"To look down on ruin, ruin, ruin, all about; the triumphal arches of Constantine, Septimus Severus, and Titus; the Roman Forum; the Palace of the Caesars; the temples of the old religion, fallen down and gone; is to see the ghost of old Rome, wicked wonderful old city, haunting the very ground on which its people trod. It is the most impressive, the most stately, the most solemn, grand, majestic, mournful sight conceivable."

So wrote the astounded Charles Dickens when he arrived in the Eternal City in 1845, and over 150 years later his haunting description of setting eyes on the ruins of antiquity for the first time rings as true as ever. The Roman Forum was the beating heart of the city in antiquity, the political, religious and economic centre of the ancient world’s greatest empire.