A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum

18th April

So from Papal Rome to Ancient Rome. We booked for the Colosseum and the Forum, with a side trip to a church that shows the history of religion in the Roman Empire.
First stop was San Clemente, a very plain church on the outside, but with so much history packed into the interior. The street level church dates to the 12th century and features some wonderful frescoes and mosaics. One of the frescoes was of Saint Catherine, with two wagon wheels – is this the origin of the Catherine wheel (I’m showing my ignorance of the Catholic faith here. It must be my Protestant upbringing.)
Then, one floor down, is the Roman church from the 4th century, still used as a church but only discovered by the Irish Dominicans during excavations in the late 1800s. This church features more wonderful frescoes of saints that I had never heard of, including one story where a boy was lost to the high sea tide one year and miraculously was found still alive on an island a year later at the annual low tide!
Going down one more level was the temple to Mithras, dating from the Roman period, with a street and Roman houses surrounding it. It was a bit difficult to picture how it all fitted together, but it was amazing that it was all still there, 3 stories below street level.

Next, the Colosseum. The usual touts, except this time some are dressed as gladiators. Can you imagine when your teacher asks what job does your father do? Oh, he’s a gladiator! It was a bit surreal, walking down a chic street in modern day Rome, with women all dressed up in their Armani, and men in pointy toe shoes, looking suave, and … a gladiator. Can’t help wondering if the guys doing this job get on the local bus in the morning all dressed and ready for work!! Wouldn’t want to forget your sword.
The Colosseum is how you really know that you are in Rome. Huge, iconic, fascinating. The games were all free, but the cost to stage them must have been amazing – in the first 100 days after opening the Colosseum, over 5,000 exotic animals were killed, including bears, lions, wild dogs and boars. The arena could be completely flooded ; and completely evacuated of 55,000 spectators in 10 minutes. Most of the marble from here ended up on St Peters, which I thought was pretty poor form - until I had a close look at the remaining marble and it was obvious that it had been ripped off an even earlier building!

A picnic lunch “underneath the arches”	Restoration well in hand…

  On to the Palatine Hill and the Forum, another example of the power of the Empire. We started on the Palatine with the Imperial palaces of people such as the Emperor Domitian, including their stadium, baths, gardens and other bits of domestic architecture that important people obviously needed to live well. Racetrack of course, huge baths (3 stories high), extensive gardens with water pavilions, etc. They obviously had a pretty good life.
Down to the Forum, now mostly ruins, but you could imagine what this area must have been like in its heyday. So much power on display, and what is left is all on such a huge scale.
 
 As for Maxentius and Constantino’s basilica – this was stupidly big. That’s M in the foreground of a chapel off the nave, which would have been even larger. Why did they build it? Because they could!




We exited the Forum up to a newish building (by Roman standards) - the Typewriter, Wedding Cake, or more properly, the monument to Victor Emmanuele II, a building often loathed by Italians for its ugliness and monstrous scale. It is built of blindingly white stone and dominates the area overlooking the Forum. We watched as the custodian (or whatever), spent their time blowing a whistle to stop anyone sitting on the steps. Isn’t there any more important crime to police in Italy?  The building did however house a very interesting museum which explained the genesis of the Italian state from the 1800s, with the conflict between the Pope and figures such as Garibaldi finally leading to the unification of Italy. M was pleased – it helped explain a lot more about Garibaldi and the origin of the Vatican museum!
Home, finally, after another very successful day.