On This Day: The Forum Floods Again
November 16: Rain lashes Rome, turning the Forum into a slick expanse of mud and lost sandals. The season’s deluge is on.
Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros (Moudon, 1748 - Lausanne, 1810), Swiss engraver and watercolourist — "Ducros-vue-du-pantheon", Public domain
November turns Rome’s heart to mud.
By mid-November, sheets of rain hammer the city. The Roman Forum—once stage for orators and politics—becomes a muddy morass. Cloaks cling, carts skid, and every trader curses the old drains.
Ancient solutions to a modern problem.
The Romans tried everything: stone pavements, stepped platforms, even raising whole streets. Yet each year, the Tiber’s rise and the pounding rain made the city’s heart flood anew—a ritual inconvenience that democracy couldn’t vote away.
Every November, Rome’s low-lying center became a soggy chaos—reminding the city that even empire bends to the weather.
