The high-vaulted ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, surrounded by trees and grass, are pleasantly peaceful today.
The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French State, has housed the French Academy in Rome since 1803.
It's a relief that Augustus' great monument has finally been liberated after years hidden beneath scaffolding: its Luna marble glows in architect Richard Meier's luminous space.
Vespasian began building the Colosseum - which has hosted gory battles between combinations of gladiators, slaves, prisoners and wild animals of all descriptions.
After its period of glory, the Forum was relentlessly attacked for centuries by barbarians, after which it was gradually dismantled by anyone - from popes to paupers - who needed building materials.
On the north-east side of via dei Fori Imperiali are the extensive remains of Trajan's forum, the last of the fora, laid out in the early second century AD.
For recent generations, it was Anita Ekberg who made this fountain famous when she plunged in wearing a strapless black evening dress in Federico Fellini's classic La dolce vita.
The 30m (100ft) column of Marcus Aurelius was built between AD 180 and 196 to commemorate the victories on the battlefield of that most intellectual of Roman emperors.
The oldest and largest of Rome's ancient arenas, the Circus Maximus hosted chariot races from at least the fourth century BC. It was rebuilt by Julius Caesar to hold as many as 300,000 people.
The name 'catacomb' originated in this spot, where a complex of underground burial sites situated near a tufa quarry was described as being kata kymbas - 'near the quarry'.
These are Rome's largest catacombs. Buried in the 29km (18 miles) of tunnels were nine popes (venerated in a chapel known as il piccolo Vaticano), dozens of martyrs and thousands of Christians.
Blink and you could miss any mention of Napoleon's reign in Rome - from 1798 to 1814 - in standard accounts of the city.
