor of Cilicia in 51, he recounted his journey there in a series of plaintive missives to Atticus, griping, for instance, about “waiting for a passage” after being held up for twelve days in Brundisium by an “indisposition” ( ad Att. 5.8.1 = 101 SB; trans. Shackleton Bailey). The only thing worse than waiting for a ship was being a passenger on one; a month later he grumbles from Delos: “Travelling by sea is no light matter, even in July…. You know these Rhodian open ships—nothing makes heavier weather” ( ad Att. 5.12.1 = 105 SB; trans. Shackleton Bailey).

As detailed as Cicero’s correspondence is, it reveals just one individual’s experience of travel in the late Republic. For all the frustrations of his journey to Cilicia or the panic of his flight into exile—narrated in another series of letters from 58 ( ad Att. 3.1–8 = 46–53 SB)—he had much less to complain about than those who died in shipwrecks (e.g., CIL III 1899 = CLE 00826 = ILS 8516 [Blaška Voda; 201–300 CE], CIL XIII 2718 [Autun; second or third century CE]) or in pirate attacks (e.g., AE 1982.512 [La Muela; 71–130 CE]; CIL III 1559 = III 8009 [Slatina; 118–138 CE]). Indeed, Cicero can hardly be said to have lived an average life, even for an elite Roman; nevertheless, his Letters show how deeply travel was woven into the texture of the ancient world and how many aspects of the Roman experience relate to it. Rather than pretend to total coverage of the topic, in this chapter I offer some ways of thinking about travel and its place in the Roman world, exploring the practice, ideology, and imagination of travel from many different directions. Moving from a top-down perspective on Roman infrastructure and the role of travel in the practice of Roman power, I turn to a bottom-up view of the experiences of individuals traveling, concluding with a survey of the imaginative representation of travel in the literature of the Roman world.

Getting Connected: Roman Infrastructure and Roman Connectivity

Cicero might complain about Rhodian ships, but his Letters take for granted the roads, harbors, and organization that make his travels possible. The effect that this infrastructure had on the ability of information, people, and goods to travel through the Roman world might best be described in terms of the concept of “connectivity.” Originating in the fields of graph theory and network analysis, connectivity expresses the relationship between places in terms of the costs and time required to move between them rather than their geographical distance. The wide-spread adoption of the term in the study of the ancient Mediterranean is due in large part to the pioneering work of Horden and Purcell (2000 , 123–72, 562–71; many responses by, e.g., Harris 2005 and Knapp 2008 ; see further Pettegrew 2013 ). Connectivity also informs Walter Scheidel’s and Elijah Meeks’s Stanford ORBIS project ( http://orbis.stanford.edu ), which uses interactive geospatial modeling to plot land, sea, and fluvial routes between major centers in the Mediterranean in terms of the average temporal and monetary costs for each route. By expressing travel as a function of connectivity, the ORBIS model redraws our map of the Roman world and highlights the effects that infrastructure has on shaping its accessibility ( Scheidel 2014 ). Physical infrastructure is just one aspect of a region’s connectivity; in order to be used, it has to be known to and understood by individual travelers. A second aspect of infrastructure is what might be called its “legibility.” This concept, which originates in Urban Studies, applies the metaphor of reading to the experience of navigating a city or, in this case, the world (see, e.g., Lynch 1960 , 2–3). Linking these two approaches to understanding space, I construe connectivity more broadly to include all the intellectual and cultural processes involved in making infrastructure legible and comprehensible to travelers. While such processes of collecting, ordering, mapping, and communicating knowledge to the Roman traveler are harder to capture through mathematical models, such as ORBIS, they are no less important for understanding how the world is connected.

All Roads Lead to Rome, Part I: Physical Infrastructure

Roman connectivity was enabled in the first instance by a highly sophisticated and extensive transport network that consisted of roads as well as maritime and fluvial routes. Roads, which are still visible throughout much of the Roman world, could be traversed on foot; on the backs of horses, donkeys, or camels; and by a variety of vehicles powered by human beings and draught animals ( Chevallier 1976 , 178–81; Bagnall 1985 ; Laurence 1999 , esp. 78–94; Kolb 2000 , 308–32; Adams 2001 ; Matthews 2006 ; Adams 2007 ; Adams 2012 , 229–31; Bekker-Nielsen 2013 ; Owens 2012 ; see also Land Transport, Part 1 and Land Transport, Part 2 ). Built by Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BCE (cf. CIL XI 1827 = ILS 54 [Arezzo; copy of CIL VI 31606 from the Forum Augusti]) the Via Appia, which Statius called the “queen of long roads” ( Silvae 2.2.11), was the first long-distance link in the Roman transportation network. Due to the Roman practice of extramural burial, the Via Appia, like many roads, was lined with tombs; visitors to Rome, for instance, would be greeted first and foremost by its dead (see Coarelli 2014 , 365–400). As Rome’s power grew, so did its road system; Romans either constructed new roads, as they did in many of the western provinces, or improved upon already existing ones, as in the eastern provinces. Roads’ importance to Roman travel lay in their support of Roman troop movements, in making inland territory easily legible and accessible in the wider network of the Roman state, and in enabling economic activity.

Travel by road was assisted by a secondary infrastructure of private hostels and state-sponsored stopping places to house emperors and Roman officials (Lat. mansio ), which developed during the Roman imperial period, gradually replacing the older practice of requisitioning room and board for official travels ( Casson 1974 , 197–218; Mitchell 1976 ; Millar 1977 , 32–33; Adams 2001 , 142–45). Information, goods, and services could also be transported along Roman roads by the cursus publicus , an express imperial messenger service founded by Augustus ( Ramsay 1925 ; Stoffel 1994 ; Kolb 2000 ). Although there is far less archaeological evidence for roads in Egypt, there too land transport played a central role in the movement of people and goods throughout the province. In addition to archaeologically attested routes that connected the Nile Valley to the Western Desert and the Red Sea coast, Colin Adams collects evidence for a wider network of more temporary roads closer to the Nile, long since destroyed by the river’s annual flooding, which ran from the Mediterranean coast to as far as Syene (Western Desert— Darnell 2002 ; cf. Adams 2007 , 30–33; Western Oases ; Red Sea— Sidebotham and Wendrich 2001–2002 ; Gates 2005 ; Adams 2007 , 33–42; Sidebotham 2011 , 125–74; cf. Strabo 17.1.45; Pliny NH 6.33.165; IGR I 1142 = OGIS 701 = SEG 51 2123 [Antinooupolis, modern Sheikh ‘Ibāda; 137 CE]; The Eastern Desert and the Red Sea Ports ; Nile— Adams 2007 , 22–29; cf. P.Oxy. LX 4087, 4088 [first half of the fourth century CE] on way stations in Tacona and Oxyrhynchus).

Roads were by far the costliest means of transporting goods and traveling; according to calculations made by applying the ORBIS model to data from Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices of 301 CE, transportation by wagon cost between five and fifty-two times more than travel by boat for equivalent distances ( Scheidel 2014 , 9–10). Although the Edict has proven notoriously difficult to interpret, Scheidel’s predictions about the extremely high costs of travel by road are broadly consistent with data from early eighteenth-century England, where transport by land was between five and twenty-three times more expensive than that by boat ( Scheidel 2014 , 9–10). According to these calculations, land transport would have been so costly as to be prohibitively expensive for moving many inexpensive, bulky goods, yet archaeological and documentary evidence attests to roads as an important mode of transport in the Roman world. In response to this apparent paradox, Adams (2001 , 2007 , 2012 ) has suggested that travelers and traders could employ alternative strategies that undercut the prices implied by the Edict . For instance, farmers might transport goods (and people) by using their own animals or rent them out less expensively when they were not needed elsewhere. Even these mitigatory strategies had their limitations, however, and they would not be effective for long-distance travel and transport. For these journeys, boats were an indispensible link.

While roads have left the most enduring mark on the archaeological record, maritime and fluvial routes were equally if not more important for the connectivity of the Roman world. Mariners traversed both short coastal journeys and longer sea lanes ( Arnaud 1992 , 2005 ; Sea Transport, Part 1 ). Sea travel was highly seasonal, and it is therefore likely that temporal and monetary costs varied throughout the year (cf. Casson 1995 ; Veg. Mil. 4.39; Cod. Theod. 13.9.3), but despite the variability in speed, cost, and route, maritime travel was on average the most efficient mode of transportation for goods and people available in antiquity, especially over long distances (as calculated by ORBIS “Sea Transport” according to wind speed; for historically reported sailing times, see Ramsay 1904 , 379; Braudel 1995 , 358–63; Casson 1995 , 282–88; Arnaud 2005 , 102; on the cost of maritime transport, see Arnaud 2007 and Scheidel 2013 , who argue that freight charges in Edict on Maximum Prices correlate closely to average sailing time).

At the interface between land and sea was an extensive network of ports and harbors. Roman quays, which usually reached to the shore, were ordinarily backed by large warehouses, most typically a horrea for grain storage. Their basic form has long been well known from Vitruvius ( De arch. 5.12; cf. Cass. Dio 40.11.1–5), as well as from visual depictions, which are especially well represented at Herculaneum and Pompeii. In addition, Roman harbors are an active area of research; an increasing number of these sites have been excavated thanks to advances in underwater archaeology, which has added substantially to our knowledge about the details of their construction (see further the gazetteer of sites in Sea Transport, Part 2 ).

In addition to sea lanes, many larger rivers were also navigable, but there is no comprehensive treatment of fluvial routes in the Roman world (the best overview is by Campbell 2012 , esp. 200–245). In Egypt, where documentary papyri offer a fuller picture of economic activity, the Nile was a particularly important route ( Adams 2001 ; Cooper 2011 ). Contracts cover every detail of the journey, mandating at which harbors the captain could moor (only the safest), the hours during which he could sail (the proper ones, presumably only during the day), and what to do in case of foul weather (see, e.g., P.Hib. II 198 (third century BCE), with Bagnall 1979 ; P.Ross.Georg. II 18 [140 CE]). These fluvial cargo ships also carried passengers: a letter from 7 BCE, for instance, records one Athenodorus’s efforts to secure passage for his sister (BGU XVI 2604). Even if a captain managed to land in the right harbors, sail at the right time, and avoid foul weather and pirates, travel by river was not always smooth sailing. On the Nile, the swift rapids of the cataracts required particular care and navigational skill. Ships had to be offloaded, and their passengers and cargo were transported overland to the east of the river, while the boat was guided down with cables from the shore (cf. Pomp. 1.9.51; Jaritz and Rodziewicz 1993 ; Between Egypt and Meroitic Nubia: The Southern Frontier Region ). Such challenging waters also invited daredevils. According to several sources, some locals took advantage of the swift currents at the first cataract to put on displays of their water rafting prowess (Strabo 17.1.19; Seneca Nat. 4A2.6–7). Visitors were also known to try their hands at the rapids; the Greek intellectual Aelius Aristides, for instance, proudly claimed to have taken part in such extreme watersports (Aristid. Or. 36.47–51 [Egyptian Discourse]).

Elsewhere in the Roman world, the role of the Tiber in transporting bulk goods to Rome, especially grain, is particularly well attested (cf. Strabo 5.2.5; see further Tuck 2013 , 237–44). After the fire of Rome, Nero used grain ships to transport debris away from the city to the marshes of Ostia (Tac. Ann. 15.43). Bridges built over the river presumably restricted the size of vessels that could reach the capital, but large, wide-bodied ships could still travel upriver to Rome, as depicted in a variety of reliefs, including the so-called Tiber sarcophagus and sections of Trajan’s column ( Tuck 2013 , 238). As a result of all this mercantile activity, the river was often thick with smaller boats (Lat. lintres, lembi, lenuculi , and lusoriae ), which helped to guide larger ships and to ferry goods to shore. This activity was such a central feature of Roman life that it was reflected by Propertius, who used the Tiber’s congestion as a metaphor for his love for Cynthia in his first books of poems (1.14.3-4). A century or so later, Pliny the Elder was more direct, calling the river the “merchant of all things produced in the whole world” ( HN 3.54). Together with the Nile, the Tiber attests to the importance of rivers for transporting goods and people in the Roman world.

All Roads Lead to Rome, Part II: Ordering Geographic Knowledge

In order to be properly used, the physical infrastructure for travel in the Roman world had to be made legible to Roman officials, merchants, and private travelers. In this section I examine some of the means through which this legibility was achieved: namely, labeling roads, collecting route itineraries, describing journeys, and making maps. These processes of ordering, collecting, and presenting information in textual or graphic form were at once functional and ideologically charged. Although this chapter’s focus is on the organization of knowledge related to travel, the intellectual and cultural processes involved can be understood as related to the practices of ordering and presenting other categories of knowledge throughout the Roman empire (see König and Whitmarsh 2007 , esp. 3–39; and König, Oikonomopoulou, and Woolf 2013 on libraries).

Roads were regularly marked with milestones (Lat. miliarium ), which recorded the distance from each terminus and the name of the magistrate or emperor who supervised their construction ( Chevallier 1976 , 39–34; Kolb 2004 ; cf. CIL I 2 21 [Pontinia; 253 BCE]). In this way, roads themselves expressed their place in the wider Roman transportation network. At least some roads also displayed longer and more detailed epigraphic itineraries, such as the fragmentary example from Augustodunum listing routes in northern Italy and southern Gaul ( CIL XIII 2681a, b [= ILS 5838], c = CIL XVII 2 490a–c [before 200 CE]; see also Chevallier 1976 , 52–53, and below). These markers served twin functions, simultaneously orienting travelers and expressing space as Roman; the process of building a road and linking it to the road network of the empire represented a significant centralized intervention in the landscape. The ideological function implicit in all milestones takes precedence in the Miliarium Aureum (Golden Milestone), which Augustus set up in the Roman forum in 20 BCE. By listing the principal cities of the empire and the distances to them as measured from the Severan Wall, the monumental mile marker both established the city as the center of the vast imperial road system and commemorated Augustus’s role in overseeing the Roman transporation network (Pliny HN 3.66; Suet. Otho 6.2; Cass. Dio 54.8.4; LTUR 3 [1996], 250–51; Brodersen 1995 , 254–60). In this sense, the Miliarium Aureum can be seen as an expression of the extent of Roman power and the connection between Roman roads and Roman control. Similarly, the Stadiasmus Provinciae Lyciae , a large monumental pillar from Patara, Lycia, dedicated to the emperor Claudius in 45/46 CE, records distances along Lycian roads ( SEG 44 1205 = SEG 60 1550; first publication: Şahın 1994 ; editio princeps : Işık, İşkan, and Çevik 1998/1999 ). The Stadiasmus , which was originally topped by an architrave and probably an imperial statue, provides a further link between the measurement of the Roman world and ideological expressions of Roman power and administration. Given that the Stadiamus was completed only a few years after the annexation of Lycia in 43 CE, it is likely that it did not reflect Roman improvements to the road network in Lycia, but rather that it reappropriated Lycian roads as Roman ones. Both the Stadiasmus and the Golden Milestone, therefore, serve an ideological function of expressing imperial control through infrastructures of knowledge, even if they only functioned as signposts in “a very extended sense” ( Jones 2001 , 168; see further Lebreton 2010 , esp. 67–76).

In addition to epigraphic routes, ancient geographic knowledge was also expressed through the rich tradition of textual itineraries (see Elter 1908 ; Kubitschek 1916 ; Dilke 1985 , 112–29; Elsner 2001 ; Salway 2001 , 2012 ). These texts make few pretenses to literature—they are usually little more than lists of places and the distances between them, although sometimes they added more colorful material directed at the tourist, pilgrim, or merchant—but they represent one way of making Rome’s network of land and sea routes legible and functional for their readers (thus Veg. Mil. 3.6 recommends using interaria for traveling; see further Adams 2001 ; Brodersen 2001 ). Some, such as the Itinerarium Burdigalense (see Elsner 2001 ), recorded actual routes; others are almost certainly compilations, such as the third-century CE Antonine Itineraries , which begin with the Pillars of Hercules and continue counterclockwise around the Roman empire. The sources from which they were compiled are unknown, but they may derive from epigraphic itineraries, such as the Augustodunum fragment discussed above. As functional as these texts seem, they also express a viewpoint about the world, its connections, and its center(s). In his analysis of the Itinerarium Burdigalense , for instance, Jaś Elsner shows that it was “the first Roman Christian text to present Jerusalem as the centre of the world” (2001, 195). The recognition that itineraries reflect ideologies is particularly significant because of their wide influence on historical and geographic works, such as Strabo’s Geography and Pliny’s Natural History (see Clarke 1999 , 197–210); larger monumental representations of space, such as the so-called Map of Agrippa; and more personal objects, such as the Dura Europos shield, a third-century CE parchment fragment, which graphically represents cities on the coast of the Black Sea and their distances ( Cumont 1925 , 1–15, 1926 , 323–37; Dilke 1985 , 121–23). Itineraries and their ideologies lay at the heart of Roman conceptualizations of their world.

Itineraries are only capable of encoding a single journey at a time. Maps, which graphically represent physical geography and routes in a two-dimensional space, have a greater density of information, and a single map could, in principle, express every possible path through the Roman world. Strict cartographic constructionists, such as Brodersen (1995 , 2001 ), take a consistent concept of scale as a key element of mapping, and they emphasize the differences between modern maps and Greek and Roman representations of geographical space. If we allow for a slightly broader definition of a map, which places more emphasis on perspective than on adherence to a consistent scale, however, it is possible to identify at least two distinct Roman cartographic genres: monumental maps, whose function is closely linked with their context, and smaller maps, usually on papyrus. Like itineraries, even these apparently very functional objects express strong views about the shape of the world and the meaning of travel through it.

Although there is evidence for several monumental maps in the Roman world (see Talbert 2012 ), only two survive, and both are fragmentary: the Forma Urbis Romae , an early third-century CE marble plan of the city of Rome, originally displayed in the Temple of Peace (extant fragments available in an online edition: http://formaurbis.stanford.edu ), and the cadastral plan of Roman centuriation, which was executed in 77 CE in Arausio (modern Orange) under the auspices of Vespasian (edict of Vespasian: AE 1952.44 = AE 1963.197 = AE 1999.1023; see further Piganiol 1962 ; Dilke 1973 ; Jung 2009 ). While the cadastral plan of Arausio imposes Roman order on territory appropriated by the state, it seems unlikely that the Forma Urbis Romae served a similarly practical purpose. In its original context, it was mounted more than four meters above the ground on an interior wall of the Temple of Peace; it would have been impossible for a viewer to get close enough to appreciate its detailed depiction of the layout of the city of Rome ( Trimble 2007 , 369–70). Even though much of it would have been illegible to an ancient viewer, the marble plan served an important ideological purpose by monumentalizing the meticulously ordered cartographic knowledge that it represented (see further Trimble 2007 ). If the connection between cartographic representation and state control is implicit in the Orange Cadasters and the Forma Urbis Romae , both of which depict space from the top-down perspective of Roman power (see further Nicolet 1991 , 95–122; Laurence 1998 ), it appears to have been explicit in another monument to imperial space, which does not survive, Agrippa’s “map” of the world. According to Pliny the Elder, Agrippa commissioned a “representation of the whole world for the city to look upon” ( HN 3.17) in the Porticus Vipsania, which Augustus completed after Agrippa’s death in 12 BCE (Plin. HN 3.17; Cass. Dio 55.8.3–4; Arnaud 2007–2008 ; Talbert 2010 , 136–37, 2012; see further GLM , 1–8 for testimony and LTUR 4 [1999], 151–53 on the Porticus Vipsania). The details of the map remain murky, but it is clear that whether it was a graphical representation of the world or a monumental inscription, like Augustus’s own Res Gestae , it connected the traversibility of the Roman empire with the princeps and his power.

These monumental maps were highly localized and tied to specific archaeological contexts; neither could have aided the traveler on the road. A second genre of maps, which either survive on papyrus or are shaped to resemble a papyrus roll, suggests the possibility of more portable maps that contained detailed route information. Two such maps are extant, although both seem too luxurious to have been used as a road atlas. An incomplete map, produced in the first century BCE or CE, appears on the front of the Artemidorus Papyrus, alongside a geographical text and highly skilled sketches of human faces, feet, and hands (MP 3 168.02; editio princeps : Gallazzi, Kramer, and Settis 2008 ; the reordering of the fragments first proposed by Nisbet 2009 and supported by D’Alessio 2009 , 36–41 has now been accepted by most scholars). A second, the so-called Peutinger Map, a medieval copy of what is likely a fourth-century CE original, survives as eleven parchment segments, which can be joined together to form a long and thin map that closely corresponds to the dimensions of a papyrus roll (cf. Talbert 2010 , 143; average dimensions of papyrus rolls are calculated by Johnson 2004 ). Although the Peutinger’s routes, distances, and place names show a clear dependence on itineraries—in some cases the map retains a place name’s oblique case, as if copying directly from an itinerary—this information was either out of date, inaccurate, or otherwise insufficient to be of practical value to the traveler in the fourth century ( Talbert 2010 , 108–17).

While neither of these maps seems likely to have been used to enable travel, both appear to share a set of cartographic conventions for depicting settlements, waterways, and land routes, and both seem to have distorted their dimensions in order to fit within the constraints of their medium (see Gallazzi, Kramer, and Settis 2008 , 275–308). The maps’ shared representational language suggests that there was a genre of cartography on papyrus that potentially could have extended to portable guides for travelers, even though neither the Artemidorus Papyrus nor the Peutinger Map was likely to have been used for this purpose. What, then, were these two maps used for? It is possible that both of these deluxe maps, like the Forma Urbis Romae , represented space and routes purely for intellectual and/or ideological purposes. For instance, Richard Talbert has persuasively argued that the Peutinger map does much more than represent land routes; in particular, he shows that the outlines of the land were drawn before roads, that Rome is positioned to occupy the map’s center, and that the map uses a variable scale that focuses attention on Italy ( Talbert 2010 , 2012 ). All these details suggest that the map’s composition does more than simply graphically represent information from itineraries. Rather, it reflects Romans’ knowledge about the connectedness of their world and how they imagined the shape of their empire.

Travel and Roman Power

In this section I turn from the physical and intellectual infrastructure of the Roman world to show how travel was integral to the construction, maintenance, and regulation of Roman power in both political and economic terms. Rome sat at the notional and, roughly, the geographic center of an enormous empire, which at its height occupied almost the entirety of the oikoumenē (inhabitable world). In both practical and ideological terms, the physical and intellectual infrastructure I have described in the preceding section defined the extent of the Roman world and enabled Rome to exercise centralized control over it: by transforming the landscape of the Mediterranean, it made even the farthest reaches of the empire accessible to agents of the state, to the army, and to individuals for personal and economic purposes; it marked that landscape as Roman through buildings and inscriptions; and by communicating and disseminating such information, it enabled Romans to make use of this infrastructure to move through their world.

If You Build It, They Will Come: Roman Infrastructure and Roman Military and Economic Power

A high proportion of travel in the Roman world can be attributed to either military or commercial interests; the needs of the Roman army and the desire for economic opportunities contributed to motivating and financing the infrastructure on which other forms of travel depended (see further Roman Army and Roman Economy ). The Roman road system, for instance, was essential to the movements of the army, whose maritime activities appear to have been limited to the transportation of supplies ( Roth 1999 , 189–95; see Bremer 2001 on the use of rivers to supply military camps). It is often argued that roads were constructed primarily to support military activities, and that commercial activities were only an indirect benefit ( Schlippschuh 1974 , 87; Kissel 1995 , 54–77; Roth 1999 , 214–17). While this may be an overstatement, it is clear that the construction of roads contributed to Rome’s economic and military hegemony throughout the Mediterranean in several ways ( Laurence 1999 , 11–26). As Ray Laurence’s analysis of the construction of the Via Appia shows, not only did the road serve a strategic function against the Samnites, but as a large public works project, it employed as laborers Roman citizens and their allies ( Lopes Penga 1950 ; Coarelli 1988 , 42; see Humm 1996 and Laurence 1999 , 15–16, on the construction of the Via Appia).

The same infrastructure that enabled the movement of the Roman army also enabled travel for economic purposes. Literary and documentary sources, especially papyri from Egypt; goods recovered from ancient shipwrecks; and the distribution of finds of specialized products such as Italian wine and snails attest to the quantity and variety of merchandise exchanged throughout the Roman world ( Scheidel 2011a ; Wilson 2011a , 2011b , 2012 , 287–88; see Tchernia 1983 , 1986 ; Panella and Tchernia 1994 on Italian wines; Marzano 2011 discusses the winter snail trade in Roman Egypt; traders themselves often formed associations; see P.Mich. 5 245 [47 CE], CIL III 14165 [Beirut; third century CE], Dig. 50.6.5.3–6, discussed by Meijer and van Nijf 1992 , 75–78). The degree to which trade was central to the Roman economy, however, remains a subject of debate ( Scheidel 2012a , 7–10, offers a concise summary). Economic formalists argue that the Roman Empire was governed by a market-based economy that integrated local economies on an empire-wide scale (argued for in detail by Temin 2013 ; Temin 2012 provides an overview; see Erdkamp 2013 and Manning 2014 for important limitations in our evidence for ancient economic activity). Economic substantivists, on the other hand, focus on the role of the state government in price-setting, requisitioning, and distributing goods; in Keith Hopkins’s “tax and trade model,” governmental and elite demands for taxes and rent drove market forces, creating reciprocal flows of taxable resources (1980 , 1995/1996 , 2009 ; Silver 2008 ). While these models differ in the degree to which the wider Roman market and, therefore, trade and infrastructure were important for influencing local prices and production, both models predict significant amounts of commerce, which would entail corresponding travel by merchants (for examples, see Meijer and van Nijf 1992 ).

Private individuals also traveled for education and employment, as the fourth-century CE curriculum vitae of a certain Conon discovered in modern Ayasofya in Eastern Pamphylia attests: he studied Latin and Roman law in Beirut, got his first job in Palestine, then moved to Antioch and later to Nicomedia; he died while abroad in Egypt, and his father retrieved his body ( SEG 26.1456 = 57.2120; Bean and Mitford 1970 , no. 49; see Gilliam 1974 on the date). Conon spent his life on the move; travel had penetrated the conditions and values by which he lived his life.

Slaves represent a final group of individuals whose travel can be attributed to the exercise of Roman economic and political power. It is a sobering fact that they likely represent the largest group of economic travelers. A central principle of slavery is the abnegation of basic elements of human agency, such as freedom of movement. Because many slaves were captured in war or by pirates, the sale of slaves often involved their transport (on the “Roman slave supply,” see Bradley 1994 , 31–56; Schumacher 2001 , 34–43; Scheidel 2005 , 2011b ; see Matthews 1984 on the importation of slaves to Palmyra). When slaves traveled, it was almost always at the behest of their owners (cf. Bradley 2000 , 118). It is very difficult to estimate the ratio of free persons to slaves in the Roman world, but it is safe to say that at many times and in many places in Rome’s history it was a slave society, and that the slave trade was a significant part of the Roman economy ( for an overview of Roman slavery, see Bradley, Freedom and Slavery;   Hopkins 1978 ; Bradley 1994 ; Schumacher 2001 ; Scheidel 2012b ).

Marking Movement: Arrival and Departure Rituals

Travel by officeholders and the emperor himself helped to articulate the contours of Roman power, playing an important role in governing and maintaining a geographically, culturally, and ethnically diverse territory. Because movement by Roman state officials was only experienced by those on the road, profectio (departure) and adventus (arrival) rituals played a central role in making their travel manifest to a wider public. Taken together, these rites constitute a form of Roman spatial religion. Making entrance into and exit from a city at crucially marked moments, they made the populace of each city fellow participants in officials’ movements. Both adventus and profectio rituals were highly choreographed, transactional performances between the governing and the governed. Through ritual practice the conceptual geography of the Roman world was temporarily inverted: the center was invited to imagine travel to the periphery, and the periphery was made into a temporary center. Like many formal characteristics of Roman religious and civic life, rites of arrival and departure had their origins in the Roman republic and were continued in the Roman imperial period, but the use of rituals to demarcate official movement is in fact part of a much wider Mediterranean phenomenon. They were an important feature of Seleucid kingship ( Kosmin 2014 , 142–80) and of their Achaemenid predecessors ( Briant 1988 ; Tuplin 1998 ).

Adventus rituals are best attested for the city of Rome itself, but they were equally significant outside of the capital ( Lehnen 1997 ; see also Brilliant 1963 , 173–77; Koeppel 1969 ; Alföldi 1970 ; Castritius 1971 ; MacCormack 1971 , 17–61, 1972 ; Millar 1977 , 28–30; Vitiello 2000 ; Roddy 2001 ). Like greeting ( apantēsis ) ceremonies for Hellenistic monarchs, Roman adventus rituals consisted of two distinct movements. Dignitaries were first met extramurally by crowds, speeches, and acclamations (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.34.2; Cic. Mur. 68 [L. Murena], Sest. 68 [Cicero], ad Att . 4.1.5 = 73 SB [Cicero]; Livy 5.23.4 [Camillus], 27.50–51 [L. Nero], 45.35.3 [Paulus]; App. BC 1.33 [P. Furius]; Dio 51.19.2 [Augustus]; Suet. Cal. 4, 13 [Caligula]; Tac. Ann. 14.13.2–3 [Nero]; Joseph. BJ 7.68–74 [Vespasian]; see further Pearce 1970 ; Lehnen 1997 , 105–56; Kuhn 2012 , esp. 308 n58). Outside the walls an ordered citizenry presented itself to welcome and be viewed; ancient accounts suggest that the crowds were arranged by age, gender, and social status (cf. Livy 5.23.2; Menander Rhetor fr. 381 [Russell and Wilson]). Cicero boasts, presumably not without hyperbole, that he received an extreme version of this treatment on his return from exile: “Almost all of Italy carried me back on its shoulders” (Cic. Red. sen. 39).

In the second movement, the city gate was opened; once inside, dignitaries could expect to be greeted by a large crowd and a second set of acclamations and festivities (gate— Lehnen 1997 , 167–69; Suet. Nero 25.1; crowds— Lehnen 1997 , 156; Cass. Dio 63.4.1; Pan. Lat. 7[6].8.7; acclamations and festivities— RAC I 1950 s.v. “Akklamation” [Th. Klauser]; Lehnen 1997 , 169; Herod. Hist. 1.7.6, Amm. Marc. 16.10.9; Cass. Dio 63.20.5–6; Hist. Aug. SA 57.5). The city itself was decorated for the occasion: a procession carried branches, usually of laurel and palm; torches; incense; and statues of local gods (laurel and palm— Lehnen 1997 , 121–22; Plin. HN 15.137; Mart. 8.65; Cass. Dio 63.4.2; torches— Alföldi 1970 , 113; Lehnen 1997 , 122–23; Tert. Apol. 35.4; Amm. Marc. 21.10.1; Pan. Lat. 2[12].37.1–4; incense— Lehnen 1997 , 120; Martial 8.15.3; Pan. Lat. 11[3].10.5, 10[2].6.4; Cass. Dio 63.4.3; statues of local gods— MacCormack 1972 , 723; Josephus BJ 7.68–74). If the first movement of the adventus ritual presented a welcoming human presence, the second movement was significant for its spatial dynamics. The city was laid open and presented to its visitors. The arriviste also had a part to play; coinage from the second century CE shows a stereotypical adventus gesture, a raised right hand in a “gesture of benevolent greeting and power” ( Brilliant 1963 , 173, esp. figs. 4.24 [AU of Elagabalus], 4.26 [AR of Gordian III], and 4.28 [AR of Septimius Serverus]). Failure to welcome with sufficient pomp and circumstance might be taken as an offense (Livy 42.1.7).

Implicit in the process of arrival is a complex social, cultural, and religious negotiation between host and visitor; in exchange for his presence, the local community bestows on the visitor honors, and in some cases treats his arrival as the epiphany of a deity. The language of “visiting” ( epidēmia ) and “presence” ( parousia ), frequently used in Greek inscriptions to describe imperial visits, can refer as easily to divinities as monarchs ( epidēmia —e.g., Xen. Eph. 1.2.1, Panamara 176; parousia —e.g., Diod. Sic. 3.66.2, IG IV 2 , 1 122, line 34 [Epidaurus; fourth century BCE]; see further Pelling 1988 , 179; Koenen 1993 , 65; Burkert 2004 , 16; Platt 2011 , 142–43). Mark Antony’s visit to Ephesus in 41 BCE provides a particularly baroque illustration of both the thin line between arrival and epiphany as well as the transactional nature of an adventus ritual. According to Plutarch, the Roman general was met by “women dressed as Bacchants, men and boys dressed like Satyrs and Pans,” who “led the way into the city, which was full of ivy, thyrsus wands, harps, pipes, and flutes” (Plut. Ant. 24.3). Such an adventus could only be for Antony; the Ephesian ceremony, which greeted his arrival as if it were an epiphany of Dionysus, presciently responded to what would become an important feature of Antony’s Dionsyiac self-presentation just a few years later, when in 39/38 BCE he was celebrated in Athens as “The New Divine Dionysus” ( Theos Neos Dionusos; IG II 2 1043 lines 22–23 = SEG 130 [Athens; 38/37 BCE]; cf. Plut. Ant. 33.6–34.1, Cass. Dio 48.39.2, Socrates of Rhodes BNJ 192 F2).

Although literary sources generally present adventus ceremonies as spontaneous displays of affection, documentary sources reveal that extensive preparations were required ( Lehnen 1997 , 105–20). In addition to the cost of the ritual itself, dignitaries had to be fed and housed ( Millar 1977 , 32–35; cf. Philo Leg. 252–53 [Gaius], IGR III 1054 [Hadrian; from Palmyra, 130–131 CE], Cass. Dio 77.9.5–7 [Caracalla]). Avoiding such spontaneous displays could become a badge of honor. In a letter written to Atticus in August of 51 BCE, Cicero boasts about how little he and his retinue cost the people of Cilicia: “I tell you that … except for four beds and a roof no one takes anything—in many places they don’t even take a roof; they usually sleep in a tent” (Cic. ad Att. 5.16.3 = 109 SB; trans. Shackleton Bailey). His care not to burden the locals appears to have taken its toll on his own finances; in a letter written a few days earlier, he confesses that he is spending “a fortune” and that he is considering taking out a loan to cover his expenses (Cic. ad Att. 5.15.2 = 108 SB). Such parsimony was in good company—Suetonius reports that Augustus frequently made his arrivals and departures at night “in order that he not disturb anyone for the sake of their duty [to pay him respect]” (Suet. Aug . 53.2)—and it reflects how a Roman official could use or avoid ritual to shape his own public image.

The valences of adventus differed depending on where the ritual occurred. Outside of Rome, the emperor’s arrival temporarily transformed a city into a capital; embassies from throughout the empire came to visit him ( Millar 1977 , 38–39; IGR IV 1693 [Aezani; 4 CE]; IGR IV 349 [Pergamon; 117 CE]), and according to the Digest , a man barred from living in Rome could not live in any city in which the emperor was residing ( Millar 1977 , 39; Dig . 48.22.18 pr. 1). In addition to raising a city’s prestige, the visit of a Roman dignitary could also confer tangible benefits in the form of gifts. This eugertistic practice seems to have become so well-established by the fourth century that a panegyric for Constantine includes anticipated donations as part of an invitation to visit Autun (Pan. Lat. 7[6].22.3–4; cf. Millar 1977 , 37).

Adventus at Rome worked differently. Understood in terms of Arnold van Gennep’s (1960) tripartite schema for rites of passage, it marked the reincorporation into the capital of the emperor or Roman official and his retinue, as well as the celebration of his return home and his military successes. The Roman triumph may be interpreted as representing a particularly elaborate version of this ritual. Both triumph and adventus helped to make travel and military success visible and comprehensible to an immobile population; according to Livy’s narrative for 167 BCE, Paulus’s voyage up the Tiber to Rome in a ship loaded “with Macedonian spoils” (Livy 45.35.3) was witnessed by crowds lining the riverbanks. Despite such similarities, there are significant differences, not least in that triumphs were formally granted by the Senate and the triumphator was the primary bearer of the costs (see further Beard 2007 , esp. 187–96 on the costs). While highly successful generals could use triumphs to display their largesse and their exotic conquests, Cicero’s unsuccessful campaign for a triumph during the early 40s BCE shows the perils of triumphing on the cheap. One of the obstacles that he faced was the need to divert resources away from his potential triumph to repay a loan he owed to Caesar (cf. ad Att. 7.8.5 = SB 131; December 25 or 26, 50 BCE).

When it came time to leave, departures ( profectiones ) were also marked by ritual. Rites of departure often receive only the barest of mentions in Roman sources, but they performed an important function in publicizing and displaying official travel and military campaigns (see Livy 42.49.1–6 [discussed below] and Herod. 6.4.2; the most comprehensive scholarly treatment is by Lehnen 2001 ; see also Koeppel 1969 ; Rüpke 1990 , esp. 125–51). In one of the fullest extant descriptions of a profectio ritual, Livy describes the departure of the Roman expedition against the Macedonian king Perseus in 171 BCE:

During those days the consul Publius Licinius, after the pronouncement of vows on the Capitol, departed in military dress from the city. This ritual ( res ) was always conducted with great dignity and grandeur, but it especially attracted the citizens’ gaze and attention, when they followed a consul about to face an enemy great and noble in virtue or fortune. Not just concern for their duty, but also a desire for spectacle ( spectaculum ) drew them to see their leader, in whose authority and judgment they entrusted the preservation of the entire republic. They thought about the many contingencies of war, how uncertain the outcome of fortune was … would they soon see him with his victorious army ascending the Capitol to the same gods from whom he set out or would they soon offer this pleasure to their enemies? (Livy 42.49.1)

Livy’s narrative emphasizes the civic participation engendered by the people’s gaze; as they look on the spectacle of the profectio ritual, they contemplate the realities of war and anticipate Licinius’s return (cf. Livy 44.22.17). Andrew Feldherr (1998 , 11) has suggested that the profectio connects past and present, center and periphery, offering “the same vista that Livy’s monumentum provides to the audience who gaze upon it.” In Feldherr’s reading, this ceremonial departure helps Romans to visualize the events on the battlefield far from their city and connects the populace to the expedition as they watch.

While Romans hoped for and expected state officials to return, commemoration of imperial visits was even more important outside of Rome, where they were rarer. An anonymous panegyric for Constantine from 311 CE, for instance, imagines how the citizens of Augustodonum will react to his depature: “When you depart, the community will hold onto you” (Paneg. 5[8].14.4). Joachim Lehnen has plausibly suggested that the immediate context for this comment is Constantine’s restoration of the city (2001, 16), but the language expresses more broadly its aims to commemorate and extend the imperial presence. The process of monumentalizing an imperial visit took many forms. Several communities held festivals commemorating the day on which the emperor entered the city (P.Oxy. 31 2553 [late second or early third century CE], line 11; Didyma 1, 254, lines 9–13 [Didyma; dated to 212 CE or ca. 230 CE]; cf. FD III 4 [1970], no. 307, col. iii [undated]). Others commemorated the emperor’s absence through dating formulae, which expressed the time elapsed from the moment of the imperial “visit” ( epidēmia ) or “presence” ( parousia ), an apparent adaptation of the standard practice of dating by regnal year (cf. Woodhead 1981 , 59–60; Ma 1999 , 53–54 describes the practice of commemorating a Hellenistic monarch’s “absent authority and his having-been-there”). Such dating procedures were highly local—the date of an imperial visit holds most significance for the community in which it occurred—but they also expressed a city’s place and importance in the Roman world more broadly. In both cases, the emperor’s visit becomes a significant moment in the community, encoded into its religious and civic calendar.

“I Was Here”: Pilgrimage, Tourism, and Individual Travel

While rituals of arrival and departure make an immobile community fellow participants in official movements, members of those communities also experienced travel themselves. Travel looks rather different from the perspective of individuals, such as the pair of Roman citizens, in all likelihood soldiers (cf. Bernand 1969 , 101–3), who left one of the few Latin inscriptions in Philae on the South Pylon of the Temple of Isis:

I, Lucius Trebonius Oricula, was here. I, Gaius Numonius Vala, was here in the thirteenth consulship of the emperor Caesar, eight days before the Calends of April. ( I.Philae 147 = ILS 2.2 8758 = CIL III 74; 2 BCE)

Lucius’s and Gaius’s rather superficial engagement with Philae stands in contrast to the deep religious significance that the site held for the numerous pilgrims who left dedications at the temple of Isis in Greek and demotic Egyptian. The contrast between these religious pilgrims and Lucius and Gaius, unlikely forbearers of the genre of narcissistic travel graffiti, raises important questions about the nature of two closely linked categories of travel, tourism and pilgrimage, which can be difficult to distinguish from one another in an ancient context (cf. Dillon 1997 ; Rutherford and Elsner 2005 ; Rutherford 2013 , 12–14; Morris 1992 discusses pilgrimage more broadly). Both types of journey are undertaken by individuals, groups, and community representatives; both focus on visiting and viewing specific sites, objects, and spectacles; and finally, both sets of travelers search for memorable experiences, which are often commemorated in text, inscription, and votive offerings. They differ primarily in degrees of religiosity and intensity of experience: pilgrimage implies religious engagement with the site and an expectation that the journey there will facilitate contact with the divine (although some, such as Scullion 2005 , downplay the difference in religiosity between the two categories). The term pilgrimage often carries with it a series of associations related to Christian tradition, but there are clear differences between pagan and Christian religious travel, even if there are also points of overlap (see Elsner and Rutherford 2005 : esp. 3). For Christians, pilgrimage carried with it a distinct set of conventions and expectations, that need not apply to the pagan case: namely that the journey was “always performed by an individual, often as a penance, sometimes with a deeply spiritual significance” ( Rutherford 2013 : 12; on Christian pilgrimage, see Pilgrimage ).

Further distinctions are made by both modern scholars and ancient sources between individual, personally motivated religious journeys and travel undertaken on behalf of a community. State-sponsored pilgrims were regularly referred to in Greek as theōroi , a term that ancient sources associated with the word for god ( theos ; cf. Lysimachus in BNJ 336 F 9; Harpocration Θ 19 s.v. theōrika = 154–55 Dindorf, Pollux II 55; both are cited and discussed by Rutherford 2013 , 145 n14–16), but may actually be related to the Greek verb for viewing ( theaomai ; see Rutherford 2000 , 136–38, and 2013, 4–6, 144–46, on the meanings and etymology of the term). In Greek and Roman contexts, state-sponsored travel to religious sites and spectacles is well-attested from the sixth century BCE through the third or fourth centuries CE, but there is evidence for forms of pilgrimage in the Mediterranean from at least the second millennium BCE ( Elsner and Rutherford 2005 , 10–11).

The evidence for pilgrimage and tourism is primarily textual, although some material evidence survives, especially from votive offerings ( Rutherford 2013 , 17–34, reviews the sources of evidence for theōria in the Greek and Roman worlds). Pilgrims worshipping Isis, for instance, traveled to shrines in Germany, Italy, Sicily, Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt, recording their travel in inscriptions often adorned with representations of feet, which can be understood as votive offerings or commemorations, or even as expressing a wish for a safe homecoming (these inscriptions are collected and analyzed by Takács 2005 ). In addition, several other literary texts of the Roman period register sacred journeys (notably Aelius Aristides’s Sacred Tales and Lucian’s De Dea Syria ; see Galli 2005 ; Lightfoot 2005 ; Petsalis-Diomidis 2005 ). Pausanias’s Tour of Greece is often read as a series of pilgrimage narratives to each of the sacred sites that the author visits (e.g., Elsner 1992 ; Rutherford 2001 ). The yearly journey ( theōria ) to the tomb of Achilles on the west coast of the Troad described in Philostratus’s Heoricus is even more explicitly a pilgrimage ( Rutherford 2009 ; Heroicus 53.4–23); likewise, the discourse of pilgrimage is central to Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana , which describes the sage’s visits to temples, tombs, oracles, and healing sites ( Elsner 1997 ).

Apart from intellectuals for whom sacred travel was part of their identity as sophists, sages, and wise men, pilgrimage was an integral part of the reign of the emperor Hadrian, who spent more than half of his rule on the road, making frequent sacred journeys to significant religious sites, especially in Greece ( Millar 1977 , 36; Holum 1990 ; Rutherford 2001 , 49–50). Having been initiated into the Eleusian mysteries, either as a student or later as Archon of Athens in 112 CE, he made several visits to Eleusis, presumably during his travels to Athens as emperor, in 124, 128, and 131 CE ( Halfmann 1986 , 116–17; Clinton 1989 , 1516–25); he retraced Trajan’s journey to Mount Casius (Jebel al-Akra) on the Syrian coast ( Anthologia Graeca 6.332; Spartianus, Vita Hadriani 14.3); and, finally, he traveled to Troy twice, first in 124 CE (Philostr. Her. 8.1) and again in 132 CE, to visit Ajax’s tomb ( Halfmann 1986 , 199; Philostr. Her. 67–70; see Halfmann 1986 , 188–210 for further examples of Hadrian’s travels during his reign). Troy was a long-standing site of pilgrimage in the ancient world, which had been visited by Xerxes (Hdt 7.43), Alexander the Great (Arr. Anab. 1.11.5–7, Plut. Vit. Alex . 15.7–8), L. Cornelius Scipio (Livy 37.37.1–3), Caesar, (Strabo 13.1.27), and Augustus (Cass. Dio 54.7), among others (see Minchin 2012 ). Through his many pilgrimages, Hadrian reanimated the sacred sites of the Greek past with his presence and codified Greece as a site of religious and cultural memory.

An important aspect of pilgrimage in the Greco-Roman world was the role it played in the performance and formation of the identity of individuals and communities (see esp. Kowalzig 2005 ; Hutton 2005a ; Lightfoot 2005 ; Rutherford 2013 , 217–22). Whereas participation in international festivals, spectacles, and rituals expressed a community’s membership in a larger group (for the significance of athletic festivals for communities’ expressions of their own identities, see van Nijf 2001 ), pilgrims themselves had the opportunity to encounter other people, cities, and religious communities in the course of their travels. Inscriptions throughout the Roman world hint at the potential diversity of languages, cultures, and motivations that travelers might encounter; the cultural interaction promoted by travel; and individuals’ own strategies of self-representation. Many of these aspects of cultural interaction in modern travel are central to the anthropology of tourism (see further Bruner 2005 and Comaroff and Comaroff 2009 , who emphasize the commodification of ethnicity in the tourist trade).

A prime site for studying such cultural interactions is Egypt, a popular destination for tourists and religious pilgrims during the Roman period, whose arid climate has helped to preserve a rich record of their visits ( Hohlwein 1940 ; Foertmeyer 1989 ; Frankfurter 1998 , esp. 166–67, 218–19; Tourism and Pilgrimage). Egypt’s pyramids were included in the canonical list of the seven wonders of the world, codified in the late Hellenistic period, and the Pharus lighthouse was frequently added to subsequent lists ( Brodersen 1992 ; Höcker 2010 ). In addition, travelers visited and often left their marks in the form of graffiti at a range of Egyptian sites, such as the Memnonion at Abydos (originally the mortuary temple of Seti I and subsequently a temple of Osiris, which later housed an oracle of Bes; see Perdrizet and Lefebvre 1919 ; Rutherford 2003 ), the Sphinx at Gaza, on which visitors inscribed poems ( IMEGR 127–28 [first or second century CE], 130 [second or third century CE]; cf. É. Bernand 1983 ), and, most famously, the two colossi of Memnon at Thebes (see Travel and Pilgrimage for a further list of sites). The pair of colossi—in fact two monumental statues of Amenhotep III—were identified by Greek and Roman travelers as depictions of Memnon, the mythological king of Ethiopia. Evocative Latin and Greek graffiti record visitors’ firsthand experience of the mysterious dawn “singing” for which the monument was famous (Strabo 17.1.46; Paus. 1.42.3; Letronne 1833 ; Bernand and Bernand 1960 ; Bowersock 1984 ; Théodoridès 1989 ; see Travel and Pilgrimage ). Through their celebrity, the colossi became sites for literary and cultural interaction. In a cycle of four elegiac poems, which are closely modeled on Sappho, Julia Balbilla, an elite Roman woman of Syrian origin, commemorates Hadrian’s visit in November 130 CE (Memnon 28–31; Bowie 1990 ). Patricia Rosenmeyer shows how the poems balance encomium for the emperor with Balbilla’s own lyric voice and desire for poetic fame ( Rosenmeyer 2008 ). Balbilla’s composition therefore both looks inward, toward recording and commemorating their experience, and also outward, toward subsequent visitors, readers, and poets.

Travel in the Roman Cultural Imaginary

Balbilla’s lyric voice, which inscribes official movements in an individual’s subjective experience, can be read as participating in a wider genre of literature that incorporates travel within its narrative and poetic imagination. Movement—of people, goods, and ideas—was deeply embedded in the lived experience of the Roman world in its infrastructure; ritual practice; and individuals’ journeys as tourists, pilgrims, and economic agents. This final section treats the place of travel in the Roman cultural imaginary, considering how literature represents and responds to the Roman impetus for exploration and how literary texts participate in shaping Roman conceptualizations of the travel, movement, and space of their world. It is impossible to separate the practice of travel from the representation of it, and in a sense this final section presents a false dichotomy between praxis and representation. And yet many Roman texts can give us insight into how people at different places and times conceived of travel and geography. My focus in this section reflects a growing emphasis on reading travel, space, and place in ancient literary texts through the lens of a nexus of critical approaches collectively termed the “spatial turn,” which represent the translation of the methodologies of cultural geography, anthropology, and urban studies to the analysis of literary, artistic, and cultural practice.

The study of narrative has taught readers to be alert to the relationship between a text’s fabula (the underlying sequence of events) and its sujet (the narrative arrangement and presentation of those events), to use two terms that originated in Russian formalism (e.g., Tomaševskij 1965 ) and have been widely applied in the field of narratology (see de Jong 2014 , esp. 5–6). In narrative, the relationship between fabula and sujet is mediated by one or more “focalizers,” whose point of view is either implicitly or explicitly reflected in the way a story is told. When considering texts’ presentation of space and travel, there is a parallel set of distinctions at work: namely, the relationship between movement, real or imagined, and the narrative representation of it. Movement looks very different depending on where the observers stand; the narratology of space provides a framework and vocabulary for describing the contribution of narrative to the presentation and depiction of movement in literature. Two such narrative modes were outlined by Pietro Janni (1984) , who drew on the earlier work on spatial perception and presentation by the psychologist Kurt Lewin (1934) : (1) hodological perspectives, which present movement from the perspective of the traveler, and (2) cartographic perspectives, in which travel is described top-down, from a bird’s-eye-view. Michel Rambaud (1966 , 1974 ) posited a tripartite model of space in Caesar’s works that distinguished among “geographic,” “strategic,” and “tactical” space (see further Riggsby 2006 , 21–45), which I discuss below. Rambaud’s geographic space corresponds roughly to Janni’s cartographic perspective; his categories of strategic and tactical space, however, divide hodological perspectives into the linear progression of, say, columns of soldiers (strategic space) and the surveying gaze (tactical space). These perspectives—either in Janni’s bipartite or Rambaud’s tripartite division—need not be mutually exclusive, and narratives often switch seamlessly between them, but they represent very different narrative and descriptive logics, which cannot simply be scaled up or down to change spatial perspectives.

Hodological Perspectives: The Chronotope of the Road

In his classic essay, “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel,” Mikhail Bakhtin explores the historical development in the novelistic genre of what he calls the chronotope, “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed” (1981, 84). At the conclusion of a sweeping analysis, ranging from the first (Chariton and Petronius) to the sixteenth (Rabelais) centuries CE, he articulates a chronotope of the road, in which “time, as it were, fuses together with space and flows in it (forming the road); … it often happens that all the events of a novel either take place on the road or are concentrated along the road (distributed on both sides of it)” ( Bakhtin 1981 , 244). The chronotope of the road represents a hodological view of travel, that is, a highly restricted narrative perspective, which reflects the perceptions of the traveler without orienting the reader in a broader geographic and cartographic context (cf. Janni 1984 , 79–158, esp. 79–90; Purves 2010 , 145–48; Lightfoot 2014 , 22–26). It is a powerful structuring device in Roman literature. To offer one example of this narrative strategy in action, Horace’s “Journey to Brundisium” (Hor. serm. 1.5; 36/5 BCE) adopts a strict hodological perspective, which seems to model itself on the form and style of an itinerary or travel guide. As Emily Gowers notes, the poem’s ego -narrator is occupied with “peevish, diary-style entries on the minutiae of travel: dyspepsia, nocturnal disturbances, sore eyes, low-level incidents” (2012, 182). Its hodological first-person narration resists translation onto a cartographic perspective: although the poem begins as a journey south along the Via Appia, the narrator somehow finds himself on the Via Minucia (Hor. serm. 1.5.94; cf. Gowers 2012 , 205). Such resistance appears to be part of a larger strategy by which the poem’s tightly focused perspective obscures the larger diplomatic and political implications of the journey, substituting the mundane and personal for the lofty and the civic (cf. Reckford 1999 ); geographic perspective thereby becomes an index for other registers of content. If Horace’s companion in the poem, Heliodorus, is to be identified with the author of the Theamata Italia , as Gowers suggests (2012 , 183), this connection becomes even more explicit. More broadly, Satires 1.5 might be seen as part of a larger genre of Latin travel poetry, including Lucilius’s Iter Siculum , which Porphyrio names as Horace’s model ( ad Sat. 1.5.1), as well as several poems that survive either only as titles or in fragments: Varro’s Menippean satires, such as Marcipor “Varro on the Road,” Periplous “Circumnavigation,” and Sesculixes “Half-Ulysses”; Caesar’s poem Iter (cf. Suet. Jul . 56); Valgius (Morel, FLP 106); Ausonius’s Mosella ; and Rutilius Namatinaus’s De reditu suo siue Iterum Gallicum (as collected by Gowers 2012 , 183–84).

Bakhtin himself connected the chronotope of the road with Roman fiction, namely Petronius’s Satyrica and Apuleius’s Metamorphoses , both of which revel in the first-person restricted perspective of travel. The extant fragments of Petronius’s novel, which was likely composed during the reign of Nero, open with the protagonist Encolpius and his traveling companion Ascyltus lost and going in circles. “Wherever I went,” he says, “I kept coming back to the same place” (6.4). After they each independently get directions from the same old woman, they find that they have been led into a brothel. This episode makes the novel’s restricted hodological perspective part of its joke: they both follow the same directions and end up at the same unsavory place because they cannot imagine their movement cartographically. The chronotope of the road, punctuated by digressions and diversions, organizes the fragments of the Satyrica as we have them: the pair travel throughout Magna Grecia, visiting cities such as Massilia, Croton, and, possibly, Puteoli (if this is the “Greek city” mentioned at 81.3; see further Rose 1962 ). Apuleius’s Metamorphoses , written in the latter half of the second century CE, takes the hodological perspective further; like its Greek models, such as the (Ps.-)Lucianic Onos (second century CE[?]), travel is narrated through the experiences and perspectives of Lucius, a human who has been transformed into an ass. (P.Oxy. 4762 also contains a Greek fragment of an ass novel, but the papyrus, which was copied in the third century CE, postdates the Metamorphoses , even though the text it contains might predate Apuleius’s novel.) Lucius is barred from leaving the road, and because he is treated as an animal, rather than a human, he lacks agency to determine his own movement and direction. Thus narrative form responds to and reflects the protagonist’s restricted movements.

The chronotope of the road is a narrative strategy and organizational principle for other Greek texts written under the Roman empire, such as Achilles Tatius’s novel, Leucippe and Clitophon (second century CE), which departs extremely rarely from its highly restricted, first-person narrative perspective. (Perhaps the most striking departure comes in an ethnographical description of the habits and lifestyles of Egyptian outlaws living in the Nile Delta 4.12.) In each of these texts, the experience of reading mimics that of the traveler (cf. de Temmerman 2012 , 521–22). The road is also a central organizing principle in two quasi-technical genres of Roman-era prose: the itinerary and the periplous (circumnavigation). Pausanias’s Tour of Greece (third quarter of the second century CE) can be read as a transformation and elevation of these genres, further augmenting them with long ethnographical narratives of the places he visits. In other words, his text combines narration of his first-person experiences of travel with detailed description and reporting (see further Elsner 2001 ).

The Bird’s-Eye-View: Cartographic Narrative

In contrast to the tightly restrictive, hodological mode of presentation I have just described, narratives can also “zoom out” to view the world and movement within it as if gazing down from above. This impossible, cartographic view is a highly desirable one, and it is often correlated with increased knowledge and an omniscient narrative voice, particularly in ethnographic descriptions. Thus, the island of Britain is imagined as triangular by the geographers and ethnographers of the Roman world, such as Caesar ( BGall 5.13), Strabo (4.5.1), Pomponius Mela (3.50), and Tacitus ( Agr. 10.3, although the shape to which he compares the island may be hopelessly corrupted: Is a scutula an eye-patch, an elongated dish, a small shield? See Woodman 2014 , 133–34 with Ogilvie and Richmond 1967 , 168–170).

Few works, if any, can consistently maintain such distant cartographic perspectives. To look more carefully at Caesar’s De bello gallico (written either during or shortly after Caesar’s campaign in Gaul from 58 to 51 BCE), Andrew Riggsby characterizes the function of each of its narrative perspectives as follows: “People fight in tactical space, move through strategic space, and inhabit geographic space” ( Riggsby 2006 , 25, cf. Rambaud 1974 ). Caesar’s autobiographical narrative of travel for the purpose of military conquest, therefore, combines the chronotope of the road—exemplified by his descriptions of “forced marches” ( magna/maxima itinera , e.g. BGall 1.7, 10, 37, 38, etc.), bridges ( BGall 1.13), and other technologies of travel—with strategic and ethnographical views of the landscape. These points of view are highly significant for the meaning of each instance of travel. Thus Riggsby argues that Caesar’s tactical space, a localized representation of the field of battle articulated by its natural features (e.g., his description of the town of Vesontio, BGall. 1.38.4–7), should be understood in the context of Roman agrimensores , whose surveying activities for Roman centuriation described and depicted localized environments from a bird’s-eye-view ( Thulin 1971 ; Riggsby 2006 , 32–45). For Caesar and the agrimensores , the process of describing a landscape from the strategic perspective is an important precursor to possessing it. By contrast, Caesar’s cartographic gaze, which is perhaps most obvious in the famous opening description of the tripartite division of Gaul (1.1), falls into a different category of spatial representation. By virtue of its extreme distance, this point of view severs the intimate connection between description and possession of territory; in its place, it gives the narrator an omniscient ethnographical vista from which to describe territories and peoples. From this vantage, the Gauls’ courageousness ( fortis ) can be correlated with their geographic position vis-à-vis the Germans and Rome: the closer one is to Germany, the braver one must be (Caes. BGall. 1.1; Riggsby 2006 , 28–32; cf. Dench 2005 , 49–54 for a reading of Caesar’s manipulation of ethnography). By varying its spatial perspectives, the text’s narrative economy is able to reveal and conceal elements of the Roman experience of Gaul.

Travel and Discourses of Empire and Society

Scholarship has been particularly attuned to the relationship between geography, the depiction of movement in Roman poetry, and the ideology of the Augustan empire (e.g., Myers 2008 ; Lindheim 2010 , 2011 ). To take a well-known example, Virgil’s Aeneid (19 BCE), which takes the wandering Homeric Odyssey as a central model, encodes travel into the founding of the Roman state: the poem’s narrative of Aeneas’s journey, its descriptions of the cities he visits, and its ethnography of the Italian landscape write the process of traveling and its complications into Roman identity in the Augustan age (see Thomas 1982 , esp. 93–107 on ethnography; Horsfall 1989 on Aeneas as colonist; Quint 1993 ). The Virgilian connection between travel and Roman cultural identity is mirrored in Livy’s account of Aeneas’s travels to Italy (Livy 1.1); the two genres—epic and historiography—present these origin myths differently, but both emphasize travel as essential to the foundation of the Roman state.

The teleology of the Aeneid ’s travels establishes a clear sense of center, but, as Philip Hardie (1986) has argued, the poem imagines Rome’s periphery to be a (literally) boundless one, “an empire without an end” ( imperium sine fine , Verg. Aen. 1.279). The connection between travel and state foundation in the Aeneid is indicative of a broader trend for the poetics of travel and space to invite and frame discussion of the political, the social, and the moral in the poetry of Virgil and his contemporaries: for example, the countryside of the Eclogues and the ethnographic descriptions in Georgics 2 (Virg. Geo. 2.83–176; see further Thomas 1988 , 170–90), Horace’s Sabine Villa ( Epist. 1.7.1–2, 1.16.1–16, Odes 1.17.1–2) and other country retreats ( Epist. 1.10.15–21), Horace’s Odes 1.3 (Virgil’s journey), Tibullus’s country retreat (1.5.21–34, where the countryside represents an inversion of the poet’s relationship with his beloved), and the dynamics of city and country in Propertius (see, e.g., Lindheim 2010 , 2011 ). In Roman poetry, travel therefore offers a space to discuss a range of other issues, such as political power, imperial ambitions, and Roman urbanism. This tendency becomes a central subject of Ovid’s exile poetry, in which his rupture from Augustus consigns him to the “edges of the Earth” on the Black Sea (e.g., Trist 1.1; see Williams 1994 on Ovid’s construction of his exiled voice).

The focus on travel is not limited to the poetry of the Augustan era. Thus, Statius’s Silvae (Books 1–3, 93 or 94 CE; Book 4, 95 CE) has been shown to implicate travel in the political and social world of the poet and his patrons ( Parrott 2013 ). Identity and empire are even more explicitly linked to travel in other genres, such as geography, historiography, encyclopedic and scientific literature, oratory and oratorical theory, and prose fiction. Just as physical travel encouraged the contemplation of empire and the confrontation with other peoples and places, literary representations of movement offered space for discourses about the relationship of ethnicity, identity, and imperial power.

The Narrative of the Quest and Travel as the Search for the Self

For my final pair of case studies, I return to the personal experience of travel with a form of travel story often called the narrative of the quest. In a subset of the Greek and Latin prose fiction of the second and third centuries CE, travel narratives take on deeper significance, and movement through space becomes a kind of pilgrimage, signaling a journey toward greater enlightenment and knowledge of the self. Insofar as it is read as a narrative of pilgrimage, Pausanias’s Tour of Greece might be understood as an example of this type of travel narrative (see further the essays in Alcock, Cherry, and Elsner 2001 ; Hutton 2005b ; Pretzler 2007 ; Travel and Travel Writing ).

Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana , composed in the first half of the third century CE ( Jones 2005 , 2–3), narrates the peregrinations of the wise man to the four corners of the Roman empire (cf. Elsner 1997 , 29): north as far the Caucasus (2.2), east through Babylon (1.21–2.1) to India (2.17–3.50), south to Egypt and Ethiopia (5.43–6.28), and west to Spain and the Pillars of Hercules (4.47–5.10). Apollonius’s travels are intimately connected to his own discovery of his philosophic and sagacious self. From the Brahmans in India, for instance, Apollonius learns both the seemingly impossible, levitation ( meteōroporein , 3.15, 17) and foreknowledge ( prognōsis , 3.16), as well as what lies at the core of their powers, self-knowledge ( eidenai heauton , 3.18). In perhaps the most famous passage of the Life , he announces that he has traveled to Egypt in order to find the sources of the Nile: “My own purpose in coming here was to visit you and the sources of the Nile. It would be pardonable to miss these in one who got only as far as Egypt, but for one who has advanced into Ethiopia, as I have, it would be a disgrace to pass them by, and not draw some learning from them” (6.22.1; trans. Jones). Apollonius expresses his desire for knowledge of the river’s sources in terms of the language and metaphors of travel and physical movement (cf. Elsner 1997 : 32); it is not enough to hear about them from his experienced ( ethas , 6.22.2) guide. As Elsner (1997) shows, Apollonius’s journeys, which emphasize the extent of the Roman empire, become a central source of his own wisdom and sagacity as well as a potential refuge from the tyranny that resides in the center. Thus, when Apollonius is tried before Domitian in Rome, he repeats a saying of the Brahmans in his own self-defense (3.18). His travels also provide him with authority, especially in religious matters. In book 5, for instance, he uses his travels to India to justify “correcting the rites of the Egyptians” (5.25).

Apuleius’s Metamorphoses can be read as a reinterpretation of the narrative of the quest, in which the links between pilgrimage and self-discovery outlined by Apollonius take the form of physical changes (see further Harrison 2001–2002 ). Like Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana , the Golden Ass intersects with the world of the Roman empire, although the protagonist Lucius never encounters the highest echelons of Roman power ( Millar 1981 ). Early in the text Lucius, an overly curious sophist, is transformed through a magical mishap into an ass (3.24); once he is transformed, the narrative is in the simplest terms an account of Lucius’s quest for roses, the antidote to his magical transformation. During his life as an ass, Lucius is passed from owner to owner; as a beast of burden, his freedom of movement is restricted, and he is forced to travel or face beating (in a persuasive reading, Bradley 2000 argues that the novel explores Roman slavery through Lucius’s transformation and forced migration). His salvation comes in the eleventh and final book, when he is told by the goddess Isis, who appears in a dream vision, that he will find a garland of roses at a procession dedicated to her (11.6). Whether it is read as an entertaining parody or a serious religious experience (see further Winkler 1985 ), book 11 narrates Lucius’s return to human form and his conversion to Isiac religion. He finds and eats the roses at the festival of Isis (11.13) and is restored to his former state. As a result of his journey and his experience, he becomes an initiate in Isiac cult (11.23–24) and a devotee of Isiac religion, eventually moving to Rome (11.26). The novel closes with Lucius preparing to become an initiate of Osiris (11.30). Like Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana , the Golden Ass connects travel to a process of pilgrimage, enlightenment, and self-knowledge; Apuleius turns this paradigm on its head, externalizing in Lucius’s grotesque form as an ass an experience that remains internal and, presumably, deeply personal for other sagacious pilgrims.

Lucius’s experience in the Metamorphoses is a test case for the extent to which travel can be a transformational experience for individuals in the Roman world. Yet for all the changes that he undergoes, he concludes the novel in more or less the same physical form that he began it. (He now has a shaved head and has changed his wardrobe.) Such an ending suggests that the experience of travel leaves few physical traces on individuals and landscapes. Travel is an ephemeral process, one that must be continually commemorated and maintained or cease to exist. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, the challenges inherent in preserving travel, it remains a central organizing principle of many literary texts from the Roman world. Its centrality further suggests how important the movement of people and goods was to all facets of the Roman experience. From emperors to slaves, orators to merchants, travel through the world and the infrastructure that enabled it were defining features of the practicalities, realities, and imaginations of Roman life.

Suggested Reading

Casson (1974) remains a valuable overview of travel in the Roman world; Adams (2001) contains many excellent studies; Scheidel (2014) uses the ORBIS model to redraw the map of the Roman world in terms of connectivity. For more specific topics, the following have proven particularly helpful. Road travel: Kolb (2000) ; Adams (2007) . Sea travel: Arnaud (2005) . River travel: Campbell (2012) . Imperial travel: Millar (1977) ; Halfmann (1986) . Itineraries and mapping: Dilke (1985) ; Brodersen (1995) ; Gallazzi, Kramer, and Settis (2008) ; Talbert (2010) . Economics and the cost of travel and transport: Adams (2012) ; Scheidel (2013) . Adventus and profectio rituals: Lehnen (1997 , 2001 ). Pilgrimage: Elsner and Rutherford (2005) ; Rutherford (2013) . Literature: Rambaud (1966 , 1974 ); Bakhtin (1981) ; Janni (1984) ; Riggsby (2006) ; Purves (2010) .

Abbreviations

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Today Is the Longest Day of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere

We have Earth’s off-kilter tilt to thank for the summer solstice, as well as the different seasons.

By Katrina Miller

On Thursday, everyone in the northern half of our planet will experience the summer solstice. It’ll be the longest day of the year north of the Equator, and it is the scientific start of summer.

Earth has a solstice every six months, in June and in December. Leading up to the summer solstice, the sun appears in a higher spot in the sky at the same time each day until it reaches its maximum point.

After the summer solstice, the days will get shorter. The sun will appear lower in the sky each day until the winter solstice, on Dec. 21.

What time is the summer solstice this year?

According to the National Weather Service , the summer solstice will occur on Thursday at 4:51 p.m. Eastern time. This is the moment during the day when the sun reaches its most northern point in the sky during the year.

Why do we have solstices?

The sun’s height in the sky each day changes because Earth spins on an axis that is tilted 23.5 degrees away from vertical. This means that depending on the time of year the hemispheres lean either toward or away from the sun.

This is what gives Earth its seasons: When the northern half of the planet leans toward the sun, it experiences summer; at the same time, the southern half of the planet leans away from the sun, and is in winter. It is a mystery why Earth is angled this way, though some astronomers believe that its tilt paved the way for life to exist .

In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice happens when Earth’s tilt toward the sun is greatest. Despite this, the hottest temperatures of the year usually occur a few weeks later , in July or August, because it takes time for the sun’s rays to warm our planet.

Do other planets in our solar system have solstices?

Any planet that is tilted will have solstices. According to NASA , every planet in our solar system has an axial tilt, but some are more pronounced than others.

Venus and Jupiter have only slight leans, around 3 degrees, while Mercury, at 0.03 degrees, is barely slanted at all. On the other hand, Uranus is oriented a whopping 97.8 degrees from vertical, causing one of its poles to point directly at the sun at times. That extreme tilt causes it to have some of the most dramatic seasons in our solar system.

Saturn and Neptune both have tilts close to Earth’s. So does Mars, at 25.2 degrees, although the red planet’s tilt has shifted dramatically over millions of years .

How do people celebrate the summer solstice?

Every year, people around the world ring in the June solstice with midsummer bonfires, festivals and — for those living above the Arctic Circle — midnight sun celebrations . At the other end of the world, scientists living in Antarctica throw their annual midwinter feast to commemorate the longest, darkest night on the continent.

Others travel to ancient ruins, like Stonehenge in England or the Temple of the Sun in Peru, to greet the solstice sun the way ancient peoples once did.

Katrina Miller is a science reporter for The Times based in Chicago. She earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller

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