A Walk to the Forum 1
Welcome to your first visit to ancient Rome. Your friend, Marcus, asked me to show you where the forum is since it is not far from where I am working. I am Gaius, a carpenter, and today I have repairs to make on a house near the center of the city. I will take you to where I work, and from there it is an easy walk to the great forum. The forum is an energetic part of the city where you will find government buildings and numerous shops. If you need money, the bank is there as well.
2
It will be best if you walk behind me instead of next to me. When they laid these streets, Rome’s population was much smaller. That is why the sidewalks are so narrow. There are over one million people living in Rome today.
3
This is one of the older neighborhoods, which explains why the streets are so narrow and winding. Most of the day they are in shadow. The apartment buildings are so tall that the only time there is sunlight here is at midday.
4
We will cross to the next street at that fountain on the corner ahead of us. Many of our streets have small fountains on the corner. The aqueducts1 bring water down from the mountains and keep the fountains flowing all year. This is where we get our daily water supply. We bring a jug and fill it up at the fountain, then we carry the jug back up to our apartment.
5
As we cross the street, step onto that large rectangle of concrete in the middle of the road. The blocks are a nice convenience, especially when it rains. They keep our feet out of the water as it runs down from the higher points of the city. The rain helps wash the streets clean.
6
As you may have noticed, only people on foot are traveling the streets. You can imagine how disorderly it would be if there were wagons and carts mixed into a crowd like this. We have a rule about using the streets in Rome: people by day, deliveries by night. Most people are in their homes after the sun goes down, which means there is enough room for wagons and carts to make their deliveries to the local shops. Unfortunately, that also means Rome is a noisy place at night. Creaking wheels bounce on the stone pavement, drivers call out to their animals, and people bark orders as they unload the goods. The shopkeepers do not get much sleep either, since they must oversee the unloading at night as well as tend their shops during the day.
7
The house where I am working is the third one in this block. Keep walking on this street, and you will reach the forum. Marcus said he will meet you there later outside the building with the inscription of Caesar’s declaration. I hope that you have enjoyed your visit to Rome so far. There is still so much to learn about our fine city. May the rest of your visit be a pleasant one.

Read the sentence from Paragraph 1.

The forum is an energetic part of the city where you will find government buildings and numerous shops.
In the sentence, the word energetic comes from the Greek root that means

rich.

rich.

ancient.

ancient.

large.

large.

active.

active.