Today, the Roman Forum is busy with tourists snapping pictures.
They push baby strollers between cracked gray columns.
Eating gelato.
Sipping espresso.
Laughing.
Two thousand years ago, blood sometimes sprayed and soaked into the Forum sand.
During the bloody purges of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, in the final years of the Roman Republic, the severed heads of enemies were displayed in the Forum for all of Rome to see.
The heads were propped near the Rostra, where Roman politicians addressed the crowds.
