The Roman Forum becomes a stage on which the promise of peace and the burden of imperial power meet. During Woodrow Wilson’s visit to Rome, Richard Ellsworth Savage hears the president answer a discussion of ancient ruins with a language of enduring symbols and American humanity; afterward, Savage reads the scene against the Forum’s stone and finds the modern political order disturbingly Roman.

Setting and Presidential Visit

The Roman Forum appears during three busy days of official functions surrounding Woodrow Wilson’s visit to Rome. Richard Ellsworth Savage attends receptions, listens to speeches in Italian, French, and English, and stands near enough in the Forum to hear the president’s party discussing the ruins. A short, mustached Italian guide points out the remains of the Temple of Romulus and observes that everything there bears a relation to the great war. The exchange makes the ancient site more than a ceremonial backdrop: it brings the war and its political meaning directly into the president’s encounter with Rome’s past.

Ruins and Political Rhetoric

Woodrow Wilson replies that the ruins should not be regarded as mere stones, but as immortal symbols. The Italian then turns the comparison toward the United States, saying that America possesses something greater, hidden in its people’s hearts. Wilson answers that Americans take pride in demonstrating their immense love of humanity. The exchange casts American ideals in elevated, universal terms, with the Forum’s antiquity lending the speeches a sense of historical weight. Yet the setting also leaves room for a less reassuring reading: the same ruins that dignify political rhetoric can suggest the long afterlife of power and empire.

Richard Ellsworth Savage’s Reading of the Scene

From among the Italian generals’ plumed hats, Richard Ellsworth Savage watches the president against the Forum’s worn columns and courses of dressed stone. He sees a grey, cold face, its small smile seeming almost painted on. The contrast between Wilson’s language of humanity and Savage’s perception of his expression turns the ceremonial encounter into a moment of doubt. The ancient stones do not settle the meaning of the speeches; instead, they sharpen Savage’s sense that lofty ideals may coexist with a harder political reality.

The Forum as a Modern Roman Image

That evening, Richard Ellsworth Savage recounts the official visit to Anne Elizabeth. He remembers the gold replica of the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus at the Capitol, where the president had been made a Roman citizen, and returns to the face he saw in the Forum. He calls it terrifying and likens it to the faces of old Roman politicians on tombs. From that image comes his declaration that the people of his own time are the Romans of the twentieth century, though he had always wanted to be a Greek. Anne Elizabeth, an admirer of Wilson, is initially annoyed by his judgment. Savage presses the comparison further: people pray for Wilson in their huts and expect him to bring peace, yet, he fears, they are being ground underfoot. The Roman Forum thus links ceremonial promises to the possibility that a modern power, even one speaking in the name of humanity, may reproduce the dominion associated with ancient Rome.