MONDAY, JUNE 24
THE COLISEUM
It was that big tourist kind of day. Chloe and I and 2,998 other people entered the Coliseum at 11:30am, shuffling in through metal detectors and two ticket checks. The wait before entry, though we had a skip-the-line ticket, was an hour in blistering sun. It’s likely we could have jumped ahead, but we couldn’t tell. Hawkers and hustlers are mixed in with staff and no one knows who to ask or who to trust for advice about which line is which.
Again, Rick Steves was our guide. He was okay, a little bit silly, a few too many “bring on the games” and hooting, and some stupid jokes about roaming through Rome. We both would have liked more history and less histrionics. His audio tour lasted an hour. We shared one pair of earbuds and used Chloe’s scarf to shade our shoulders from the sun. Quite a pair.
The Coliseum held 50,000 people in its glory days from 80 AD for 500 years. The visitors who entered the arena along with us, 3,000 of them, most taking selfies and following tour guides, got lost in the vastness of the arena as we listened to a description of “the games”, the celebrity status of gladiators in Roman society, and the brutality meted out on prisoners and animals. In the first 100 days of the Coliseum’s inauguration, 2,000 people were killed in front of spectators.
“It’s a sad comment on humanity,” said Chloe, “when this kind of public killing was used to appease the poor. To think that this is what people wanted to see.” We talked about whether people have changed.
The term bread and circus, offering entertainment to avoid uprising, came from the Romans. The wealthy paid for the games, free to the poor as a gift to keep them from rebelling.
NEXT, THE ROMAN FORUM
The Forum is the perfect setting to learn about the 1,000 year history of Roman — as Republic, and later ruled by Ceasars. We walked up the Via Sacra between arches and columns, the brick homes of the Vestal Virgins, the statue pedestals, and temple relics. When Chloe described the Forum to our friend last night, she said, the most amazing thing is how much of it is still there.
Of course you need to use your imagination to envision the entire city and it’s people, but less than you would think given that this Rome existed 2000 years ago. The ancient city comes alive, the ruins not so ruined and the scale and relationships between the senate house, the market, the forum, the oration still in tact. To stand on the stones that Ceasar walked across, to share the space where Cicero spoke to crowds, to think of the origins and fall of this grand civilization and to see it’s monuments, still holding solidly to the ground, is a complete experience of body and mind.
PALATINE HILL
The Palatine Hill is one of seven hills that rises above the Forum. We followed a path up and around the back (not where most tourists venture) to the remains of the homes of Augustus and other wealthy Romans who occupied this choice location.
ROME IS TOO WONDERFUL
Rome is too wonderful. There are just too many things to see. As important as the visit to the Roman Forum was, it was equally great to sit in a piazza near our Airbnb eating ice cream and watching all the chatting mothers and their playing children, feeling part of this city where people live outside, and gather together with ease and joy. Rome is a city both beyond grand and impressive and uniquely village-like and human.
SUPER HOT
I need to mention the heat. We were both faint by the time we finished our three-hour tour. We probably did more than most people. In fact, while the Coliseum was packed, and there were quite a few tour groups in the Forum, the crowds definitely thinned out in the Forum and were down to almost nothing on the Palatine Hill. It was about 35C, and hard to find shade. It took about four hours for our bodies to normalize again after we came back to the apartment. And oh, was it worth it? Absolutely!
