I have to admit that I was never that interested in Roman history in middle school. It just seemed
like too much time to really be comprehensible, and I always get it mixed up
with ancient Greek history. I can now announce I’ve found the solution to this disinterest;
go to Rome and see it for yourself! The city is incredibly dense with wondrous
things to see and learn about.
Day 0 - Journeying
My Roman adventure started at five in the afternoon in the Uppsala Centralstationen, where I caught the train to the airport with Henri. One uneventful trip through check-in and security later, we got on our plane to Rome! Henri was jealous because I got my passport stamped every time; he’s an EU citizen, so he never does. We arrived at the airport, caught the train to the city center, and found ourselves standing outside Termini at midnight, not quite sure how to catch the bus to our hotel. A little wandering and waiting (and some quality time translating the Italian bus website before we left) paid off and we found our bus.
It was a crazy bus ride; we went whizzing through the city at relatively high rates of speed for the many tight corners we went around. Everything we saw was big and old and we had no idea what any of it was. It was a complete blur, and we couldn’t wait to start exploring once we weren’t so punchy and tired.
A little more wandering from the bus stop to our hotel address led us to a large unmarked door with a suite of random things inside. Our hotel consisted of four rooms and a patio in the basement apartment, run by a sweet old Italian man who spoke very little English. He showed us to our beds and Henri and I crashed.
Day 1 - The Colosseum
The next morning we started a tradition of careful planning that served us well for the entire trip. The plan: see the Colosseum, and take the longest way possible to get there. We estimated it was about five kilometers in a straight line from our hotel to the Colosseum, which is about the same distance from my apartment in Kantorsgatan to the BMC where I had my neuroscience class. It took me about an hour to walk the distance in the week before I had my bike.
It was nearly four and a half hours later when we finally reached our destination. On the way we found the Piazza del Popolo, which is just inside the ancient walls that enclosed the northern-most part of Rome. The marble gate was incredible.
In the center of the piazza is one of several ancient Egyptian obelisks, which were transported from Egypt. It was covered in hieroglyphics and had one of Rome's famous fountains at the base. On the north side of the piazza (just to the left once you're through the gate) is "Jamie's first Roman church." Henri and I went inside to see it.
I was in awe. Like the cathedrals of Stockholm and Uppsala, the columns and arches made the space seem bigger and more graceful than normal. The stonework, painting, and other artwork was incredible. And while I was drooling? Henri was busy informing me that this was pretty standard, as far as churches went, and I should wait until I saw one of the proper basilicas. I thought he was crazy.
Three churches later, I was starting to think he might be right. Every church was beautiful, and every one was different. One was painted predominantly in blue. Another had an elliptical dome instead of a round one. We visited nine churches that day, and I can say that as far as examples of human-created beauty, Rome topped anything I have ever seen.
During our wanderings we also found the Piazza di Spagna, which is at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. My history here is a little sketchy, but the steps were built by an important Frenchman and were at their time quite an architectural marvel. They lead up to one of Rome's larger churches, which was unfortunately under renovations. The view from the steps was quite nice though.
Many quirky, narrow side streets later we stumbled onto the Trevi Fountain. This is the most famous fountain in Rome, a city famous for its fountains. The story goes that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi Fountain, you'll be sure to come back to Rome someday. My twenty cents now rests comfortably at the bottom of the fountain. Hopefully the story is true!
Finally Henri and I decided that despite the fact that we hadn't yet reached our destination and we weren't quite sure where we were, it was long past lunch time. We ate lunch at a little place with tables and chairs set up in the street. I had lasagna quite unlike anything I've called lasagna before; penne-style noodles, red sauce, ground beef, and cheese baked in a bowl that sort of reminded me of how French onion soup is served. It was delicious! I was also reminded of one of my favorite parts of Romance cultures: wonderful crusty bread with every meal, and generally with olive oil. I was in food heaven.
After lunch we continued our wandering; we knew which direction to wander in, if not exactly where we were. Two corners later, we were suddenly confronted with Capitoline Hill, and the magnificent National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II. It's made entirely from travertine marble, which is quarried north of Rome. It's impossible to miss this white building, particularly on sunny days when it just glows.
To the left of this building is Via dei Fori Imperiali. Mussolini built it straight through a lot of ancient Roman ruins; if you've ever seen video of Italian troops marching up and down a street during WWII, this is where it happened. On either side of the street the ground drops to the ruins, which are about ten meters below the level of the road. At the end of the road is the great structure itself, the Colosseum.
Ok, I switched perspectives on you. Now Fori Imperiali is on the right, and the Colosseum is just visible past all of those trees. The ruins just in front are remnants of the Augustus forum.
This picture was taken from the same spot, just turned 180 degrees. The two domes are Catholic churches, built over a thousand years after the ruins before them. The tallest column seems to be another obelisk, but according to my (very cursory) research I did when I got home, it's not considered an ancient Egyptian or an ancient Roman obelisk.
And there it is: the goal of Day One. The Colosseum captures the imagination of almost everyone who hears any of the stories of gladiators and lions; it's one of the most well-known buildings in the world. It lives up to all of the hype.
When Henri and I finally arrived to the piazza just outside the Colosseum, we were approached by a guy selling tours in English. After a couple of questions (do we actually go inside, are you approved by Colosseum officials; our plan did not include getting scammed!) Henri and I joined the tour.
It turns out that one of the reasons the Colosseum is so well preserved is that various popes throughout the years rebuilt parts of it. There are two reasons proposed for this (outside of genuine historical preservation): 1. they felt somewhat guilty about their efforts to...recycle...marble from ancient Roman temples and buildings, like the Colosseum, and 2. they wanted their names on something as cool as the Colosseum. So when you see large stone plaques with Latin names on them, those are the popes who helped rebuild.
You can tell the difference between original and renovation by the stone work. All of the original Colosseum was built from travertine marble, which you can see in the picture above. The blocks were wired together with bronze rods to keep the whole thing from falling down. The holes you can see in the marble were chipped out to get to the bronze rods to make weapons at some *cough* undefined later point in history. (I'm telling you, kids, pay attention in history class!)
This is the inside of the Colosseum. Almost all of the seats have fallen (or been taken) apart, but you can see one section remaining almost directly across from where I was standing. Below that, you can see a small portion of the reconstructed arena. Everything below that was hidden from view, and fed the trapdoors that released the famed starving lions or swallowed up the dead fighters. The other thing I found really fascinating was that the Colosseum, at one point, had a canvas roof that could be unfurled at will to protect the spectators from the sun and rain.
As we were leaving the Colosseum we were informed that our tickets included entrance and guidance through the archaeological sites on the Palatine Hill, but as it was after entrance for the day (4:00) we could come back tomorrow and join another group, no worries. So Henri and I began our wandering home. We stumbled across another block of ruins called the Largo di Torre Argentina, sunk into the ground in the middle of modern buildings, and then several blocks later the Pantheon, which was filled to the brim with tourists. We decided to come back this direction the next morning and see the inside when it was hopefully less crowded, and continued on our way home. (Turns out all that walking can be somewhat exhausting.) After the best gnocchi I have ever had, we again crashed in our beds, while visions of crumbling marble danced in our heads.
Day 2: The Palatine Hill
Day Two in Ancient Rome had much the same structure as Day One; wander until we got to Ancient Rome, tour the Palatine Hill, wander back. We did, of course, want our wander on the way there to coincide with the Pantheon, but we figured we could make it happen. If we found it without looking for it, surely we could find it while we were looking for it.
Every morning we crossed the Tiber River; we were staying on the east side of the river, and ancient Rome, as well as the modern "downtown," are on the west side. Not able to remember the names of all of the streets, we simply named the bridges by where they crossed to. For example, "our bridge" was the bridge that was closest to our hotel.
The next bridge downriver was the "train bridge" because of the metro line it also carried, and the bridge below that one was the "courthouse bridge," although courthouse seems an entirely inappropriate word for the building we were referring to.
This is the main entrance; see the relative size of the cars parked in front? The building extended three or four lengths of the entrance on either side. It's massive, beautiful, and very old-looking. Henri jokes he'd break a law in Rome just to be able to see the inside. I told him he was on his own for that particular adventure.
This is a perfect example of the little streets we wandered down all morning. Roman people seem to be very keen on growing things, and there are trees, vines, and potted plants all over the city. Our wanderings also brought us to a small market, where we bought two clementines to snack on as we continued. Perhaps it was the fact we were hungry, or that we were eating outside, or that we were simply eager to be delighted, but they were wonderful, although somewhat more tart than the ones we have at home.
Alright, I know. Interesting picture of...a...wall. The interesting bit is the column on the right side; it's of ancient Roman origin. I have no idea what building it was originally part of, but it illustrates a classic characteristic of Rome; you have columns, churches, apartment buildings, and everything else built in the last twenty-five hundred years all mixed together in this fantastic overwhelming whirl of history. It's completely incredible.
Our wanderings then took us to Piazza Navona, another one of the bigger piazzas in Rome. Another Egyptian obelisk and another beautiful fountain, graced the center of the piazza. Along one side was another huge white building that sort of reminded me of the courthouse. Henri declared it a church, and I thought he was crazy. Churches are not that big. I had clearly yet to learn that Henri was right about everything related to Roman churches (though to be fair, he'd been to Rome before.) It was a church, although there were other offices and things to either side of the church, in the same building. One was the Brazilian Embassy.
Here you can see the church/embassy/other important things on the left. Also notice the interesting oval shape of this piazza; we'll come back to that later.
From here we started trying to find the Pantheon, and we quickly discovered that it is halfway impossible to find something you're actually looking for in Rome! Quite a bit of wandering later, we did find it, and it was happily less crowded than the day before, though still busy.
In order, this is the front of the Pantheon, the inside of the dome, and one picture of the inner walls. The Pantheon is interesting for a variety of reasons. It was commissioned by Marcus Agrippa to be a temple to all the Roman gods, and then it was rebuilt by Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century A.D. as a monument to a triumphant battle...somewhere in the Roman Empire. (Again, smacking twelve-year-old self for reading under the desk during history.) It's since been converted to a Catholic church, Santa Maria della Rotonda. It's also interesting because it's almost two thousand years old, and it's still almost perfectly preserved. It's the largest dome ever made from un-reinforced concrete. It's also an architectural wonder for several other reasons that have to do with the dimensions of the dome and the angle it rises at, but I didn't follow most of the details. I can tell you it was very big and very impressive.
Our goal of seeing the Pantheon completed, Henri and I continued to wander through the little streets on our way to the Palatine Hill. We again stopped for lunch in a small side street just before we reached Capitoline Hill. The different varieties of pasta was mind-numbing; I could have returned there every day for a month and not tried everything. Happily fed once again, Henri and I continued on our way.
As we walked past the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, I noticed lots of people climbing the steps to the entrance, which was high above ground level. I've always liked being up high, so Henri and I started climbing. Lots of steps later, we discovered there was also an elevator that you could ride to the very top of the Monument. Needless to say, I was quick to buy a ticket to one of the highest points of Rome.
This is looking northeast from the top of the monument. The biggest dome you can see against the skyline is St. Peter's Basilica.
This is looking straight north. The long street you can see running straight from the monument is Via Del Curso, which goes all the way to Piazza del Popolo.
This is a direct 180 degrees from the other picture; you can see the Colosseum, the majority of the forums, the temples to ancient Roman gods and emperors, and the whole Palatine Hill. This reminded us of our big goal for the day, and after taking in the sites for a while (and the gloriously warm sunshine!) we continued the rest of the way and joined our tour.
The Palatine Hill was, in ancient days, the address to have in the world. According to legend, the cave at the base of the hill is where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf. Romulus went on to found a city on the hill and named it after himself: Rome. (I think the legend also includes him killing his twin, but I'm not clear on details of the story.) The emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Domitian all had palaces on top of the hill. (The word palace comes from the name Palatine.) Domitian's palace is the best preserved, as it was the last built.
This was a stadium he had built for his entertainment. Young men would compete in running and throwing competitions, and occasionally fighting competitions. You can see some of the remaining marble, but most of what you see here is brick. Most of the palace was built from brick or concrete, and then covered with panels of marble. (It was cheaper to do it that way.) This led to one of my favorite stories from the tour of the palace; Domitian was so nervous about getting assassinated he had all of the marble polished until it was actually reflective. That way, he could stand with his back to the wall or he could see someone sneaking up behind him. The funny part: he was poisoned by his wife.
We also learned something about the other arenas that had been constructed by ancient Roman emperors. The Colosseum is, of course, the most famous, but there is also the Circus Maximus, on the east side of the Palatine hill, Domitian's private arena (the one pictured above), and much larger public Stadium of Domitian. The Circus Maximus has been left as ruins and preserved as it was, but the Stadium of Domitian was in a very central area of Rome and has been rebuilt as the Piazza Navona. That's why it has the unique oval shape I mentioned before.
The archaeological site also included the world's first botanical garden, temples to most of the Roman gods, the first paved road in the world, and most of the Roman forums.
This is the temple to Venus and Aphrodite. To the right is the road I mentioned, leading to the Arch of Titus. The Colosseum is just behind my right shoulder from where I was standing.
This is the arch of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. That's the Colosseum behind it. Whenever an emperor had a major military triumph, they built an arch (or the Pantheon, if you're Hadrian) to commemorate it. These arches were the model for the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
This picture is taken from the top of the Palatine hill, in the botanical gardens. The three huge arches are remains of the Temple of Massenzio, who was a Roman emperor in the third century A.D. What you can see there is about a third of what the temple actually was. It's hard to tell from this picture, but later I went and stood in the right arch and it is incredibly massive.
This picture is taken from the same vantage point, pointed to the left of the Temple of Massenzio. There are two temples in this photo. The one on the right, that sort of looks like two separate buildings, is the Temple of Romulus (not the founder of Rome, but the son of Massenzio). Through the bushes you can just see a set of bronze doors, which look green with age. (They're leading into the round part of the building.) Those are the original doors of the building, built eighteen hundred years ago. They have the original locks in place, and when archaeologists found the original keys, they were able to determine that the keys and locks still work. Absolutely mind-blowing.
The one on the left, with the scaffolding on it, is dedicated to another Roman emperor and his wife. I was starting to hit information overload at this point, so I can't remember which emperor, but I was interested because it was the first known temple to be dedicated to a human woman (as opposed to a goddess).
This is my favorite photo of the Roman Forums. You can see the remains of the brick walls, marble columns, and in the background, the Palatine hill (right) and the Colosseum (left). Walking through the forum is a somewhat unique experience because of the lack of fences and "do not touch" signs. Chunks of marble, labeled with ID numbers and coordinates, are scattered all around for people to touch and examine. You can walk through some of the rooms of the ruins, and see remains of statues. Of course, not everything is open to the public, but it was fun to be able to trace a marble relief that was created two millenia ago.
It's tricky to read when the photograph is this size, but carved into the marble on the top of the columns is Senatus Populusque Romanus. Translated from Latin, it means the Senate and the People of Rome. To understand exactly how incredibly cool this is, you need a very (and I do mean very) broad understanding of Roman history.
Romulus (disputably a real person and not just a legend) was the first of seven kings who founded and ruled Rome, some time around 750 B.C. After the seventh king, around 500 B.C., Rome was ruled by the Senate. Julius Caesar upset the power of the Senate in 49 B.C., but was never considered an emperor for a variety of reasons I never really understood. His adopted heir, Augustus, was the first "official" Roman emperor. The Roman Empire changed sizes and emperors rapidly, but was eventually split into two halves, Eastern and Western, in 395 A.D. The Western Empire crumbled into the barbarian states, recognizable as the modern western European countries, in 476, and the Eastern Empire became the Byzantine Empire.
500 to 800 is considered the Medieval era of Rome, and Rome was ruled by various Popes who accepted Byzantine rule (and fought with France a lot). In 800 Charlemagne was crowned the king of the Holy Roman Empire, which marked the end of Rome's acceptance of Byzantine rule. The Papacy continued to fight with France and occasionally Germany all the way through to modern history. The other bit of history to note is the Roman Renaissance, which was in the 15th century.
And voila. Rome in a nutshell.
The phrase Senatus Populusque Romanus dates back to the origins of the Roman Senate, around 500 B.C. Someone, some time between 2500 and 2000 years ago, carved those words into those marble blocks and probably watched as they were set atop those columns. He (they?) had no idea that the Senate would last until the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, or that popular representation would be the philosophical basis of so many modern governments, or that SPQR (the abbreviation) would still be on Rome's coat of arms in the twenty-first century. SPQR has survived arguably one of the most tumultuous histories ever, and there it stands. Talk about the Eternal City.
As we were staring at the Latin words, a voice came over a loudspeaker announcing the closing of the archaeological site, and Henri and I followed the crowds to the exit. Another, somewhat shorter, wander home took us to our favorite part of modern Rome thus far, the Gelateria del Teatro. Hidden in a tiny alley off one of the narrow rambling streets, it has the best gelato I have ever had in really interesting flavors. My favorite: raspberry and garden sage.
It took a while for Henri and I to motivate ourselves to finish the walk home, where we again crashed hard.
Up next:
Day 3: The Vatican City
Day 0 - Journeying
My Roman adventure started at five in the afternoon in the Uppsala Centralstationen, where I caught the train to the airport with Henri. One uneventful trip through check-in and security later, we got on our plane to Rome! Henri was jealous because I got my passport stamped every time; he’s an EU citizen, so he never does. We arrived at the airport, caught the train to the city center, and found ourselves standing outside Termini at midnight, not quite sure how to catch the bus to our hotel. A little wandering and waiting (and some quality time translating the Italian bus website before we left) paid off and we found our bus.
It was a crazy bus ride; we went whizzing through the city at relatively high rates of speed for the many tight corners we went around. Everything we saw was big and old and we had no idea what any of it was. It was a complete blur, and we couldn’t wait to start exploring once we weren’t so punchy and tired.
A little more wandering from the bus stop to our hotel address led us to a large unmarked door with a suite of random things inside. Our hotel consisted of four rooms and a patio in the basement apartment, run by a sweet old Italian man who spoke very little English. He showed us to our beds and Henri and I crashed.
Day 1 - The Colosseum
The next morning we started a tradition of careful planning that served us well for the entire trip. The plan: see the Colosseum, and take the longest way possible to get there. We estimated it was about five kilometers in a straight line from our hotel to the Colosseum, which is about the same distance from my apartment in Kantorsgatan to the BMC where I had my neuroscience class. It took me about an hour to walk the distance in the week before I had my bike.
It was nearly four and a half hours later when we finally reached our destination. On the way we found the Piazza del Popolo, which is just inside the ancient walls that enclosed the northern-most part of Rome. The marble gate was incredible.
Three churches later, I was starting to think he might be right. Every church was beautiful, and every one was different. One was painted predominantly in blue. Another had an elliptical dome instead of a round one. We visited nine churches that day, and I can say that as far as examples of human-created beauty, Rome topped anything I have ever seen.
During our wanderings we also found the Piazza di Spagna, which is at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. My history here is a little sketchy, but the steps were built by an important Frenchman and were at their time quite an architectural marvel. They lead up to one of Rome's larger churches, which was unfortunately under renovations. The view from the steps was quite nice though.
After lunch we continued our wandering; we knew which direction to wander in, if not exactly where we were. Two corners later, we were suddenly confronted with Capitoline Hill, and the magnificent National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II. It's made entirely from travertine marble, which is quarried north of Rome. It's impossible to miss this white building, particularly on sunny days when it just glows.
When Henri and I finally arrived to the piazza just outside the Colosseum, we were approached by a guy selling tours in English. After a couple of questions (do we actually go inside, are you approved by Colosseum officials; our plan did not include getting scammed!) Henri and I joined the tour.
You can tell the difference between original and renovation by the stone work. All of the original Colosseum was built from travertine marble, which you can see in the picture above. The blocks were wired together with bronze rods to keep the whole thing from falling down. The holes you can see in the marble were chipped out to get to the bronze rods to make weapons at some *cough* undefined later point in history. (I'm telling you, kids, pay attention in history class!)
As we were leaving the Colosseum we were informed that our tickets included entrance and guidance through the archaeological sites on the Palatine Hill, but as it was after entrance for the day (4:00) we could come back tomorrow and join another group, no worries. So Henri and I began our wandering home. We stumbled across another block of ruins called the Largo di Torre Argentina, sunk into the ground in the middle of modern buildings, and then several blocks later the Pantheon, which was filled to the brim with tourists. We decided to come back this direction the next morning and see the inside when it was hopefully less crowded, and continued on our way home. (Turns out all that walking can be somewhat exhausting.) After the best gnocchi I have ever had, we again crashed in our beds, while visions of crumbling marble danced in our heads.
Day 2: The Palatine Hill
Day Two in Ancient Rome had much the same structure as Day One; wander until we got to Ancient Rome, tour the Palatine Hill, wander back. We did, of course, want our wander on the way there to coincide with the Pantheon, but we figured we could make it happen. If we found it without looking for it, surely we could find it while we were looking for it.
Every morning we crossed the Tiber River; we were staying on the east side of the river, and ancient Rome, as well as the modern "downtown," are on the west side. Not able to remember the names of all of the streets, we simply named the bridges by where they crossed to. For example, "our bridge" was the bridge that was closest to our hotel.
Our wanderings then took us to Piazza Navona, another one of the bigger piazzas in Rome. Another Egyptian obelisk and another beautiful fountain, graced the center of the piazza. Along one side was another huge white building that sort of reminded me of the courthouse. Henri declared it a church, and I thought he was crazy. Churches are not that big. I had clearly yet to learn that Henri was right about everything related to Roman churches (though to be fair, he'd been to Rome before.) It was a church, although there were other offices and things to either side of the church, in the same building. One was the Brazilian Embassy.
From here we started trying to find the Pantheon, and we quickly discovered that it is halfway impossible to find something you're actually looking for in Rome! Quite a bit of wandering later, we did find it, and it was happily less crowded than the day before, though still busy.
Our goal of seeing the Pantheon completed, Henri and I continued to wander through the little streets on our way to the Palatine Hill. We again stopped for lunch in a small side street just before we reached Capitoline Hill. The different varieties of pasta was mind-numbing; I could have returned there every day for a month and not tried everything. Happily fed once again, Henri and I continued on our way.
As we walked past the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, I noticed lots of people climbing the steps to the entrance, which was high above ground level. I've always liked being up high, so Henri and I started climbing. Lots of steps later, we discovered there was also an elevator that you could ride to the very top of the Monument. Needless to say, I was quick to buy a ticket to one of the highest points of Rome.
The Palatine Hill was, in ancient days, the address to have in the world. According to legend, the cave at the base of the hill is where Romulus and Remus were found by the she-wolf. Romulus went on to found a city on the hill and named it after himself: Rome. (I think the legend also includes him killing his twin, but I'm not clear on details of the story.) The emperors Augustus, Tiberius, and Domitian all had palaces on top of the hill. (The word palace comes from the name Palatine.) Domitian's palace is the best preserved, as it was the last built.
We also learned something about the other arenas that had been constructed by ancient Roman emperors. The Colosseum is, of course, the most famous, but there is also the Circus Maximus, on the east side of the Palatine hill, Domitian's private arena (the one pictured above), and much larger public Stadium of Domitian. The Circus Maximus has been left as ruins and preserved as it was, but the Stadium of Domitian was in a very central area of Rome and has been rebuilt as the Piazza Navona. That's why it has the unique oval shape I mentioned before.
The archaeological site also included the world's first botanical garden, temples to most of the Roman gods, the first paved road in the world, and most of the Roman forums.
The one on the left, with the scaffolding on it, is dedicated to another Roman emperor and his wife. I was starting to hit information overload at this point, so I can't remember which emperor, but I was interested because it was the first known temple to be dedicated to a human woman (as opposed to a goddess).
Romulus (disputably a real person and not just a legend) was the first of seven kings who founded and ruled Rome, some time around 750 B.C. After the seventh king, around 500 B.C., Rome was ruled by the Senate. Julius Caesar upset the power of the Senate in 49 B.C., but was never considered an emperor for a variety of reasons I never really understood. His adopted heir, Augustus, was the first "official" Roman emperor. The Roman Empire changed sizes and emperors rapidly, but was eventually split into two halves, Eastern and Western, in 395 A.D. The Western Empire crumbled into the barbarian states, recognizable as the modern western European countries, in 476, and the Eastern Empire became the Byzantine Empire.
500 to 800 is considered the Medieval era of Rome, and Rome was ruled by various Popes who accepted Byzantine rule (and fought with France a lot). In 800 Charlemagne was crowned the king of the Holy Roman Empire, which marked the end of Rome's acceptance of Byzantine rule. The Papacy continued to fight with France and occasionally Germany all the way through to modern history. The other bit of history to note is the Roman Renaissance, which was in the 15th century.
And voila. Rome in a nutshell.
The phrase Senatus Populusque Romanus dates back to the origins of the Roman Senate, around 500 B.C. Someone, some time between 2500 and 2000 years ago, carved those words into those marble blocks and probably watched as they were set atop those columns. He (they?) had no idea that the Senate would last until the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, or that popular representation would be the philosophical basis of so many modern governments, or that SPQR (the abbreviation) would still be on Rome's coat of arms in the twenty-first century. SPQR has survived arguably one of the most tumultuous histories ever, and there it stands. Talk about the Eternal City.
As we were staring at the Latin words, a voice came over a loudspeaker announcing the closing of the archaeological site, and Henri and I followed the crowds to the exit. Another, somewhat shorter, wander home took us to our favorite part of modern Rome thus far, the Gelateria del Teatro. Hidden in a tiny alley off one of the narrow rambling streets, it has the best gelato I have ever had in really interesting flavors. My favorite: raspberry and garden sage.
Up next:
Day 3: The Vatican City
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