Rome's Forum of Caesar, Temple of Peace highlighted

(ANSA) - Rome, April 8 - Special sound and light shows in Ancient Rome will be showcased this month, right in time for the historic centre's 2,753 birthday.
    The extremely successful light and sound presentation at the Forum of Augustus will return on April 25 while a new program at the adjacent Trajan's Forum is planned for next year, Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino said Wednesday.
    As well, the restored Temple of Peace in the nearby Forum of Caesar will rise again - if only in virtual form - in time for April 21 when the ancient city marks its founding on 753 BC.
    Illuminated night walks through the Forum of Caesar and parts of the Imperial Fora are also planned, included films and virtual reconstructions projected onto the existing ruins to help visitors experience how the ancient sites once looked.
    Marino noted that the Augustus presentation drew some 110,000 visitors last summer when the ancient emperor who marked his 2,000 birthday.
    Meanwhile, at the Temple of Peace authorities say that two of its seven restored columns will be visible to the public in time for Rome's birthday celebration.
    The columns, made of pink granite from Aswan, Egypt, were restored from fragments recovered during excavations in 1998-2000.
    A second phase of the project will see the restoration of a five-square-metre section of the temple's portico roof, with original tiles that were found intact.
    The restoration work will bring to life a part of the Temple of Peace that was visible to Romans in 75 A.D., when the Emperor Vespasian had the Temple built to celebrate the conquest of Jerusalem.
    What remains of the Temple of Peace, sometimes known as the Forum of Peace, now rests in the present Roman Forum near Largo Corrado Ricci.
    One of its original walls has been incorporated into the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the Roman Forum, where holes can stil be seen that were once used to affix a marble map of ancient Rome that dated from the third century AD.
    The restoration work will help to shed light for visitors on another element of Rome's history for visitors.
    Excavation of the area dates back to the 1930s.
    That's when the Fascist administration of Mussolini constructed the modern Via Fori Imperiali that cut through the Imperial Fora, leaving the fora of Augustus, Nerva and Trajan on one side, with the Forum of Caesar and the Roman Forum on the other.