Trajan's Market

Overview

Carved heavily into the side of the Quirinal Hill overlooking the Imperial Forums, Trajan's Market (Mercati di Traiano) is a wildly expansive, six-story brick complex. It is globally considered by historians to be the absolutely earliest known example of a modern shopping mall.

Highlights

• The Great Hall: The massively impressive, highly vaulted central interior hall (the aula), featuring two beautifully preserved stories of identical Roman shop fronts (tabernae).
• The Museum of the Imperial Forums: The interior brilliantly houses highly detailed architectural fragments, massive stone heads, and heavy sculptural friezes recovered directly from the devastated forums below.
• The Terraces: Stepping out onto the upper terraces offers the absolute clearest, highly elevated, and sweeping view directly down onto the ruined columns of Trajan's Forum.

History

Built simultaneously with Trajan's Forum next door in the early 2nd century AD by the brilliant, arguably greatest Roman architect, Apollodorus of Damascus. It was not merely a market; it functioned massively as the deeply complex administrative nerve center for the Emperor, housing massive grain distribution offices, archives, and over 150 individual shops selling goods imported from the absolute edges of the entire Roman Empire.

Visitor Tips

• Architecture: Notice the brilliant, massive semicircular sweep (the exedra) of the exterior holding back the hill—an absolute masterpiece of Roman load-bearing brickwork.
• Pacing: It is vastly quieter and significantly less crowded than the Colosseum or the Roman Forum, making it a brilliant, peaceful deep dive into highly preserved Roman civil engineering.