International Superhighways

Another major engineering feat of the Roman Empire was a system of international superhighways.  They are all over Europe.  I walked on Roman roads while I was in England, and while I was Milan.  The most famous, which I walked on while walking around the Forum, was the Appian Way.  It went all the way from Rome to Brindisi, which is interesting because it is one of the two major port cities from which you can depart by overnight ferry for Albania (among other destinations).  I almost went to Albania via Brindisi, but ended up leaving much further north, from Bari, because the schedule worked better.

This is a very excellent video talking about the Appian Way.  (It is 6:12 minute video by WorldSiteGuides.)  It discusses the pruposes for the roads, the impact on the spread and preservation of the Roman Empire, and a discussion of some of the historical sites along the Appian Way.


I also found three very interesting and relevant history channel video clips about Roman highways.  You have to watch ads to see them, but they are quite good.  The first discusses the origin and plan of the highways.  The second talks about the Appian Way and about the engineering aspects of road construction.  The third.  talks about the purposes for the roads and the size of the massive undertaking.  If you click on this link for the first video, all three videos will play in order.  Otherwise, you can also click on this link for the second video, and on this link for the third.

Catacombs and the Underground

One of the places I actually really, really wanted to go (even though I knew I wouldn't get a chance to do so) was the Catacombs.  These were the underground caves and tunnels which held the sewers and aqueducts of the Roman Empire, where Christians used to hide from persecution and used to bury their dead.  More recently, some of them have been used as temples for Catholic and pagan groups worshiping in death cults.

The reason that I knew that I wouldn't get to see the catacombs was because the main entrance to the catacombs was about  5 kilometers, or about a 40 minute walk away.  (In the map below, B is the Colosseum and A is the Catacomb entrance.)  Given the limited amount of time that I had there, there just wasn't any way to see this, but I thought that it would be a lot of fun.

You can see the some of the history of the catacombs in Rome, here, and of the Catacomb of Callixius--or San Callisto--which are the catacombs marked on the map above, here.

This is a picture of the catacombs from Wikipedia Commons.

In the interest of learning more about the catacombs though, I did a little research.  The video below is a tour of these same catacombs done by Rick Steves, who is a very famous travel guide and writer (in fact, my Italian lanaguage guide, which I took with me when I traveled, was written by Rick Steves).  The second half of the 5 minute video is about the Apian Way (which I will talk about later) but the first half is specifically about the Christian burials in the Catacombs and is quite interesting.


This is 3:50 video has a lot of the history of the Catacombs of Callixius and is quite interesting.


This little two minute video (which is also an advertisement for a book on this subject which seems very interesting) discusses the kinds of artwork that you can see in the catacombs, some of which illustrate Bible stories and some of which show scenes of contemporary life and with illustrations of the vocations of the people buried there.


This video (5:28 minutes) talks about a different set of catacombs, named after St. Steven--the one who was killed by being shot to death with arrows, as you can see from the statue of him below.


The History Channel actually has a couple of videos about the aqueduct--I think that they are clips of a larger show.  Also, one of them deals specifically with the Catacombs in Naples, not Rome, but, since I was also in Naples, I think it counts.  (The Catacombs at Naples were also on my list of things to see, but I could not figure out how to work them into my schedule.)  You do have to watch an advertisement before each video but I think that they are pretty interesting (they are both only about 2 minutes long).  This video talks about the history of the catacombs, from two thousand years ago through WWII, which was quite interesting (just as a warning, though, the host does swear a few times, so use discretion).  This video is about the actual engineering that went into providing a water supply for a large city--which is astounding--and the video is quite well done.

The Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is another iconic structure in Rome that shows up in all kinds of movies and TV shows.  It was finished in the late 18th century, although the planning and construction took over 200 years.  It is built on top of one of the ancient aquaducts that used to supply ancient Rome with water, until it was cut off by the Goths (one of the invading German tribes) in the 6th century.  You can see a 360 degree panorama of the square where the fountain is, right here.

The fountain is so famous that it has its very own website, which you can see here.  The website is pretty interesting as it has a history of the fountain, interesting facts about it, and stories about the statues and images used in the fountain and what they symbolize--the main statue, for instance, is of Ocean, flanked by Health and Abundance, which seem quite appropriate for the commemoration of a fresh water supply.

The fountain is built on the back of the Palazzo Poli, which used to be a center of social activities but which now houses a museum and a library.

(All pictures are from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Spanish Steps and English Romantic Poets

The Spanish Steps are iconic.  They show up in TV shows and movies all the time, everything from Roman Holiday to Everybody Loves Raymond.  They were built in the early 18th century, as a convenient way for the Spanish and French officials at the top of the hill to get to the church at the bottom of the hill.  If you go to this website, you can see an interactive panorama of the Piazza, including the "Ugly Boat" fountain at the bottom, and including a little of the history of the Steps.  You can see that it is quite crowded with tourists although, apparently, it is illegal to eat your lunch while sitting on the steps, probably as a way to minimize congestion.

This is a very old picture of the Spanish Steps.

From the edge of the Piazza.  The cream colored house in the middle is now the Keats-Shelley Museum, named after two English romantic poets.  John Keats used to live in the house.  I have added his poem on December, below, since it seems to fit.  It is like History and English are coming together!

This picture, taken from the top of the Steps, at night, really makes me wish I had actually gone to see the Steps.

John Keat's 

In Drear Nighted December

In drear nighted December, 

   Too happy, happy tree, 

Thy branches ne'er remember 

   Their green felicity—

The north cannot undo them 

With a sleety whistle through them 

Nor frozen thawings glue them 

   From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December, 

   Too happy, happy brook, 

Thy bubblings ne'er remember 

   Apollo's summer look; 

But with a sweet forgetting, 

They stay their crystal fretting, 

Never, never petting 

   About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many 

   A gentle girl and boy—

But were there ever any 

   Writh'd not of passed joy? 

The feel of not to feel it, 

When there is none to heal it 

Nor numbed sense to steel it, 

   Was never said in rhyme.

I admit that I have never been good at literature analysis, but I don't think that he was as excited about winter time as I am.

(All of the pictures are from Wikimedia Commons, since I never actually got there).

Rome: Things I Didn't See, But Should Have

I didn't see a lot of things in Rome.  There is lots of stuff to see and I only had a few (very hot) hours to see stuff.  Before I went to Rome, I made a map of all of the things that would be fun to see, just in case I got an opportunity,although I knew I wouldn't get to see most of it.  (You can see the interactive map here, if you would like.)  Even that wildly ambitious list left out a lot of sites.  You can see the little blue points below are all of the things that seemed like you out to see.  All of the little red dots are all of the other museum and historical sites that you could visit around the city.

The map below shows the things that I actually saw.  (You can see the interactive version of the map here.) I am not sure that this is the map of a really good tourist.

So, there are lots of things that I missed.  Some because I wasn't in a site-seeing mood, and some that were just not feasible to get to, given my time constraints.  But I thought, since I had done the research for this already, that I might share some of these places with you in any case.  I will add some more info later about different places that I would have seen if I had had the time and inclination--such as the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, etc.

Interpreting Ancient Rome

The Roman Forum and Ancient Roman architecture has been a source of a lot of artistic inspiration.  It was particularly popular around the 18th century, in the capriccio, or "architectural fantasy" school but it was also popular in the 16th and following centuries in the Baroque, Rococo, and other styles, and in 19th style Realism.

I've arranged them in chronological order, so it is interesting to see the developments and continuities in depictions of Ancient Rome over a three century period.  For instance, all of the paintings have people in them.  Some people are in the clothing typical of the era in which the painting was made, others are in classical attire (togas and things).  Some people are clearly wealthier people who are taking an educated interest in the ruins, perhaps thinking about the ideal state.  Some are just as clearly peasants who are performing their daily, menial chores under the shadows of a great civilization.  In most of them, the mood seems idyllic and pastoral.  A few of them, however, seem rather ominous.  The people involved seem to be recalling violences of the past, perhaps.

I think art interpretation is a very interesting (if somewhat subjective) discipline.  I am sure that lots of artists, for instance, included people in their paintings (or etchings) in order to show scale.  But it also seems likely that those artists were interpreting not only contemporary artistic forms but also the discussions of the times.  Knowing the overarching interests of the people in the era can open up a whole new world of ideas.  People weren't just painting the Roman Ruins because they were beautiful.  They also saw the Roman Republic as an ideal government, longed to return to the simplicity and purity of Roman philosophers, and recalled a golden age of universal peace and the triumph of arts and letters.  The fact that this was a highly sanitized, gilded version of life in the Roman Empire doesn't change the fact that people recalled it in this way in art, in poetry, in philosophy, and in history.

Landscape with Roman Ruins, by Paul Bril, ca. 1580

Capriccio with Ruins of the Roman Forum, by Claude Lorrai, ca. 1634

Campo Vaccino (Forum Romanum), by Claude Lorrai, ca. 1636

Cappriccio of Classical Ruins, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1730

Architectural Capriccio, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1730

Roman Capriccio, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1735

Colosseum and Arch of Constantine (Rome), by Bernardo Bellotto, ca. 1742

A Capriccio of the Roman Forum, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1741

Rome: Ruins of the Forum, Looking towards the Capitol, by Canaletto, ca. 1742 

View of the Colosseum by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1747

A View of the Roman Forum, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1747

Ancient Roman Ruins, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1750

Roman Ruins and Sculpture, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, ca. 1755 

Washerwomen in the Ruins of the Colosseum, by Hubert Robert, ca. 1760

Colosseum, Rome, by Hubert Robert, ca. 1790

 (All of these paintings are Wikipaintings which is really quite fun to look through.)