The Last Ember by Daniel Levin

Jonathan thought. In this weather it probably won’t be packed with tour groups.
    He walked at a determined clip, as though the firm’s eyes were still on him. He suspected the research he was about to do could come dangerously close to betraying attorney-client confidentiality, and he could not afford to leave a trail. He turned off the Piazza della Repubblica into a narrow alley, past a small Renaissance niche that housed a statue of the Virgin Mary and fresh flowers supplied daily by the local faithful.
    The wind had picked up considerably, nearly pushing him across Piazza Venezia. The reason the message Error Titi was carved inside those fragments of the Forma Urbis was to identify a gladiators’ gate in the Colosseum. Jonathan shook his head, as though trying to snap himself out of the notion. But an adrenaline rush well known to classicists rose within him, a sense of imminent discovery as palpable as the freezing gusts whipping at the tails of his suit jacket.
    From the precipitous height of the Vittorio Emanuele Monument, the top of the Forum’s ruins came into sharper focus.
    The Roman Forum, the open-air archaeological park located in the center of downtown Rome, lay sixty feet below the traffic-clogged streets on either side. On a summer day, its ancient pavement would be packed with barking tour guides and screaming children. But on a cold winter afternoon beneath gathering clouds, the foggy, slumbering ruins looked more desolate than ever.
    To Jonathan’s trained eye, the strewn pillars and marble debris were silent ghosts of the bustling marketplaces and ancient office buildings that once stood in this downtown of the Roman Empire. For Jonathan, the whistle of the wind was a haunting reminder of how quickly civilizations fade.
    Jonathan jogged down the stairs through the entrance gate. Touching down on the Via Sacra’s original Roman pavement, he felt the uneven texture of the ancient road through the soles of his still-soaked Ferragamos.
    It began to drizzle again, but Jonathan pressed forward, stretching his long legs with each stride, his shoulders thrust forward as he walked through the ruins, passing the Arch of Septimus Severus, the burned masonry of an ancient notary public’s office, the onionskin marble of temple columns. Jonathan’s pace quickened, his anticipation growing more intense as the Colosseum loomed into view.
    He entered the Piazza del Colosseo, a vast expanse of cobblestone that even on this winter afternoon was packed with tour guides shouting in different languages over the calls of souvenir hucksters with arms full of Colosseum paperweights. Locals dressed in gladiatorial garb stood in front of the outer arches, knocking tin swords against their plastic chest shields to solicit pictures for two euros apiece.
    Even from across the piazza, the Colosseum’s massive pilasters of limestone and travertine dwarfed the souvenir tables. An orange mist of late-morning sun hung low around the Colosseum’s four stories of classical stone archways.
    “Marcus Aurelius!” A voice nearly startled Jonathan out of his skin. The meat of a hand struck Jonathan, a friendly back slap, with enormous force.
    Jonathan recognized the voice immediately. Chandler Manning. Jonathan had not seen him in years. He was much the same as Jonathan remembered him from the library at the American Academy: a small, paunchy frame; disheveled hair over his ears; a partially untucked dress shirt beneath a wrinkled blue blazer. Chandler had lost weight, but not enough.
    “Look who’s returned!” Chandler said, throwing up his stubby arms. He was shorter than Jonathan had remembered. In his right hand Chandler held an extended pointer with a purple feather glued to the top for the benefit of a small group of tourists trailing behind him. For a moment he jogged to keep pace with Jonathan’s long strides, tripping over the Forum’s uneven stones.
    Jonathan stopped and extended a hand. Chandler playfully batted it