All the Money in the World|Trajan's Forum — Ruins the Money Could Not Buy

The production worked along the Fori Imperiali, and the stretch it used most is the sunken rectangle of Trajan's Forum, where the columns of the Basilica Ulpia stand in stumps twenty feet below the modern pavement. Rome in 1973 is easy to fake here. Take the cars away and the frame is unchanged since Mussolini drove his avenue through the ruins in 1932.

Apollodorus of Damascus built the complex for Trajan around AD 112 with the spoils of Dacia. It was the last and largest of the imperial forums, and its column — thirty metres of Carrara marble spiralling with 155 scenes of the Dacian wars — is the single most detailed picture of the Roman army that survives. Getty could buy a bust. He could not buy this.

That is what makes the location work in a film about a man who priced everything. The forum sits open to the sky, fenced but fully visible, free to look at from the railings on either side of Via dei Fori Imperiali. On the north-east flank, Trajan's Markets rise in brick tiers to the Torre delle Milizie, and the museum inside is one of the least crowded major sites in Rome.

Lean on the railing above the Basilica Ulpia in late afternoon. The stumps throw long shadows across the paving and, for about ten minutes, the pit fills with gold light.