In anticipation of the Christmas and New Year holidays, I released a new video on YouTube showing what the Forum Romanum might have looked like, decorated for the holidays. I already created the first version of this festive Forum a year ago; this is an expanded version, including the Capitoline Hill, and rendered in 4K.
The Forum, like other significant sites in the Eternal City, was decorated for important religious holidays and the accompanying games. Saturnalia was a major and beloved festival, and the manner in which houses, temples, and the city were decorated was partly carried over into the Christian era, foreshadowing many of the attributes of the New Year and Christmas atmosphere we know today.. The Romans also decorated the Сity in a similar manner for triumphal processions.
In the future, I plan to improve and refine these reconstructions of the City during holidays. I also plan to release a video about the progress of the game app (for the project’s sponsors) and summarize the results in the remaining days of this year.
In the meantime, I invite you to immerse yourself for 11 minutes in the atmosphere of the festive and celebratory Forum Romanum, as it was in the 4th century:
