Roman ruins and sites to visit

The Romans grew from a city-state on the Tiber into an empire that by the 2nd century AD reached from Hadrian’s Wall to the Euphrates, and they built to familiar plans wherever they went. A visitor meets forums and basilicas, temples, baths with their underfloor heating, theatres and amphitheatres, aqueducts, roads, walls and gates, and the houses of the rich with mosaic floors and painted walls. Where volcanic ash or desert sand covered a town, whole streets survive.