Ancient Rome

Today was our tour of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill. Rome reached a very balmy 31° today, with humidity high. Humidity is still at 51% at 9pm as I write this post.

The tour was by the same firm as that which took as through the Vatican debacle. However, despite overwhelming numbers in Rome due to the Jubilee youth stuff going on, our tour guide Yuri, who was educated, articulate and friendly, managed to take us through the Colosseum check points, and there are more checkpoints where ticket and passport must be shown than entering Fort Knox, and through the history of the place very skilfully. The start of the tour was the only real human crush on the whole thing, and it was hardly a human crush, more like a whole bunch of people all going through the same metal detectors and stair cases at the one time. So, busy, but not overwhelming.

If I’m honest, I did not know what to expect from the Colosseum. Would it be grand? Would it be a let-down? Would it have CGI? Would it have cardboard cutout Roman Emperors? Happily for me, I found the thing totally arresting in its size, its scope, in terms of what kind of games they laid on for the masses back then, and how it all fitted together culturally. For example, four tiers of seats. The Emperor gets the best seat in the house down low near the stage. Next tier were the Senators and patricians, next were mercantile and the general populace. The lower your social status, the higher in the Colosseum away from the stage you had to sit. And it really is a long way up there.

Did you know the Colosseum’s real name is the Flavian Theatre and that Colosseum is just a nickname. During the reign of Nero, he had a giant palace built called the Domus Aurea, the golden house, out the front of which he erected a giant statue of himself in gold about 30 metres high, presented as the sun god Sol Invictus. The statue was a colossus, a giant statue, much like the famous ancient wonder of the world, the Colossus of Rhodes, which was said to straddle the harbour of Rhodes. However, after Nero’s death by suicide after he lost the support of just about everybody, the colossus was torn down and in its place, a giant theatre made up of two giant amphitheatres joined together was started in the reign of Emperor Flavius, who never lived long enough to see it complete. This theatre was built on the site of Nero’s colossus and the Flavian Theatre gradually became known as the Colosseum.

We had only half an hour to walk through the Forum. Not ideal. But certainly, time enough to give us a taste of the thing. I felt quite moved standing in the middle of it, looking at this building or that, the Senate House here, the altar to Julius Caesar there. Did you know that, to this day, people still put flowers on the mound in Caesar’s altar? The columns, the triumphal arches, the courts, the rostrum of the Tribunes of the Plebs, the palazzos are all incredible and when you look at them as they were then, as we did in Yuri’s coloured picture book, and then look at them now, you can see how Rome paraded itself in glory. It must have been magnificent. The sun was beating down on us by the time the tour ended, and despite being able to stay on and poke around ourselves, we were tired on our feet, hot, sweaty, and felt the need to get out of the day and into some cool comfort, so bade the Forum Romanum farewell and headed for the tram stop.

A tram home. Some lunch at a local ristorante, a prosciutto and mozzarella toastie with a cold beer, then home to rest and nap. At aperitivo time, we emerged from our burrow, went for a short stroll around the vicolos, then returned to Mimi e Coco for drinks and nibbles, their lovely bruschetta again. We strolled down to the edge of the Tiber and sat on its banks looking at the evening sunlight on the water and then strolled home, but not before stopping at Caramelle for another cold beer. They knew us and the guy remembered our beer order. Very nice.

A good day today. The last of our tours in Rome completed. I am enjoying this kind of culture, so different to my own Anglo culture, very much indeed. It’s no wonder they call this La Dolce Vita.Meer informatie