It is the year 129 AD and the Roman emperor Hadrian is touring the eastern reaches of his vast empire. He walks under a magnificent arch, built in his honor and sits on the cold marble throne in the Hippodrome, licking his lips at the prospect of watching the great games. Horse chariots dash around the long oval, and when the horses tire, out come the gladiators. A lean Ritarius (a net-man type of fighter) battles a comically fat Secutor (picture a clunky helmet with two tiny eye holes). Libyan lions, camels and more assorted beasts follow. The crowd is entertained and Hadrian is pleased.

After nearly two thousand years, Hadrian’s arch is amazingly mostly intact and the Hippodrome can still seat thousands. We thought we had seen enough “Templo Romanos” on this trip, which tend to be mostly a few lonely looking columns. It’s tricky business to compare historical sights, but outside of Italy, Jerash is probably the best preserved Roman city. We loved the Greek Acropolis and the magnificent Parthenon , but Jerash offers a much more personal experience. Here you can walk amidst the temples and caress the columns. Your friendly tourist guide can even shake these corinthian pillars, a trick that although impressive, could cause apoplectic shock amongst the more sedate archaeologists.

After an evening of tasting deliciously luscious sweet figs from the Amman souk, we headed to Jerash the next morning with almost no expectations.

We enter through the towering Arch of Hadrian. Compared to the namesake in Athens, here you don’t need any imagination to appreciate its grandeur. Somehow, here in the desert, despite the powerful earthquake of AD 749 and the rough and tumble of subsequent empires, things still stand.

Next up is the Hippodrome, the arena where circuses were held and horses drag raced. Meant to seat 5000 spectators, the climb is up rather tall stone steps and once there you can admire the grassy field below. It has rained the past week and the otherwise dry sandy soil, has sprouted green shoots. We see the horse stables below and there is even a suggestive large stone block in the center of the field. I can imagine dwarves leaping as horse chariots thundered.

We then amble along the Cardo Maximus (Cardo meaning heart- i.e heart of the city), the arterial road around these parts and observe the ruts carved into the limestone by the passing of carriage wheels. There are footpaths on the side, manholes on the road with circular stone covers that allowed rain water to drain and underground sewerage. After watching the carnage of gladiators and beasts, the citizens could walk back home safely on clean streets. Jerash (or Gerasa as it was known back then) was one of the cities of the Decapolis. The Romans, ever the ardent organizers, banded together 10 cities around modern day Jordan, Syria and Israel, which shared the same culture to better run their empire. The Cardo Maximus, was part of a road network that connected Damascus to Aqaba, the original King’s highway.

Roamans built a whopping 80,000 kilometers of roads in and across their ever extending empire during their reign. Taking from the Greeks before them the Roman idea of public space is an immaculately developed one. Footpaths, shopping areas with excellent access, public baths, temples and arenas neatly present themselves along the sides of the great highway or Cardo. We take a diversion and climb up a gentle slope to reach the temple of Zeus. Zeus was the king of gods, and its a little ironic that this is the least intact of all the monuments here. It’s still a pleasure to walk amidst this ancient sanctuary and touch the sandstone. Fallen pillars make for great seats to take it all in. Unlike other Roman cites strewn all over Mediterranean Europe, here you can appreciate everything without pesky barriers and over zealous guards. It’s quite an experience to trace out the carvings of the acanthus leaves in a fallen corinthian capital.

The grand oval forum, with all its 56 Ionic columns is still standing is at one juncture of the cardo maximus. Here sat the venders of myrrh, frankincense and other less exotic goods. As we continue our walk along the Cardo, we see a shaking Column. A man appears to be pushing against it and the vertical sections shimmy ever so slightly. It’s all rather bizarre, but this is how we meet our unofficial guide for the day. After getting our attention with this rather questionable trick, he bangs one of the fallen beams to create a metallic sounding boom. His explanation is fantastic and centers around some sort of ancient earthquake detection technology. Apparently when the earth shook, the columns vibrated and banged the horizontal beams and everyone woke up to the alarm of the loud metallic booms. It’s a great story, but sadly I could not find any official text backing it up. Facts are over rated anyway.

Now accompanied by Ibrahim the guide we proceed past the Nymphaeum. Here was a fountain and there is some myth about how wine flowed through it during some ceremony. There are beautiful clam shaped recesses carved into the walls. Lamps burn’t under statues in niches here. The night time roman stroller would be suitably moved to piety.

Next we proceed to the cozy theater. Here Ibrahim, points out the precise location where the orators performed and musicians entertained. Everyone takes a turn to try out the acoustic feedback. When you stand on a particular tile, you can hear yourself, as if through expensive headphones. My dad makes an important Roman declaration.

We finish at the the temple of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. This is the most evocative monument in Jerash. The early christians, seem to have agreed and converted it into a cathedral for Virgin Mary. In the setting Sun, its sandstone columns glow brightly. A large flock of jackdaws rise up and the sky rings with their sharp calls.

Twilight falls at the temple of Artemis and a tea vendor does some Bollywood fighting impersonations to our delight. Sadly he has run out of hot tea. After admiring the composite pillar heads with their Ionic swirls and Corinthian Acanthus leaves in silhouette, we bid adieu to our guide.

Hardly any tourists stroll as we walk towards Hadrian’s arch to make our departure. It almost feels as if any moment now a tunic clad chariot driver might screech to a halt beside us and chasten us for walking on the road instead of the footpath. The shrill whistle of a guard brings us back to the present as we hurry along to the gates. We wave a fond goodbye to Gerasa.