Today, it rained.
I got breakfast at the hotel, then made it about as far as Forum Traiani before it started pouring buckets.
Trajan’s Forum is the latest of the Imperial fora, inaugurated around 112 CE.
The areas around the forum are magnificent – just beyond the edges of the busy road, excavations reveal crumbling walls and broken pillars. This goes on for miles, all around the forum, the Colosseum, and the local museums.
When the rain really started, I bought a cheap umbrella, which kept my head dry during the day’s excursions but did nothing for my shoes and pant legs; by mid afternoon, I was waterlogged up to my knees, miserably cold, and a little annoyed at how touristy the whole thing was, so I trudged back to my hotel room and spent the rest of the afternoon doing much-needed laundry in the bathroom sink. (If I ever complain about my washing machine ever again, please slap me.)
On the plus side, I did see the Colosseum.
The outer facade exists around about a third of the whole structure; the rest is an inner wall that is not nearly as polished, but still majestic and perhaps even more palpably ancient.
Even in person, it’s difficult to appreciate just how big this thing really is.
Note the little dude in the lower right for scale.
Originally named the Flavian Amphitheatre, it was constructed in about ten years under emperors Vespasian and Titus, between 70 and 80 CE. The name Colosseum (sometimes Coliseum, a spelling variation that arose in the Middle Ages) derives from a bronze statue, the Colossus, which once stood nearby and depicted various emperors and the god Helios.
The Colosseum could fit about 50,000 spectators, and over its first 500 years or so, hosted events ranging from gladiatorial combat to animal hunts, to executions, to theatrical productions, to war reenactments.
Around the sixth century CE, the Colosseum was alternately converted into a cemetery, a site of Christian worship (due to its symbolism as a place where early Christians were said to be martyred), a stone quarry, a housing development, and a fortified castle. In the 1300s, an earthquake caused much of the outer wall to collapse, and from there, the structure was slowly dismantled to make use of the stone and bronze.
The hypogeum – from Greek, meaning “underground” – was a series of passageways and tunnels equivalent to the backstage of a theatre, allowing performers, props, and animals to be transported without the audience’s knowledge. It was covered by a wooden platform, which itself was covered by sand (from which we get the modern word arena, which means “sand” in Latin).
The Arch of Constantine, as visible from the upper levels of the Colosseum.
Trivia: approximately two hundred species of plants can be found growing in the Colosseum.
I don’t want to downplay how amazing this all is–the architecture, the museums, all of these traces of a world that is at once so far from and so venerated by our culture–because it is amazing. To be able to look at these marvels with my own eyes is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The thing is, it’s been made into such a touristy experience that it just feels degrading. Mediocre restaurants with names like Café Gladiator charge exorbitant prices knowing that tourists will bite, people walk around in “Roman” costumes outdone by most of my LARP friends and charge 10 Euro for photographs, and I know I’ll come off as an elitist and a snob when I say this, but the place is loaded with idiot American tourists who don’t have a clue why the place was built or why it’s so incredible. (See, elitist snob. I can’t help it, it just breaks my Classicist heart a little to hear people around me say things like [and I quote], “So, uh, this was where the Romans fought? Who did they fight?”) I suppose my point is this: Rome is the first place I’ve been to in Italy where I felt like they were really trying to take advantage of me, and I actually felt a little embarrassed for the city, for the way they’d dolled her up and put her on display.
I suppose it’s just an unfortunate consequence of being so famous and so great.
