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unforthOkay, a funny thing didn't actually happen while we were on our way to the forum, but I wish it had...today was "Ancient Rome" day. On Mondays, most of the major museums are closed, but the major sites of Roman antiquity are open, and so we made today these sites our goal. This necessitated waking up rather early, as we wanted to beat the worst of the crowds to the Colosseum. As the primary mandatory "must see" site in the city, it is routinely mobbed with tour groups and has very, very long lines. My travel book had advised getting there right around when they opened, so this was the goal; we arrived at 8:45 after an 8:30 opening time (most of the sites in Rome are open from 8:30 to 7 PM, which is AWESOME). We found the line for folks with the Rome pass already queuing pretty long, but for those of us who were just walking up to buy tickets, the line was almost non-existant, and within a few minutes we were inside an already-getting-crowded 2000 year old stadium!
It's pretty awesome. There's not much else I can say. It's in much better shape than I had thought it was based on the pictures I had seen, and tourists are allowed to walk all the way around both the lower level (that accessed the seats closest to the arena floor) and the next tier up. The third tier and the nosebleeds are off limits; the nosebleed level is now largely gone, but the others are all pretty much complete. One of the cooler effects of time has been the loss of the original wooden arena floor, which means that people in the stadium can see down into what was beneath that, the locker rooms, animal cages, trap doors, and other devices that helped run the show. Meanwhile, walking around the level where only senators and the wealthy would have gotten to sit was pretty awesome, and gave me the opportunity to joke to mom that it's closer than I've ever managed to get to Citifield (which is more humorous than accurate. ;) ) Another cool feature was an exhibit they had with modern reproductions of all of the gear of a wide variety of types of gladiators. It was pretty neat and the repros were awesome; one or two were housed next to display cases containing the originals that inspired them, which was even cooler. I had the feeling that these were very good, accurate representations; I only wish there had been a book about all the different types for me to buy, but there wasn't even one available in Italian, much less in English.
From there, we headed over to the Palantine hill, which is just southeast of the main ancient Forum area. A lot of better preserved buildings are on the hill, including the "Severan Arcade," whose function I still haven't figured out, the "Palantine Stadium," which is actually believed to have been a garden, several palaces believed to have been built for important people like Augustus and Livia, the (very ruined) ruins of the temple to Apollo, and several other structures that I didn't catch the purpose of. There were also, theoretically, views of the Circus Maximus, but I failed to find these views, and even if I had, I gather that this former chariot race spot - which I read could have seated 400,000 people, Nascar, anyone? - is now a large green field with some scattered ruins.
The most impressive feature of the Palantine hill is the huge structure (function undetermined by me) that descends the shear side of the hill straight down in the Forum. It is immense, and qualified in my eyes as a mountain of manmade stone in a similar vein to the Cathedral in Cologne did (though the Koln dom still ranks as the most impressive manmade structure I have ever seen - but it's getting competition...). We descended from the heights of Palantine into what remains of the Forum proper, which sadly isn't much. First, in the 9th century or so, some jackass going to war decided that all the bronze supports were needed for his weaponry, so he removed them, with the result that the next time an earthquake jostled the Forum buildings, many of them collapsed. Then, throughout the middle ages, the locals used it in a quarry, culminating in the 1540s and 1550s, when over the protest of a number of utterly unimportant local artists like Raphael and Michaelangelo, lots of stone and marble from the Forum was used in the construction of the new St. Peter's Basilica. Bastards. This was capped off during Mussolini's leadership, when he plowed through what had been Trajan's Marketplace in order to build a (now very heavily trafficked) road. So now, there are a few columns, a few intact buildings that survived because they had already been converted in to churches, two impressive triumphal arches (three if you count the Arch of Constantine, over by the Colosseum), a whole bunch of foundations, a shocking quantity of random loose chunks of marble and stone, some hills that maybe look like there could be something interesting underneath them (but probably not) and not much else. It's both awesome, amazing, and rather tragic, especially since buildings like the one that spans the entire height of the Palantine make it clear just how colossal and impressive the whole thing must have been. I like to try to stand in historical places and picture how they must have looked. And here, it just can't be done. The mobs and mobs of people, especially the tour groups, didn't help.
All in all, it took about four hours to see the major sites of the area, after which we grabbed our worst meal of the trip so far - mediocre, over priced food - and then returned to our room cause mom was tired. I had already decided that I was going to head out again, so I regrouped, considered my options, and headed to the Baths of Caracalla, only to discover when I arrived that they had closed at 1 PM on Monday. It's not the end of the world, as they didn't look like they were going to be a radically different experience from the Baths of Diocletian, so if I don't end up making it back there, so be it. I then continued walking south, with a vague plan of maybe visiting one of the catacombs, then cutting west to see Monte Testacco, then over to the river, then past some other little temple ruins, then back to the room. This was a pretty ambitious plan, and I'm not really clear on why I thought it was a good idea, so it's probably a good thing that I didn't end up doing it.
I only managed the first part of the plan. I walked to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, which is the closest of the 4 catacombs open to the public. In the first few centuries of the first millennium, the Christian population of the area decided to bury their dead in vast catacomb structures. Since burials were not permitted inside the city, the catacombs were all built outside, and even though Christianity was still illegal at this point in time, I don't get the impression this was done with tons of secrecy, though I suppose they must have used some. In all, there are 60 catacomb structures around the city, including four containing primarily Jewish tombs. St. Callixtus is the largest; with four levels and over 20 km of corridors, it has burial space for a half-million of the faithful. Talk about a necropolis!! Anyway, the only way to go down there is to go on a guided tour (you'd get hopelessly lost without a guide) so I got to spend 45 minutes seeing the choice spots on the second level of the catacombs (Which is the oldest level, and the only one open to the public). I thought it would be creepy, but it wasn't really. There weren't really any bodies left, and all of the burial sites on that floor have been thoroughly looted by generations past, with the result that all of the marble slabs that once covered the niches that contained the bodies are broken, so the halls just look like they're covered in strange gouges. In addition to the general intrigue of such a place, there are a few particular sites. Four or five of the earliest popes were all buried in one of the rooms (one had been martyred; all dated their popehood to before the legalization of Christianity in the empire), and in the next room over was the resting place of St. Cecilia. Apparently, some hundreds of years ago, they decided to move her body to another church, and when they opened the tomb they found her uncorrupted body, with her decapitated head placed neatly near the stump, and her hands still layed out with one hand with one finger raised (for the one lord) and the other hand with two fingers raised (to represent that the one lord is also part of the mystical trinity). There's a statue of her in this position there now, but it's not the original, which was also moved: the current one was a gift from a family from NYC in the 19th century. Of perhaps more interest, at least to me, were the frescoes in that room, which were very Byzantine and far post dated the burials (from the 6th - 8th century AD, instead of the 1st - 4th).
Another neat thing in the catacombs were the familial tombs. For Christians who had money, they could have their own room carved out of the underground labyrinth, and we walked past of few of these that were very nicely decorated, with frescoes with religious themes and marble floors.
All in all, the catacombs were pretty interesting, and the only down part is that I cannot share them with everyone, as photography was forbidden.
There wasn't much after that; I made the long walk back to the hotel, then grabbed some dinner alone, and returned with cupcakes for mom and I. Dinner was pretty tasty and more or less made up for lunch, and I succeeded in walking myself stiff for the first time since we arrived, which makes me happy, as it's a permanent goal of mine.
I had hoped to get some labeled pics up, but I'm pretty tired from walking up early and generally doing a lot - but I may still get a few linked up. If so, I'll add an edit to this post. So yeah, today was the day of ruins.
Tomorrow is the day of the northern part of the City, as we have made reservations to go to the Museo Borghese, where they only admit 300 people or so every two hours to see an (apparently) rather fine collection of Renaissance and forward art. We're also planning to hit the museum dedicated to the Etruscans, which is near there, and then to walk over to the Spanish Steps, appreciate a house that Keats once lived (And died) in, and get tea at a local famous place called Babingtons. Yet another busy day! :)
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