Roman Ruin along Appia Antica

March along the old Appian Way

After the visit to the chruch of Santa Croce, three friends and I decided to walk from Rome back to campus along the Via Appia Antica, more commonly known as the Old Appian Way. I do not know how long the section of the road was that we walked, but it takes 30 minutes to cover the same distance by bus on the parallel Appia Nuova. We started out on a radiant Saturday afternoon, and two things became apparent after several hours of brisk walking. 1) The shoes I was wearing had inadequate arch support and 2) I had made the mistake of attempting this feat with three guys as my walking companions, two of whom stand over six feet tall and have considerably longer legs than I do. Take a break? Of course, if you have to. Walk slowly? Of course, if you need to. Needless to say, we didn't do much of either. ;)

The Appian Way itself was beautiful enough to make up for this, however. As it leaves the city proper of Rome the road is paved, alternately with the wide, famous stones of the ancient Romans and more recent cobblestones. Villas give way to fields as the walk progressed, and soon we were passing weathered Roman watchtowers and grassy tombs. In this photograph one can see the ancient paving and wheel marks as well as get a sense of how STRAIGHT the road is.

We shared the Appian Way with bicyclists and joggers for several miles until we passed far away from civilization, and then we had the sun-dappled stones all to ourselves. After sneaking through a closed reconstruction zone, we emerged back onto the familiar road until it was bisected by a busy thoroughfare and afterwards shrank to a simple goat track through lush grass and berry brambles (with the indestructible ancient paving stones peering periodically through moss and wild phlox). The wide road eventually re-appeared just before the road ended at an outdoor market. The walk had taken approximately 4.5 hours, and we arrived home just before sunset.

Relics

What does one do on a sunny Saturday morning in Rome? Go to see some relics! Yesterday I went with a friend to tour the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which is (ostensibly) a lovely 17th-century church, but is actually a church established by St. Helena and paid for by her son, the emperor Constantine the Great. A lovely early medieval boudoir that was used by the dowager empress has been converted into a chapel at the back of the church. In fact, there is a whole rabbit warren of miraculous rooms in the back that house relics and where popes have had visions. One of the most amazing rooms is, of course, the place where this photograph was taken. In the glass case pictured here there is quite a sacred collection. On the top shelf to the right are two thorns from the crown of thorns, to the left of those are some fragments of the pillar to which Christ was tied and scourged, beside them is a piece of Doubting Thomas' finger. In pride of place on the second shelf are pieces of the actual cross within the golden cross. (There used to be a much larger bit of the cross--brought back from Jerusalem by St. Helena--at Santa Croce, but it has recently been removed to the Vatican.) Under that on the left is a nail, one of THE nails and beside that on the bottom right is the identifying inscription nailed over Christ's head on the cross.

A pretty amazing collection, I'd say.

The road goes ever on and on...

The ruins of Pompeii are quite a journey through a time- machine. My trip through the ruins began outside the walls of the city proper, with a walk through the tombs where the Romans considered it proper to bury their dead. I entered through the front gates, and found myself in a ghost town. The entire city has been astonishingly well preserved, from the worm-eaten lintels of the doors to the wheel ruts worn in the roads, which can be seen in the foreground of this picture.

Early in my journey I came across the glass case that houses an entire family of thirteen who were caught trying to scale a high wall and were suffocated and buried by falling ash and pumice. Due to the method of extraction the bodies are covered in plaster, preserving the position in which they died and even their facial expressions. I disliked looking at them--especially the children--so that's all I'll say on the subject.

Their ampitheater is far better preserved than the Colosseum, and the gymnasium (now a huge sunlit courtyard surrounded by Ionic pillars) was quite striking. An interesting fact: the Spartacus slave rebellion originated in this area! It was neat to stand in the center of the ring and imagine all the people and animals who'd struggled and died in that place. Gladiator games were very popular in the area and alot of the graffiti preserved in the place is about gladiators, their reputations, jokes about them, etc.

Most of the inhabitants of Pompeii were working class, and so many of the rooms are humble, but you can really get a sense of what it was like to be a Roman in the city in 79 AD.

Sweet Stabiae

From Napoli I traveled on to Stabiae, which is situated on the Mediterranean...on the coast of the Bay of Naples, to be exact. The above is the view from my room in the hostel. This little town is quite enjoyable, but not for the faint of heart: it has an adequate little downtown district on the beach, but this could only accessed by a 15 minute walk through a narrow, rat-maze of a ghetto. I would never have attempted it by myself, but with ten friends walking around me the journey was interesting rather than dangerous. The inhabitants looked amazed to see tourists! By the time we reached downtown, it was almost dark, but I still enjoyed myself: there was a narrow jumble of huge, black rocks curving out into the bay and one adventurous friend and I hopped and jumped our way to the very farthest point. That moment--standing on a little rock perhaps two feet square, lapped by the darkening Mediterranean just as the sun set--is perhaps one of the best of the trip so far! Afterwards we explored the mainstreet, were adopted by one of the many stray dogs of the city and enjoyed gelato before heading back to the hostel.

Napoli

One of the things I find so astonishing about Italy is the citrus trees. Apparently it is the height of the season for oranges, and although the trees on street corners in Rome are stripped of their fruit as high as anyone can reach, when I traveled to the country I saw orange and lemon trees loaded down and the ground under them carpeted with wasted fruit. Since then I have come to judge a city by the condition of its fruit trees. As I said, Roman orange trees are healthy and popular (like the city!) but the fruit in Naples rots on the bough.

Before I even reached Italy the word ran around that Naples--or Napoli as the Italians call it--was to be avoided at all costs because in addition to being far more disease-ridden and prone to violent crime than central or northern Italy, it has been suffering under a trash strike for the past month! However, Naples does have two big draws: the National Archeological Museum and the ancient ruins of Pompeii on its doorstep. So I braved Naples, and although the city was astonishing in its poverty and filth, the museum was thoroughly enjoyable. I have included a photograph of my favorite bust I saw there, one that is assumed to be Dionysus, but he doesn't look like it, does he? Anyway...the National Archeological Museum included such highlights as the Farnese Hercules, the best Roman copy of the lost Greek statue call the Doryphoros as well as cases and cases of jewelry, baking pans, bronze statues, etcetera from the nearby ruins of Pompeii. Well worth the visit, but I was still glad to board the bus and continue onto the little coastal city of Stabiae where I would be spending the night.

This fountain stands in front of the Temple of Hercules on the Aventine hill. The temple dates from around 200 B.C. I have no idea when this fountain was constructed or what is depicts but the fountains here are my weakness! It was evening by the time I snapped this picture, but the ambient light illuminated this enough, I think.