Personal Log: Adrian Rodd

A friend has just sent me these two pictures of me in Rome.

Here I'm standing above the old Roman forum - remarkably well preserved. Barely a few metres behind me are large, busy streets, shops and modern monuments. Then you step through an alleyway and find yourself here - in what was once the heart of the Roman Empire. Here Julius Ceasar lived and worked. The Roman Senate met here, and there was also a market. You can still imagine it all today.

You can also just see the Colosseum in the background.

Rome is dotted with remains of its ancient past. There are columns, walls and fragments of monuments preserved here and there on the sides of roads. A startling juxtaposition.

And here I am again, standing beside a statue of my namesake from those bygone days. This was taken in an old museum filled with antique statues with little explanation; as much a museum about what museums in Italy used to be like as anything else, really.