Lunch L'Angelo Derrick Panino

Feeling a bit pooped and tired after that hill walking, we made our way up Via Cavour and sat down on a table outside of a café for a basic bite and rest. Is Nancy contemplating something? At the time, she was wondering about the paradox of Roman ideology. The expansion of the empire was based on a warrior attitude, they idealized fitness, strength, aggression, being "top dog" so to speak and as long as you complied with it all, worshiped the head of state and army as a God you could benefit from the civilization. However, if you did not fall in line you'd be executed, sometimes in very gruesome ways. Tossed into the Colosseum to be killed along with other animals and people while the crowd roared on for example. How such beauty and intellect could co exist with this is difficult to fathom. As Doug points out Christianity was a populist movement and when Constantine made it legal and it replaced the pagan tradition in the mid 300s, the violence as entertainment at the Colosseum came to an end. Eventually the Goths cut aqueducts, raided and Rome went from 1 million inhabitants to about 10,000. It was the end of a civilization that I am sure the Emperors could never imagine given the riches, however, one that has left many things behind - our alphabet, the basic format of Christian churches, the inspiration behind the Renaissance sculpture and art (credit as well to the Greeks whom the Romans admired greatly).Read more