Rome as a System of Ruins

The titular concept of Rome as a “system of ruins” appears to be, at first glance, a paradox. The paradox seems to spring not so much from the attempt to think of the city as a system,¹ but rather from the suggestion that we think of its ruins as a system, and that this system might in turn align with our image of a city. At its core, this paradox flows from the very strict semantic ties between the idea of system and the idea of perfect form, of ideal value, of beauty: How could we possibly conceive as a system what immediately presents itself in direct opposition to ideal form, to the intact and coherent structures of harmony and symmetry generally thought to be the expression of both the systematic and the beautiful since antiquity?²