Introduction

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There are some things in this world which the human mind cannot fully comprehend or describe in any intelligible way, try as we might. The best we can do is conjure up weak metaphors as we squint through dark shadows in a vain attempt to pin down the essence of these mysterious phenomena. Such is the Pantheon, a massive heap of bricks, concrete, and marble, enshrouded over the centuries in mystery and myth. A sphinx, an enigma, a time machine to the ancient past, the eighth wonder of the ancient world—all of these words have been used by us mortals to encapsulate this amazing survivor from the time Rome was at its zenith. Although largely intact—the only major temple in Rome to survive the millennia—the Pantheon has suffered its share of abuse over the past nineteen centuries, but as battered and threadbare as it might be in certain areas, it is largely standing as it was when it was first dedicated in the 2nd century, an architectural marvel now as it was back then. For nineteen centuries, its majestic dome has been part of the city’s ever-changing skyline. While other temples crumbled into the streets, their bricks reused for churches or just medieval hovels, the Pantheon has held firm. Of course, as we shall see, there were historical events which spared it, but you have to wonder if maybe the ancient gods used the last surge of their fading powers to sanctify it for all time.

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The Pantheon is one of the most studied, most dissected monuments in the world—for many centuries, historians and architects have tried to understand it, arguing and debating among themselves about so many facets of the place. But there is much we don’t know about it, despite the confident declarations in many guidebooks on Rome. First off, we don’t even know whether it was intended to be called “Pantheon” when it was built (it probably wasn’t). Second, we don’t even know for certain which emperor—or emperors—built it, or exactly when. Moreover, the actual function the Pantheon served back in ancient times isn’t fully known—we’ve always assumed it was a temple, but ancient sources never referred to it as such. And the uncertainties multiply the more you delve into its history. It’s almost as if the Pantheon was designed to be a mystery, a riddle that will only be solved at the end of time, if then. But first some facts, or what we currently think is true about the Pantheon.  

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History

Historical sources document that on the site of the present Pantheon was another “Pantheon” built around 27-25 B.C. by the Roman statesman and general Marcus Agrippa (62-12 B.C.) on what was his personal property. A close friend, confidant, and son-in-law of Augustus, Rome’s first and most preeminent emperor, Agrippa adorned the city with many temples and baths, and he built his Pantheon to celebrate his victory over Anthony and Cleopatra at the naval battle of Actium, which secured Augustus’s position of undisputed leader of Rome. One of the many stories from antiquity has it that Agrippa put a statue of Venus in his Pantheon, which he adorned with a pearl from Cleopatra--it was sliced in two to make earrings for the goddess. There’s even a Romulus angle to the location of Agrippa’s Pantheon, since there was a tradition that the founder of Rome, in glorious apotheosis, ascended to heaven from the site. Agrippa’s Pantheon burned down in 80 A.D. and was replaced with another Pantheon built by the Emperor Domitian, which in turn burned down 30 years later. Because the current Pantheon was such a daring engineering feat back then, there is ongoing debate over whether the two prior temples were domed as well.

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The reason for the controversy over Agrippa’s original Pantheon is the fact that on the current edifice—the final Pantheon, the putative eighth wonder of the ancient world—his name is boldly emblazoned on the dedication over the entranceway: “M. AGRIPPA L.F. COS. TERTIUM FECIT”—“Marcus Agrippa, Son of Lucius, Consul for the third time, made this.” Up until the late 19th century, most people didn’t give the building’s founder much thought—they had more important things like food, plague, and violent invaders to deal with—and the few intellectuals and historians back then took the above inscription at face value. Indeed, only a few hundred years after it was built, the Romans themselves didn’t really know, or care, who had built it. But in the 1890s, when archeologists examined the Pantheon’s bricks—in ancient Rome, bricks often had tax stamps on them—the scholars had a “eureka” moment: the bricks were dated from the middle of the 2nd century, a good 100 years after Agrippa’s death. The 2nd century, especially from 90 to 180 A.D. has been regarded as the golden age of the Roman Empire, a period of relative peace, prosperity, and five halfway sane emperors, a welcome respite from the 1st century’s Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. Ever since the dating of the Pantheon’s bricks, the major debate has centered upon which 2nd century emperor should be given credit for building such an audacious edifice. For most of the 20th century, it was taught that Hadrian (76-138 A.D.), a very complex and contradictory man of immense talents and very strong will, was the emperor responsible for the Pantheon, and that, displaying his apparent modesty and munificence, he inscribed the dedication to Agrippa, in deference to the original Pantheon’s builder. Hadrian seemed to be the perfect founder of the current Pantheon, because, in between putting down recurrent barbarian unrest on the empire’s frontiers—he built his famous wall in Great Britain to contain the barbarians there—he traveled across his empire with a retinue of probably thousands, building, rebuilding, and renovating countless temples, public buildings, baths, and anything else to commemorate his twenty-one year reign from 117 to 138 A.D. It was a very neat and satisfying theory, and the common wisdom—even today, still in many guidebooks and online articles—was that Hadrian, the great builder, completed the Pantheon in approximately 125 A.D. But when the experts reconsidered the Pantheon’s bricks more closely, they realized that almost all of the bricks date from the 110s, during the reign of Hadrian’s predecessor, Trajan, another “good emperor,” whose aggressive military campaigns stretched the Roman Empire beyond Mesopotamia to the borders of India. Trajan was also a builder—his forum in Rome was universally regarded as the most beautiful in a city teeming with monuments of unparalleled magnificence. Clinching Trajan’s major role in building the Pantheon is the fact that his chief architect was Apollodorus, a Syrian-Greek, who was responsible for the emperor’s greatest buildings, and was probably one of the few people who could conceive and execute a challenge such as the Pantheon. We know very little about Apollodorus, except that he had a loose tongue: years later, his imperial patron dead, he ridiculed Hadrian’s aesthetic tastes and architectural abilities, was banished, and—if postmortem history written by people hostile to Hadrian can be believed—was eventually put to death for offending the emperor. The physics and architectural details of the edifice have been studied and catalogued by modern-day experts, and it appears that the ancient architects found unexpected cracks, faults, and weaknesses in the structure as they were building it. Thus, they had to improvise—in a way, they made it up as they went along--adding support walls and internal frames for load-sharing.

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So at least one aspect of the Sphinx of the Campus Martius can be laid to rest: the Pantheon was almost certainly planned and started by Trajan after Domitian’s building burned down, with Hadrian finishing it around 125 A.D. Of course, there are always some lose ends, and some of the bricks suggest that Hadrian’s successor, Antonius Pius, added some finishing touches. And beneath the bold letters of the dedicatory inscription is another much smaller announcement from 202 A.D., sort of a postscript—you have to look closely to see it, since centuries of weather have worn some of it away—in which the emperor Septimius Severus said that he and his son made some repairs to the building as well, which the inscription says was “ruined by age,” an assertion a bit farfetched, but as emperor he could say what he wanted. So it’s likely that four emperors—Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, and Severus—had a hand in the present Pantheon.

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Yet other mysteries abound: what was it actually used for, and what was it actually called? Nowhere in ancient sources was the Pantheon referred to as a temple, “aedes”—the Severan inscription, above, refers to it as “Pantheum,” not “Aedes Panthei.” Although the Greek origin of “pantheon” refers to the gods, it could also signify the heavens or superhuman qualities. “Pantheon” was only used by Roman writers many years later, probably because there were statues of gods inside and in the outside niches. And as for its intended use, we’re also in the dark. Hadrian convened the Senate there and probably used it as an audience hall from time to time, even though the Imperial Palace on the Palatine also had imposing audience halls. In fact, not much is recorded about the Pantheon’s history in the centuries after its construction—no ceremonies of state or historical events are associated with it, almost as if it was a sort of white elephant, majestic and unique, but also requiring a lot of upkeep. Presumably, it was shuttered up in the late 4th century, when Christianity became the state religion of Rome and, state subsidies for temples cut off, the Pantheon’s priests scattered to find more honest work. There is passing mention of its being sacked by the invading Goths and Vandals in the 5th century, but other than stripping the gold plates off the door and carting off bronze bric-a-brac inside, there wasn’t much for a marauding band of barbarians to carry off.

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By the early 7th century, it appeared that the Pantheon would eventually decay, crumble, and disappear, as was happening to the once grand buildings surrounding it, many also built by Agrippa. But in an ironic twist, the gods spared their Pantheon from such a fate—or was it the Christian God who smiled upon a budget-conscious pope? In the early 7th century, although there had been no Western Roman emperor since 476, there was definitely an emperor in Constantinople, who was regarded by everyone, especially the Church, as the ruler of Rome and its God-given emperor. The Byzantine emperor was for real: he had a powerful army and navy, a treasury full of gold (depending upon how ruthlessly he taxed the poor), and a glittering capital whose wealth was the envy of an increasingly destitute world. In 609, Emperor Phocas (602-610 A.D.) gave the Pantheon, which was his personal property, to Pope Boniface IV, who had petitioned for permission to make it a church, the first such conversion of a Roman temple into a church, which the pope named St. Mary and the Martyrs. It was an easy request for the emperor to grant since by then Rome was not prime real estate and the Bishop of Rome was one of the few people of note who liked him—when his subjects finally deposed him, they paraded him around the Hippodrome, Constantinople’s massive stadium, and sliced his nose sliced off before killing him.

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So, thanks to a budget-conscious pope and a very bad Byzantine emperor, the Pantheon has survived through the centuries, although not without periodic indignities, which it has borne stoically. In 663, the Byzantine Emperor Constans II (641-668 A.D.), another emperor who spent his reign largely in the saddle fighting one invader after another, visited Rome for twelve days, the last emperor to grace the Eternal City. Since the city was still technically within his realm, he helped himself to the bronze tiles of the Pantheon’s dome, presumably for military purposes. But at least according to one report, this booty eventually ended up with plundering Arab pirates. Fortunately, a subsequent pope covered the dome with lead. As happened with most ancient structures in Rome during the Middle Ages, various rude dwellings were built up against the Pantheon, many made of bricks from surrounding ruins held together by mortar made from dissolving marble in lime kilns, perhaps including beautiful statues from the Pantheon itself. The fine marble revetment coating the outer walls was also stripped away over the millennia, some of it probably ending up as decoration for later churches in the city. A thousand years after Constans II looted the Pantheon’s roof tiles, Pope Urban VIII helped himself to the bronze ceiling of the front porch. Tradition has it that the bronze was used to construct the massive baldachhino (ceremonial canopy) over the altar of the new St. Peter’s, but most, if not all of the bronze went to cannon balls for the massive Castel San Angelo on the Tiber, the pope’s fortress that was once Hadrian’s tomb. Originally, the Pantheon stood alone and faced a large colonnaded courtyard, approached by a long flight of stairs leading up to it, but from the Middle Ages onward, the ground level gradually rose, making it appear squat and much less grand than it once did. And although the medieval hovels hemming it in were removed in the 19th century, the current piazza in front of it—appropriately named Piazza della Rotonda—still doesn’t pay sufficient respect to this ancient monument, but then again, the cafes ringing the piazza provide a peerless venue to sit and contemplate it.

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Structure and Outer Aspects

The structure of the Pantheon is on a massive, super-human scale: a tall large rotunda with a dome is preceded by an immense portico (porch) with a pediment (a triangular-shaped roof) supported by three rows of 16 gargantuan columns topped with equally sizable Corinthian capitals. Even from a distance the columns, each weighing 60 tons and made of grey Egyptian granite, appear enormous, and when you’re on the portico, you feel dwarfed by them. Experts believe that originally the columns were supposed to be 20 percent higher, but there was some sort of glitch in the order—you wonder if someone was executed for the error—and the current columns were used instead, making the portico less tall than first planned. We always must remember that marvels such as the Pantheon, which we regard as the zenith of Roman engineering genius, only happened because of the sweat and blood—and often the lives—of armies of slaves, who pulled these monolithic columns hewn in quarries in the eastern mountains of Egypt, put them on boats to ferry them up the Nile, and, once they arrived in Rome, dragged them on rollers from the Tiber to the Campus Martius. Think back to the 1950s movie, “The Ten Commandments,” depicting the harshness the Egyptian taskmasters inflicted on the Hebrews building Pharaoh’s monuments. The three left-most columns, pinkish in hue and with more ornate Corinthian capitals compared to the others, are replacements for damage done to that part of the portico from houses abutting against them in the Middle Ages—one replacement came from Domitian’s villa and the other two from the ruins of Nero’s baths. All 16 columns rest on the original pavement, worn and smoothly polished from 1900 years of feet treading on it.

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As with the portico’s colossal columns, the large entranceway is not on a human scale and towers over any mortal presuming to enter the sanctuary. The two massive bronze doors are surrounded by two equally grand bronze pilasters, fluted and with Corinthian capitals, which in turn are surrounded by a plain marble frame. The marble frame and bronze pilasters date from its original construction, but the bronze doors, contrary to what some guidebooks say, are not exactly the original ones—their history is vague, but it is possible that the current doors were refashioned in the 15th century from the originals, which were originally plated with gold, long ago stripped away. The pediment is pockmarked with gunshot holes from Napoleon’s soldiers who were probably too drunk to care. Also, in the center of the pediment are larger holes which scholars believe once held in place a bronze decoration, possibly an eagle surrounded by a wreath. The marble panels covering the outer walls have been stripped away long ago, some apparently even ending up in the British Museum. And the entire façade was replete with elegant statues in the two large niches on the porch and up on the pediment. It doesn’t take a degree in art history to surmise that the statues were of Agrippa, Augustus, Julius Caesar, and a multitude of gods, especially Venus and Mars.

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Yet, despite its architectural and historical significance, the exterior of the Pantheon might not be that impressive for the first-time tourist. The degradations of nearly two millennia have definitely taken a toll, and at first sight the Pantheon might appear like a tired, dilapidated pile of concrete and bricks, very massive to be sure, but nothing really special. Indeed, our tourist might have already seen other ancient Roman buildings that are still standing, much like the Pantheon: in the Forum, there’s the Senate house, the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, and the Temple of Romulus. So, from the outside, the Pantheon might not seem up to its hype. But as soon as our nonplussed tourist walks through those two towering bronze doors and enters into the sanctuary, this initial feeling of ho-hum-yet-another-massive-ruin is instantaneously transformed into dumbfounded amazement and awe, as he or she is in a flash transported back 1900 years, when the majesty and authority of Rome isn’t something to be imagined but is still a reality in all of its splendor and power.  

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The Interior

Whether you’re entering the Pantheon as a first-time tourist or a repeat visitor, you immediately feel immersed in an infinite, almost other-worldly space warmly colored with varied but harmonious hues. Reveling in the liberating universe before you, you want to levitate and float away into the ether, all the way up to the oculus at the top of the dome, through which sunlight, moonlight, rain, and even the rare snow shower have fallen for almost 2000 years. (Of course, the Romans built floor drains to handle any downpour.) Although you might not be able to pinpoint or articulate it, you sense a perfect balance, harmony, and symmetry, which reflect the fact that the height to the dome equals the diameter of the rotunda, in effect rendering the entire interior an immense sphere. The dome—still the largest unreinforced concrete dome on the planet—seems suspended in time and space, a gateway to the cosmos. The five concentric circles of coffering ornamenting the dome gradually decrease in size and depth towards the oculus, and in ancient times, there were probably bronze rosettes or stars in these recesses. Although any time markers to track the sun’s course throughout the day have disappeared, it is likely that the oculus created a type of sundial, the shaft of sunlight coursing across the interior. Some writers have related the five circles around the oculus to the five planetary gods. But in addition to celestial references for their heavenly dome, the Romans were also very practical, especially since they intended their creation to last for eternity, and the oculus also had the purpose of significantly lessening the weight of the dome, as did their gradually reducing the dome’s thickness from 20 feet at the base to five feet at the oculus, along with using lighter pumice in the concrete. It really is amazing that the dome is still standing, what with all the vandalism of its bronze tiles and, more seriously, the numerous major earthquakes the city has endured over the millennia—as just one of many examples, in the 5th century, Rome shook violently for 40 days, and the arena of the Colosseum partially collapsed. The Pantheon’s dome still stood, although modern analyses have shown several cracks in it.

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The interior of the Pantheon can overtax your eyes as they shift back and forth from the ethereal dome to the sumptuously colored pavement, alcoves, and lower walls of the rotunda, all of which, save for necessary repairs over the millennia, are essentially unchanged from when the first animal sacrifice was made in dedication of the temple. The marble pavement’s dazzling matrix of colors—deep red-purple, mellow yellow, granite grey, and milky white—deftly compliments the similar hues of marble lining the walls and alcoves. The pavement’s alternating rondels and squares—superhuman in scale and an interplay of color and geometry—are bordered by luxuriantly veined white marble, much like large slabs of blue cheese. In his interesting article, “Imperium and Genius in the Pantheon of Rome” (Architectural History, May 31, 2016), Patrick Hunt observes that the marble on the pavement hails from different provinces conquered by Rome, including Egypt, Carthage, Asia Minor, and Greece, which in the Pantheon are metaphorically under the imperium’s boot. The Roman elite was very attuned to the fineries of marble—when a particularly splendid supply would dock on the Tiber, they would rush down to get first dibs on it—and the display of empire on the Pantheon’s pavement was not lost on them. Each of the seven alcoves around the perimeter of the rotunda, alternately semicircular and rectangular, is fronted by two impressive columns of yellowish marble with blue veins, fluted and topped by elegant Corinthian capitals. The only columns of comparable grace and authority still standing in Rome are those in Santa Sabina on the Aventine, although those are a bit worn, whereas the Pantheon’s appear newly minted. These magnificent columns are flanked by equally large matching pilasters, again fluted and topped with Corinthian capitals. Between the recesses are smaller altars, with smaller but equally fine columns of alternating marble. Today, statues of various saints are in these altars, having long ago supplanted the statues of the gods and great rulers of Rome. The walls are faced with exquisite marble panels, square, rectangular and round, their colors arrayed to mirror those on the pavement. The overall effect of the pavement, the alcoves, and the wall is one of classical harmony and proportion, imbued with almost autumnal warmth, not garish or overpowering, but subtle in its power and authority.

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The alcove directly opposite the door is larger than the others and is probably where a colossal statue of Jupiter or perhaps Augustus once stood. It probably was also where emperors such as Hadrian held court or met with the Senate. Ever since the Pantheon became a church, this area has been the altar, and above it is the 7th century icon of the Virgin and Child given to the pope by Emperor Phocas. Like all such precious remnants from distant times when people believed such images were passageways to eternity, this one is also surrounded by thick protective frames. You have to wonder what the worshipers of the Middle Ages, most unwashed and lice-ridden, thought about the splendor surrounding them, the golden light of the altar candles flickering and shimmering against the fluted yellow columns, the purple porphyry marble, and the graceful details of the Corinthian capitals. Even the priests and higher prelates who frequented the Pantheon over the centuries probably had at best only a dim idea what their church once was, just as with most of the tourists milling about the rotunda today, selfie sticks in hand.

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Other than the Christian saints now in the alcoves, the only major alterations through the centuries have been the tombs of some of the great and the good, which occupy several of the small altars and alcoves. As soon as it had been consecrated as a place of Christian worship, Pope Boniface IV reportedly brought 28 cartloads of relics and bones of martyrs from the catacombs outside the city and placed them in a porphyry urn under the altar. By the early 7th century, conditions had deteriorated to the point that these outlying holy sites were vulnerable to grave robbers and invading barbarians, and the safety of the ever-increasing influx of pilgrims visiting Rome to worship holy relics—and bringing much needed money to the Church—could be better guaranteed within the city walls. Other notables buried here include the Renaissance painter Raphael, the baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli, and the first two kings of a united Italy, Victor Emmanuel II and Umberto I, both of whom espoused liberal reforms for the newly formed country. However, the most evocative tomb in the Pantheon is the relatively modest resting place of Raphael, arguably the conscience and very soul of the Renaissance, who died at age 37. When he came to Rome in 1508 at age 25, the city was absolutely heaving with artistic geniuses such as Michelangelo and Bramante, and he quickly surpassed them all. Translating from Latin, his tomb’s epitaph reads “Here lies Raphael, by whom the mother of all things [Nature] feared to be outdone while he was living, and while he was dying, herself to die.” As with countless other churches in Rome, over the Pantheon’s altars and in the niches are beautiful Renaissance and Baroque paintings, several of them mini-masterpieces. Yet despite the accretions of time, it doesn’t take much imagination to conjure up how this marvel of architecture looked in its prime.

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Michelangelo, world weary and not given to effusive praise, described the Pantheon as being of “angelic and not human design,” and he studied it in preparation for his plans for the dome of St. Peter’s. Other writers, poets, and famous tourists have tried to describe its singular beauty—Goethe simply said he was “overwhelmed” by it—but all other accounts have fallen short.   

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An Ancient Sentinel

Facing the Pantheon today are several inviting cafes with outdoor seating—their toasty overhead heaters make even the coldest evenings comfortable to sit out and enjoy drinks as you stare dumbly at the enigma in front of you. The Piazza della Rotonda is a favorite crossroads and gathering place for tourists, who rest on the steps of the Renaissance fountain in the center of the square—the obelisk is from the great Temple of Isis which once stood nearby. Many visitors blithely saunter past the Pantheon, often without giving it even a first glance. Some will stop briefly and snap a photo before quickly moving on to the next site on the Top Ten List of Things to See in Rome. From your perch at one of these cafes—my favorite is Ritorno Al Passato (Return to the Past), which is closest to the Pantheon and has staff who are friendly to even the rudest tourist—you can view the parade of us frail, fragile, and ultimately trivial human beings as we scamper past this ancient sentinel that towers over us all, still keeping watch and taking account of humankind’s folly. Indeed, as you gaze on the teeming parade of humanity strolling or rushing by, you sometimes feel you are watching a surreal clip from a Fellini movie: there are the buskers and the mimes trying to catch an audience and earn a few euro; innumerable couples of all ages, some still in love’s limerence, others bored and annoyed with one another; tourists in transit, pulling their wheelie luggage; the tour groups from Michigan or Poland; burly men dressed up as Roman centurions posing for photos with the tourists, hoping for more than a few euro for the favor; occasional police officers on the beat, spiffy in their uniforms, bored and disinterested; nuns and priests in their finery; the infirm and cripples, limping with their canes and walkers, or else being pushed in wheelchairs; tourists standing on their Segways, all properly helmeted; women with overdone makeup and very tight skirts slowly slinking by as they look about for customers; and the locals going home from work, scurrying by and trying to avoid the out-of-towners. But you really must not sniff and feel superior to your fellow sojourners, since once you finish your drinks and food, you, too, will be part of the continual circus heaving and churning past the Pantheon.

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Indeed, the panorama of humanity visiting the Sphinx of the Campus Martius has been legion, each of us “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” There have been the Roman emperors with their retinues of Pretorian guards, lictors, and eunuchs; the “one percent” of Roman society such as fabulously rich senators whose estates cut wide swaths through Italy, also with their retinues of slaves, retainers, and hangers-on; later, wave after wave of marauding barbarians helping themselves to the treasures within; pilgrims from the Dark Ages worshiping the martyrs’ bones Boniface IV stashed under the altar, all of them seeking salvation from relics such as a microscopic splinter shaved from the True Cross; frightened medieval peasants pulling carts of bodies as they brought out their dead struck down by the Black Death; scavengers stripping away its fine marble to feed  their lime kilns; fishmongers selling their wares under its immense portico; the great architects and painters of the Renaissance; innumerable conquering armies—Charles V’s mercenaries that inflicted one of the city’s most brutal sacks in 1527, Napoleon’s troops who used the façade for target practice, Nazi SS officers proudly strutting about the golden interior in their lovely blue uniforms, the Yanks taking in the sites and writing to the folks back in Iowa how different Rome was; and, of course, the armies of tourists over the centuries, including you and me. Indeed, many of the famous philosophers, historians, psychoanalysts, poets, writers, composers, and political figures have visited the Pantheon and, like you and me, stared dumbly at it, perhaps pretending to comprehend its significance but finally leaving with an uneasy sense of inadequacy in the face of such beauty. And all of them, the high and the low, are ultimately “heard no more,” as we will soon be. Since the period we currently live in is as equally unstable as those in the past, it is not too farfetched to imagine a time in the future when dazed survivors of global thermonuclear war or a major influenza pandemic stagger past the Pantheon, which will look impassively at their suffering, just as it has for the past 1900 years. And barring a direct hit, it might just survive a hydrogen bomb: its walls are 25 feet thick.  

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Perhaps the best way to approach the Pantheon is just to accept the fact that even after many years of visits, you still won’t fully comprehend it, although its power over you grows the more you visit and contemplate it. As you sit and enjoy a second glass of wine in its shadow, your thoughts may wander off to your own personal problems—perhaps troubled relationships, job stresses, worries about finances, regrets over the past, a medical problem, or even a serious illness. Yet you should take some comfort in the realization that the untold millions of other human beings whose lives have intersected with this monument have suffered anguish much the same way you do, often with much less support. One of the precepts the Buddha taught was that we are all part of the universal community of suffering, that our pain is no greater than anyone else’s. A monument like the Pantheon, witness to so much history, so much human fear, hope, and pain, should give us comfort and reassurance that, as special as we often think we are, we are no more special than the legions both before and after us.