Trajan's Market

Trajan's Market is a vast multilevel Roman complex beside Trajan's Forum, probably used for administrative, service, storage and some commercial functions—now home to the Museum of the Imperial Fora. Built into the Quirinal Hill around 110 AD by the Greek-Syrian architect Apollodorus of Damascus. Conceived as the administrative and commercial backstop of the new Trajan's Forum, it contains surviving rooms (tabernae), the great vaulted Hall of Trajan, the only complete original Roman street in central Rome (Via Biberatica) and a panoramic terrace giving the single best aerial view of Trajan's Column. Inside the complex sits the Museum of the Imperial Fora — the only museum in the world dedicated to all five of Rome's Imperial Fora (Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, Trajan). €15 standard entry (€19.50 with exhibition), open daily 09:30–19:30, and almost no queues.

Why visit Trajan's Market?

Most visitors race past the brick hemicycle on Via dei Fori Imperiali on their way to the Colosseum — yet Trajan's Market is the most architecturally innovative single complex of the Imperial age, the only place in Rome where you can walk an intact ancient street, and the home of one of the city's best-curated museums.

• Vast multilevel Roman complex: multiple levels, rooms, the earliest large-scale concrete-vaulted commercial building anywhere.
• Apollodorus of Damascus's masterpiece: Trajan's chief military engineer, designer of the Forum, the Column and the Danube Bridge — executed by Hadrian for talking back.
• Walk an intact Roman street: Via Biberatica is the only complete original Roman street still walkable in central Rome.
• Museum of the Imperial Fora: the only museum in the world dedicated to all five Imperial Fora — included in the ticket.
• Best aerial view of Trajan's Column: the panoramic terrace lets you read the spiral Dacian Wars relief from above — the only angle that works without binoculars.

Quick facts

A brief history

The story of Trajan's Market begins with conquest. Between 101 and 106 AD Emperor Trajan defeated Decebalus, king of Dacia (modern Romania), in two brutal campaigns that returned to Rome unprecedented quantities of gold, silver and slaves — an estimated half a million pounds of gold alone. Trajan and his chief military engineer, the Greek-Syrian Apollodorus of Damascus, used the war booty to fund the largest single building campaign in Imperial Rome's history.

The site they chose — a saddle of land between the Capitoline and Quirinal hills — was the last available space for a great Imperial Forum in the centre of Rome. To create it, Apollodorus had to cut away approximately 30 metres of the south flank of the Quirinal Hill. The displaced earth was used as fill across the new Forum platform, and the cliff face left behind needed retaining. Apollodorus solved the engineering problem with extraordinary creativity: rather than build a blank retaining wall, he designed a six-level habitable building that doubled as the retaining structure. Trajan's Market was born.

Completed around 110 AD, the complex contained rooms (tabernae) on multiple levels, a great vaulted hall (the Aula di Traiano), an internal commercial street (Via Biberatica), covered ambulatories on every floor and a panoramic terrace. Its precise functions remain debated among scholars, but it likely combined administrative offices for the Forum's bureaucracy, storage and distribution space connected to the annona (state grain supply), and the imperial chancery. A few rooms may have housed actual shops, but the popular 'vast multilevel Roman complex' label is a modern tourism simplification.

The architecture was revolutionary. The use of opus latericium (brick-faced concrete) at this scale and complexity — multiple levels, intersecting groin vaults, integrated services — pioneered techniques that would dominate Roman architecture for the next 300 years and influence European building until the Industrial Revolution. The Great Hall of Trajan in particular is a direct ancestor of the medieval cathedral nave.

Through the Middle Ages the complex was repurposed but never demolished. Around 1200 the Annibaldi family built the 50-metre brick Tower of the Militia (Torre delle Milizie) on the upper level — Rome's tallest medieval tower, still leaning visibly south after the 1348 earthquake. In 1572 the Convent of Santa Caterina da Siena was built on top of the Markets, partially burying — and accidentally preserving — the upper levels inside its walls.

The convent was demolished and the Markets systematically excavated between 1924 and 1934 as part of Mussolini's Via dell'Impero (now Via dei Fori Imperiali) project. The complex opened to the public for the first time in modern history. In 2007 the Museum of the Imperial Fora — the only museum in the world dedicated to all five Imperial Fora — was inaugurated inside the upper levels. The Sovraintendenza Capitolina continues periodic conservation work in the complex.

Architecture & engineering

Opus latericium

Brick-faced concrete: an inner core of caementicium (mortar + rubble) faced with thin red bricks (lateres). Apollodorus pioneered its use at six-storey scale here — a technique that would dominate Roman architecture for 300 years.

The hemicycle solution

By making the cut-hill retaining wall a curved, multi-level habitable building, Apollodorus turned a geological necessity into the most innovative commercial complex in Roman history. Each floor was reached by external staircases and a covered ambulatory.

Concrete vaulting

The Great Hall of Trajan's six bays of intersecting groin vaults are among the earliest and best-preserved examples of complex concrete vaulting in Roman architecture — a direct ancestor of the medieval cathedral nave a thousand years later.

Museum of the Imperial Fora

The Museo dei Fori Imperiali, opened in 2007 and housed inside the upper levels of Trajan's Market, is the only museum in the world dedicated entirely to Rome's five Imperial Fora — those of Caesar (46 BC), Augustus (2 BC), Vespasian (75 AD), Nerva (97 AD) and Trajan (112 AD).

The collection is uniquely revealing. The most spectacular galleries display original marble sculpture from the Forum of Augustus: the colossal head of Augustus's tutelary deity, fragments of the great Mars Ultor cult statue, the caryatids (female columnar figures) from the upper attic of the portico. A 1:1 reconstruction of the polychrome marble revetment of the Forum of Augustus is the only surviving evidence of how dazzlingly colourful the original Imperial Fora actually were — porphyry purple, giallo antico yellow, Phrygian pavonazzetto white-and-violet.

Other galleries display architectural fragments from Trajan's Forum (pieces of the Basilica Ulpia roof, fragments of the Temple of the Deified Trajan), the Forum of Nerva (the surviving 'Colonnacce' architrave decorated with Minerva reliefs) and the Forum of Caesar (the Temple of Venus Genetrix, ancestor goddess of the Julian dynasty). 1:50 scale models reconstruct each Forum at the height of its splendour.

The museum is included in the ticket. Allow 45 minutes minimum. Audio-guides (€4, English/Italian/French/Spanish/German) are excellent and recommended.

The Tower of the Militia

Rising 50 metres above the Markets stands the Torre delle Milizie, Rome's tallest surviving medieval tower. Built around 1200 by the powerful Annibaldi family — and briefly inhabited, according to dubious medieval tradition, by Pope Boniface VIII — it was sold to the Caetani family later in the 13th century and to the Confraternity of Santa Caterina in 1572.

The tower leans visibly southward, the result of the great earthquake of 9 September 1348 that struck the Apennines and damaged buildings across central Italy (the same earthquake that toppled the upper colonnade of the Colosseum). The lean is roughly 1.5 metres off vertical — clearly visible from the panoramic terrace below.

The interior is closed to the public for structural reasons, but the tower is best admired from two angles: from the panoramic terrace of Trajan's Market (included with your ticket) and from Largo Magnanapoli on the south side, where the lean is most dramatic at sunset.

Trajan's Market walking itinerary

A 2.5-hour, 7-stop walk through the entire complex from upper-level entrance through the Hall of Trajan, Via Biberatica, the museum, the six-storey hemicycle and the panoramic terrace, ending at Trajan's Column. Total walking distance ~600 m, mostly indoor, with stairs (lift available).

Walking route map

Click on markers for stop details. Numbers indicate the walking order.

Entrance — Via IV Novembre 94

Buy your ticket at the gatehouse (€15 standard) on Via IV Novembre. The complex enters from the upper level — you will work your way down through the multiple levels.

Great Hall of Trajan (Aula di Traiano)

The architectural masterpiece: a 32 × 8 m two-storey groin-vaulted hall, ancestor of the medieval cathedral nave. Often used for temporary exhibitions.

Via Biberatica

Walk the only complete original Roman street in central Rome — basalt paving, drainage channels and shop fronts perfectly preserved.

Museum of the Imperial Fora

The only museum in the world dedicated to all five Imperial Fora — original sculpture, the Forum of Augustus reconstruction, architectural fragments.

The Hemicycle (multiple levels)

Descend through the curved six-storey hemicycle, exploring tabernae on each floor. Take the lift or the original Roman staircases.

Panoramic terrace

The best aerial view of Trajan's Column, Trajan's Forum and the entire Via dei Fori Imperiali. Look up to see the leaning Tower of the Militia.

Trajan's Column

Exit the complex and walk 3 minutes downhill to the base of Trajan's 30 m marble column. The spiral relief depicts 155 episodes of the Dacian Wars.

Trajan's Market vs Roman Forum — which to visit?

Verdict: do both. Trajan's Market for the multilevel architecture, museum and intact upper levels; the Roman Forum for the civic and religious heart of the Republic and early Empire.

Best time to visit

Time of day

Morning (09:30 opening)

Best — soft south-east light hits the brick hemicycle, the museum is empty and the panoramic terrace is yours alone.

Late afternoon (16:30–18:30)

Excellent for the panoramic terrace and warm light on the Tower of the Militia. Last entry 18:30.

Avoid 11:00–14:00

School groups and tour groups concentrate in the museum; the panoramic terrace gets crowded.

Best days & seasons

Tuesday & Wednesday mornings

Lowest crowds — most tour groups concentrate at the Colosseum/Forum on these days.

First Sunday of the month

Typically free entry, subject to current official policy — verify on mercatiditraiano.it. Arrive early to avoid the modest queue.

Check for special openings

The museum occasionally offers extended-hours openings. Check mercatiditraiano.it for current dates.

All seasons fine

Mostly indoor — perfect rainy-day or August midday visit. Air-conditioned in the museum galleries.

Getting there

Metro (best)

Line B to Cavour — 10-minute downhill walk west via Via Cavour and Largo Magnanapoli. Line A to Repubblica — 12-minute walk south via Via Nazionale.

Bus

Lines 40, 60, 64, 70, 117, 170 all stop at Piazza Venezia, a 5-minute walk from the entrance. Bus 87 from the Colosseum stops directly at Largo Magnanapoli.

On foot

5 minutes from Piazza Venezia; 8 minutes from the Colosseum via Via dei Fori Imperiali; 10 minutes from Termini Station via Via Nazionale.

Hop-on hop-off

The 110/Open Bus tourist line stops at Piazza Venezia, 5 minutes from the entrance. Useful if combining with Vatican and other major sights in one day.

Common mistakes to avoid

Confusing Trajan's Market with the Roman Forum

These are two separate sites with two separate tickets, on opposite sides of Via dei Fori Imperiali. Trajan's Market (€15) is on the Quirinal slope; the Roman Forum (€18 combined ticket) is on the south side. Visit both, but plan them as separate stops.

Skipping the Museum of the Imperial Fora

Many visitors photograph the brick hemicycle and leave without entering the museum — yet the museum is included in the ticket and contains original Forum of Augustus sculpture you cannot see anywhere else.

Visiting in midday August

Despite the museum's air-conditioning, the panoramic terrace and the Hall of Trajan reach 38°C+ in summer afternoons. Visit at 09:30 opening or after 16:30.

Missing Via Biberatica

The only complete original Roman street in central Rome runs through the upper level — but it is easy to miss if you take the lift directly to the museum. Always walk the upper-level outdoor route first.

Don't assume other combined tickets cover Trajan's Market

Trajan's Market is separately ticketed and is not included in Colosseum–Forum admission or other PArCo combined tickets. Check current inclusions on the official sites before buying.

Ignoring the Tower of the Militia

Most visitors look at the Roman ruins and miss the 50 m brick medieval tower rising from the complex — Rome's tallest medieval tower, leaning visibly since the 1348 earthquake. Best viewed from the panoramic terrace.

Insider tips from locals

Buy tickets at Trajan's Market, not the Colosseum

Same museum network, ten times shorter queue. Walk-up tickets are almost always available at the Mercati di Traiano gatehouse, even on Saturdays — unlike the Colosseum which now requires booking weeks ahead.

Free entry on designated days

Trajan's Market and the Museum of the Imperial Fora are typically free on the first Sunday of the month, subject to current official policy — verify on mercatiditraiano.it before visiting. Arrive early to avoid the modest queue.

Trajan's Market has its own ticket

Trajan's Market is separately ticketed and is not included in Colosseum–Forum admission. Buy admission directly for Trajan's Market if that is your destination.

Best photo: Trajan's Column from the panoramic terrace

From the upper terrace at 10:00–11:00, the morning sun lights the entire spiral relief of Trajan's Column from above — the only angle that lets you read the carving without binoculars.

Check for special evening openings

The museum occasionally offers special extended-hours openings. Check mercatiditraiano.it for current dates and availability.

Combine with San Pietro in Vincoli

After the Markets, walk 8 minutes east via Via di Tor de' Conti and Via Cavour to San Pietro in Vincoli — Michelangelo's Moses (1515) is free and 5 minutes off the tourist trail.

Frequently Asked Questions

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