TRAJAN’S FORUM OR THE PUSSIES’?

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22465, 28 July 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

TRAJAN’S FORUM OR THE PUSSIES’?

(By B. Jekyll)

To commemorate the exploits of the Emperor Trajan, the Romans erected a forum; it must have been magnificent in its day, A forum signifies an open levelled space oblong in shape—some forums were used for mercantile purposes, others as places where justice was administered; then there was the forum erected before a building or in front of a sepulchre. A small part only is -seen to-day of Trajan’s Forum, probably the most remarkable in existence at that time. It occupied a large space between the capitol and Quirinal Hills. At the entrance was a triumphal arch surmounted by Trajan’s statue in a six-horse chariot. The open space was divided by a double row of porticos, and enlarged by four enormous apses or semi-circular extensions. Traces of one are still to be seen on the slope > of the Quirinal, a cloistered court surrounded the celebrated column. In fact the splendour of the forum was so exceptional that an historian says of it: “So exquisite, the gods themselves would find it hard to refrain from praising it,”. But sad to relate, though still interesting, it is little more than a series of broken pillars standing as in a vault 18 or so feet below the level of present Rome. The tremendous column at one < end is carved spirally in relief .from base to top and describes like a moving picture the exploits in the life of the Emperor. But what really impressed most visitors to the Forum was the miscellaneous collection of pussies—black, white, brindle, tortoiseshell, fat, thin, medium. Evidently everyone in Rome who did not like drowning cats dropped them into the Forum, from which they had no hope of getting out. In the daytim-' when basking in the sun and when people gave them enough to eat they seemed placid enough—-but oh! at night, how hideous the sound of pussies in concert; imagine it! Especially if you lived nearby you would think it enough to make Trajan turn in his grave. To such depths has his glorious forum descended. Whether Signor Mussolini heard them from the Palazzo Venezia or not I can’t say, but he has forbidden the practice of dumping poor cats in the forum.