Marco Costa

I have guided around Trajan's Markets and Column for over a decade, and I still think of the markets as the closest thing ancient Rome had to a modern shopping centre, with shops arranged over several levels much as they would be today. On camera I move between the levels slowly, pointing out details in the brickwork that survived nearly two thousand years. At the column I explain how the spiral relief was meant to be read from bottom to top, a detail easy to miss without someone pointing out where the story actually starts.