Destroyed and rebuilt over again, Rome has never completely disappeared. The Colosseum, the Pantheon, and Trajan's Column have survived twenty centuries of pillage and invasions. Scholars and treasure hunters, archaeologists and artists, popes and poets invested the city's ruins with significance. They adored, occupied, and plundered them - and restored and embellished them as well. This is the story of how Rome, truly the Eternal City, has endured it all.