In Defense of Ruins

ROME, Italy—Last weekend, I went to the Roman forum with a friend who had just arrived from Paris. It was hot and he was disgruntled. Nothing was labeled in a helpful manner (a few bronze plaques here and there, some in Latin) and it was difficult to distinguish between the various structures. I stood in the sun and read to him from a guidebook, pleading with him to use his imagination.

“This,” he declared with scorn, “would never happen in Paris. Things would be indicated, displayed artfully.”

Immediately, I felt a patriotic defensiveness for a country not truly my own. (Yes, I have spent many vacations here living with my grandmother and I love the place deeply, but I am not Italian.)

“Paris,” I countered, meeting his scorn with ennui, “is not this beautiful.”

Of course, I did not convince him; in fact, he is not, strictly speaking, wrong. It is true that the ancient ruins of the forum are poorly indicated (if at all), that the Palatine is no better, that there is not even much of the original structures left to see, and that—in a city where tourism is a primary industry—this lack of attention to such detail seems bizarre. It is also probably true that if Rome were Paris things might be labeled, maybe even with explanations in three or four languages. Rome, however, is not Paris.

So, here’s my defense of the way the Romans have handled their ancient treasures: There is value to leaving structures, remnants of the past, in ruins. There is worth in seeing things fallen but not forgotten, in letting things be the way they are, in neither rebuilding nor destroying. There is value in not labeling everything, classifying it as though the capitol were some giant museum or a large still life. Rome is very much a living city, and the ruins are part of its vivaciousness. For centuries, millennia really, Italians have been building over, incorporating, and generally bastardizing their ruins. And it works for them.

The choice does, perhaps, induce a sense of discomfort in tourists. It isn’t the neat, tidy housekeeping that sight-seers (myself included when I travel) tend to appreciate when they visit a place. Tourists often want to know what they are seeing and why it is important in one minute or less—as if to say, “Good, now we’ve done this. Next.” The way the Roman forum is set up does not allow for that. One has to sit or stand, staring and discerning, guidebook in hand, perhaps even imagining things long past. There’s no handholding here.

But there is a deeper reason for the disquiet tourists might feel looking at ancient Roman ruins, in particular the Roman forum: melancholy. It is beautiful and yet sad. The ruins are majesty fallen; they are things gone and not memorialized, but rather left to simply be. “And look,” one has to think, “present-day Italians, once Romans, once the most powerful people in the world, can’t even get it together to label the rubble.”

I admit that the choice not to make the forum completely user friendly might not actually be a choice per se. Perhaps Italians don’t know how to handle their ancient treasures in a tourist-pleasing manner. In this sense, my friend might be right, but visitors must take Roman ruins on their own terms. The bitter-sweet taste might not induce comfort, but it does make you think.


Sofia E. Groopman’12 is a Crimson news writer in Currier House.