August 1, 2025

Foro Romano

   This was the public square of ancient Rome.

   To make it easier to understand, let’s begin with the legend of the founding of Rome.

There is a city called Troy in what is now Turkey.

The “Trojan War” refers to the conflict in which the ancient Greek army destroyed Troy.

A young survivor of Troy named Aeneas later landed on the Italian Peninsula.

Much later, his descendants—twin brothers named Romulus and Remus—were cast into the Tiber River as infants and were raised by a she-wolf.

   As they grew up, the twins decided to build a town at the place where they had washed ashore.

They quarreled over which of them the town should be named after and agreed to settle the dispute by climbing hills to see who could spot more birds.

They also vowed to kill anyone who crossed the walls of the new city.

   Remus climbed the Aventine Hill and saw six birds.

Romulus climbed the Palatine Hill and saw twelve birds.

Since Romulus saw more, he began to mark the boundaries for the new city walls.

He named the new city Rome, after himself.

When Remus, in frustration over his loss, kicked down part of the city wall, Romulus killed him.

Romulus buried his brother with honor and invited many people to settle in his new city.

He ruled Rome for 40 years before vanishing into the clouds.

This is the legendary origin of Rome, dating back to the 8th century BCE.

   Rome is surrounded by seven hills, including the Palatine Hill.

These are known collectively as the Seven Hills of Rome.

The valleys between these hills became marshy due to water flowing down from the heights.

  These marshes were not suitable for habitation and were mainly used for burying the dead.

The area was also infested with mosquitoes that carried malaria.

Naturally, malaria outbreaks were common among the Roman population.

Around the 1st century BCE, a massive malaria epidemic drastically reduced the population.

The famous orator Cicero even called Rome “the city of pestilence.”

   The disease that has plagued humanity for so long was named malaria by an 18th-century Italian physician, Francesco Torti.

He believed that the illness was caused by the “bad air” (in Italian, mal aria) of the marshes, and thus named the disease malaria using the Italian words.

   The people who suffered from malaria weren’t limited to ancient Romans.

Historical figures such as Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Cleopatra and Tutankhamun of Egypt, the Florentine poet Dante, Japan’s Taira no Kiyomori, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta are all said to have contracted malaria.

Modern medicine has revealed that malaria is an infectious disease transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes.

Unfortunately, even today, more than 200 million people are infected with malaria each year, and over 400,000 die from it.

   In the 45 years since I became a doctor, I have never encountered a single case of malaria.

However, with global warming, I am concerned that Japan may become a malaria-endemic region.

   As a side note, there is a city whose name means “good air”:

It is Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.

To be continued