Imagining Ancient Rome

The weather in Rome has been beautiful for the last couple of days. Today was a beautiful sunny day that went up into the 60's fahrenheit. Last night was cool but not cold, and so I decided to do a little bit of night exploration with a few friends. Above is a picture of Piazza Navona at night.

Today, we took advantage of the beautiful weather to tour the sites of ancient Rome- Palatine Hill, the Colosseum, and the Forum.

Palatine Hill is one of the ancient seven hills of Rome, and, according to legend, is the hill upon which Romulus and Remus lived when they were raised by a she-wolf. Historical excavations estimated that the site was inhabited beginning in 1000 BC (Rome was supposedly founded in 753 BC). Later, Caesar Augustus built his palace and administrative buildings on top of this hill to emphasize his connection with Romulus, the first king of Rome. We went to Palatine Hill first, and bought the joint ticket for the Forum, Palatine Hill and the Colosseum there (this turned out to be a great idea, as it allows you to skip a very long line for the ticket office at the Colosseum). You can visit the ruins of Augustus' palace, including his courtyard, private quarters, throne room, banquet hall, and gardens. The complex also includes entrance to a small museum on the site that contained many statues from that era and a model of what Romulus' huts would have looked like. Unfortunately, nothing on the site is labeled- you just have to wander around the ruins. However, I had brought my Rick Steves guidebook with me, which had a detailed map of the area and explained which ruins were used for what, and so on. It was a great resource and alternative to the 4 euro audio tour.


After the Palatine Hill, we toured the Colosseum (photo). This very famous monument lived up to its expectations- it is certainly a marvel of ancient Roman ingenuity and engineering. The Colosseum once held 50,000 spectators getting their fill of "bread and circuses" with plenty of gladiator battles and chariot races. One interesting fact to note is that the Colosseum was actually named after a "colossal" statue of Nero that was originally outside the stadium, which is technically called the "Flavian Amphiteater."

Finally, we toured the Forum, where we viewed the remains of many of the buildings that formed the heart of ancient Rome. This included the old senate building, the temple of Saturn, the house of the vestal virgins, and the place where Julius Caesar's body was burned after his murder. Even today, there were still fresh flowers on his grave (see photo).

For my first Sunday in Rome, I decided to go to a mass in Italian at the historical Sant' Andrea della Valle, which is a beautiful baroque basilica. The first act of the Opera La Tosca is actually set in this church. However, I quickly discovered the downside of having 6 beautiful churches within a 5 minute radius of my apartment-- there were only 15 people at mass at this wonderful huge basilica!

While at church at Sant' Andrea, one of my friends noticed a sign for a Orchestra Concert that night in a different church nearby- the church of San Ignazio. The concert was to celebrate the end of Christmas, and consisted of a Chorus (The Coro della Accademia Filarmonica Romana) and an orchestra (Orchestra Amici della Armonia). The chorus played an hour and a half Christmas show, and included songs by Mozart (Dormi, bambino Gesù) and Brahms. This is the website of the organization which arranges the concerts. It was certainly a beautiful cultural experience to start off my semester in Rome.