The sight of a velvet rope and a closed door beckons us. Nearly everyone wants to go beyond the velvet rope, often a message sent to our brains that screams VIPs ONLY, whether it’s a nightclub or an impossible-to-get-into hot restaurant of the moment. 

The same is true for Rome’s ancient sites, both then and now. Two millennia ago, there were places where mere plebeians were forbidden to go. Caesar’s Palace—the original one, not the Las Vegas casino—for example, has been off limits to the general public for decades.