Rabbit and the Ruins of Rome

After two and a half years of hard sailing, Sila needed a little maintenance so we returned to Trèguier, where she was built. While the boatyard worked on things like our icebox, it was best for us to move off the boat entirely. So the four of us went on a road trip to Rome and Switzerland. Rome was especially fun for me. My favorite comic book, Asterix, takes place in the Roman era.  Also, I have recently read "Emperor: A Novel Of Julius Caesar," a good historical fiction series about the life of Julius Caesar. My ties with ancient Rome made seeing and experiencing the real thing not just fun, but also intriguing because I could relate what I read and my own imagination to the actual ruins in front of me. Rome played a huge role in shaping the world as it is and it was interesting to see such a historically layered city.

I was excited about the whole package but the main attraction was the ancient ruins and symbols of the Roman Empire from two thousand years ago. The Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, the Pantheon, the Colosseum and the port city Ostia Antica struck triggered awe inside me such that is difficult to put in writing. 

The Roman Forum is now an open space littered with ruins probably seven to eight times older than the United States. Even though the tourist labels were poorly done, I enjoyed wandering around listening to random things on my audioguide. I spent most of my time in The Forum imagining scenes from the Julius Caesar book. I think without knowing the stories, the random columns, bits of walls and chunks of marble would have been less interesting to me.

 Here the Forum is behind Porter, Mama, and me.

As you may perceive from these pictures, the Forum has some interesting ruins.

Palatine Hill is a hill where rich Romans built their palaces. Crumbling brick walls stripped of marble, foundations, and random pillars are what remain of these palaces.  They showed only shadows of what the buildings once were, but it gave me a base to imagine the real ones. I kept reminding myself the architects must have been good because a fair portion of the buildings are still standing after two thousand years. 

When it started to drizzle, we were thankful for the little umbrellas we found in the apartment we had rented for the week. In this photo, Daddy is looking at a small, personal gymnasium/arena near one of the palaces on Palatine Hill.

We three redheaded Barnses stand in front of some ruins on Palatine Hill. In between us and the ruins is the overgrown Circus Maximus, the place chariot races were held.

The Colosseum was amazing, even more so than the pictures. I do not know why this is the case but there seems to be an air about the place that  suggests mystery. During our tour, I learned a lot about Roman architecture and games in the Colosseum. The building itself is a large amphitheater started in 69 A.D. by the Emperor Vespasian and finished in AD 80 when Emperor Titus oversaw its inaugural games. This amphitheater is considered to be one of the finest works of architecture and engineering ever. It was meant to hold 50,000-80,000 spectators seated steeply around a circular arena, where animal fights, animal hunts, Gladiatorial fights, and mock sea battles where held. The people were situated by their social class, the Senators closest to the arena, the common people and women at the top. We could not see the seats because the marble had been taken for other buildings in Rome, leaving nothing but air or steep, smooth concrete. Under the arena, there was a complex of elevators, cages and passageways that were used to prepare and ready animals and fighters. 

Daddy and me in front of the Colosseum.

This may be a more impressive view.

In addition to learning about the architecture, I also learned about two more interesting details. First, this may come as a surprise, but there were not that many human deaths. The hosts of the games had to pay compensation to the trainers for loss of a gladiator, so the deaths were discouraged. Second, only very wealthy people could host the games because bringing in so many animals to fight was expensive. This meant the games did not happen often. When they did happen, the people were really excited because admission was free to the enormous event that would last for days, weeks and sometimes months. 

 This is a panorama of the Colosseum. If you imagine white marble seats on the sides, and yellow sand on the arena, you have a picture of what it was like in the days of its use.

You can see part of the arena, where the sand and floor boards have been taken off. You can make out passageways and elevator shafts down below.

The Pantheon was a huge hit for me. It is one of the few ancient buildings still standing and complete in Rome. It was built as a temple for all the gods, hence the name which includes pan (all) and theo (the gods). The outer layer of marble was stripped for other uses and the Christians turned it into a Catholic church, but that is the price to pay for it to have been maintained all these years. The Pantheon has a large concrete dome with a hole in the apex that has quite the effect of being a place for a higher power. It was built by Marcus Agrippa. I had read about him in the Julius Caesar book. Being in the Pantheon made me realize that I had thought subconsciously that Agrippa was just a character in a book, not a real person. There were lots of reasons why I enjoyed our visit to the Pantheon.

 In front of the Pantheon.

The inside of the dome has the beautiful indents, making it lighter so the walls can support it.

The final ruin we visited was Ostia Antica, the old port city outside of Rome. I found it so fascinating that I will write a separate blog about it. Our adventure to Rome was an interesting, fun visit, all the more so because I could relate some of the books I have read to what I saw. -JackRabbit