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# Byron on Rome and the Colosseum, and lines from “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/bairon-posetil-rimskii-kolizei-v-1817-kogda-razvaliny-eshche-byli-polnostiu-pokryty-gustoi-rastitelnostiu-i-tselym-kovrom-iz-tsvetov/
- Published: 2021-07-04T17:04:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:06:05.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, People, Rome

Byron visited the Roman Colosseum in 1817, when the ruins were still wholly overgrown with thick vegetation and a veritable carpet of flowers.

He wrote of it: "I have passed some days in wondrous Rome, and am delighted with Rome. As a whole, Rome, both ancient and modern, is superior to Greece. To Constantinople, to everything in the world, at least to everything I have seen. As for the Colosseum, the Pantheon, St Peter's, the Vatican, the Palatine and so on and so forth, they are quite indescribable: they must be seen."

Later Byron mentioned the Colosseum in *Childe Harold's Pilgrimage*:

While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand,  
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall,  
And when Rome falls, the world.

*Literal translation*