Rome peaked under Emperor Trajan, who ruled from AD 98 to 117. The soldier emperor constructed the largest forum ever built.

Overlooking Trajan’s Forum, this column trumpets the glories of Emperor Trajan, who ruled Rome in its heyday. This is a textbook example of continuous narration. Like a 200-yard-long scroll, it winds all the way to the top. The purpose: more PR…telling the story of yet another military victory.

Trajan extended the boundaries of the empire to its greatest size — from the Nile to the north of Britain. Controlling its entire coastline, Romans called the Mediterranean simply “Mare Nostrum” — “Our Sea.”

As visitors, it’s our challenge to appreciate the grandeur of this incredible city built on the scale of giants. For instance, when Rome went to the races, it came here — the immense Circus Maximus.

Imagine, a quarter of a million Romans cheering on careening chariots and overlooking it all, the Palatine Hill, filled with towering palaces.

And, a visit to the National Museum at the Palazzo Massimo helps humanize the empire. While ancient Rome’s architecture was monumental, its citizens were just people…like you and me, without electricity.

These frescoes — a rare surviving example of Roman painting — bring color to our image of daily life back then. Romans liked to think of themselves as somehow living parallel with the gods. These domestic scenes come with a twist of mythology.

And this painted garden — wallpapering a Roman villa — showed an appreciation for nature while creating an atmosphere of serenity.

Admiring the artifacts of Rome’s elite, from exquisite jewelry…to this delicate golden hairnet, we can only marvel at “lifestyles of the rich and Roman.”

Many aspects of ancient life are represented with vivid realism. This boxer is a picture of exhaustion, with a roughed-up face and tired hands complete with brass knuckles.

The museum’s collection tells the empire’s story through art: Caesar Augustus was the nephew of Julius Caesar and the first great emperor of the Pax Romana — that two-century-long period of relative peace and stability that marked the peak of the empire. Looking into the eyes of the man who called himself “the first among equals,” you get the feeling that the ship of state was in good hands.