Temple of Peace, Rome

Stand at the railing along Via dei Fori Imperiali and look down. Below the traffic, you can see pale stone paving, a few column stumps, and rough patches of grass. Scooters hum behind you. Tour groups drift past toward the Colosseum. Most of them never stop here. That is a pity, because this low, quiet field of ruins was once one of the most admired places in the entire Roman world.

This is the Temple of Peace, which the Romans called the Templum Pacis. It was not a single temple in the way we usually imagine one. It was a large, walled public square with a shrine at one end. Covered porticoes ran around the sides. In the middle lay a garden. Think of it less as a church and more as a museum, a library, and a park, all placed inside one enclosure.

The story begins with war. In the late 60s, Rome fought a long and brutal campaign in Judaea, the Roman province around Jerusalem. The general Vespasian led it at first, and then his son Titus finished it. In the year 70, Roman troops destroyed Jerusalem and its great Temple. Vespasian, by then emperor, came home needing to show Romans that the turmoil was over. So he built a monument to Peace.

The complex was dedicated in the mid-70s. It was paid for, at least in part, with the wealth taken from Judaea. And here is the first thing many visitors do not realise. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, who lived through these events, the treasures from the Temple in Jerusalem were displayed here. That included the golden menorah, the seven-branched lampstand. You can see that same menorah carved on the Arch of Titus, just a short walk from where you stand.

So this place carries two meanings at once. For Romans, it celebrated calm after civil war and conquest. For the Jewish people, it held objects taken from their most sacred site. Both truths belong to these stones. What happened to those treasures later is uncertain. Many stories exist, but no one can say with confidence where they ended up.

The Romans themselves were very proud of this square. The writer Pliny the Elder, who saw it new, counted it among the most beautiful buildings in the world. Vespasian filled it with famous Greek paintings and statues, many of them gathered from across the empire. Ordinary Romans could walk in and look at art that had once belonged to kings. For a city of the first century, that was a remarkable gift.

Now picture the open centre of the square. Excavations in recent decades found long rows of planting beds and traces of water channels. Archaeologists believe there was a formal garden here, with greenery set in neat lines between the paths. Imagine the summer heat of Rome, the dust of the streets outside... and then a shaded colonnade, the sound of water, and the smell of plants. It was a place to rest, not only a place to admire.

The complex also held a library, and scholars came here to read and work. This leads to a second surprise. In 192, under the emperor Commodus, a great fire swept through this part of the city. The famous doctor Galen lost many of his books and medicines in the blaze. He wrote about that loss himself, in a letter that survives today. Some of his life's work simply disappeared in one night.

After the fire, the emperor Septimius Severus restored the complex. During his reign, a giant marble map of Rome was fixed to the wall of one of the halls. It is known today as the Severan Marble Plan. It showed the city in fine detail — streets, buildings, staircases, even the outlines of individual rooms. It was carved on many marble slabs, set side by side across the wall like a huge puzzle.

And part of that wall is still standing. Look toward the church of Santi Cosma e Damiano, at the far side of the ruins, facing the Roman Forum. On its old brick wall you can see rows of small holes. Those holes once held the metal clamps that fixed the marble map in place. The map itself fell and broke long ago. Its surviving fragments are now studied by scholars, who are still fitting the pieces together today.

That church is the reason the wall survived. In the sixth century, Pope Felix the Fourth turned one of the old halls of the complex into a church. He dedicated it to Cosmas and Damian, two brother saints who were remembered as doctors. It is a fitting choice for a place connected with Galen. Inside, the apse holds an early Christian mosaic of great quality, with deep blue backgrounds and tall gold-edged figures.

Much of the rest of the square lies under your feet, or under the road itself. Via dei Fori Imperiali was cut through this area in the 1930s, and it runs directly across the old complex. That is why the ruins look like a slice rather than a whole. Some columns have been raised again by archaeologists, so you can sense the rhythm of the old porticoes. Use them to measure how long the sides once were.

Before you move on, take a moment at the railing. Look at the line of re-erected columns, then at the brick wall with its clamp holes, then at the grass between them. This was a garden, a gallery, a library, and a war memorial. Today it is mostly quiet space beside a busy road. As you walk toward the Colosseum, listen for the traffic fading behind you, and remember the garden that once grew here.