You Cannot Be Stayed There, However, By The Wonders Which
Archaeology Will Yet Reveal In Them (For Archaeology Has Its
Relentless
eye upon every inch of the ground above them), but you will certainly
pause at the Forum of Trajan,
Where archaeology, as it is in
Commendatore Boni, has had its way already. In fact, until his work in
the Roman Forum is finished, the Forum of Trajan must remain his
greatest achievement, and the sculptured column of the great emperor
must serve equally as the archaeologist's monument. I do not remember
why in the old time I should have kept coming to look at that column and
study the sculptured history of Trajan's campaigns, toiling around it to
its top. I think one could then get close to its base, as now one
cannot, what with the deepening of the Forum to its antique level and
the enclosure of the whole space with an iron rail. The area below is
free only to a large company of those cats which seem to have their
dwelling among all the ruins and restorations of ancient Rome. People
come to feed the Trajan cats with the fish sold near by for the purpose,
and one morning, in pausing to view his column from the respectful
distance I had to keep, I counted no less than thirteen of his cats in
his forum. They were of every age and color, but much more respectable
in appearance than the cats of the Pantheon, which have no such sunny
expanse as that forum for their quarters, but only a very damp corner
beside the temple, and seem to have suffered in their looks and health
from the situation.
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