Yesterday, Wednesday, seems a very long time ago to be blogging about. But it really needs a mention. It was a full on ruin of a day, but in a good way of course. The oldest ruin we visited was a group of buildings dating back to the second century BC. They are about 9m underground now due to the early Roman habit of just building the new on top of the old, rather than going back to ground level. As a result of course it is all excavated and you need to be prepared for a bit of caving to see all the various layers. The most ancient (deepest) buildings included a school, a place of worship, as well as dwellings.
Experts think that there are the remains of similar ancient buildings under much of old Rome. As a result the Roman equivalent of the Resource Management Act requires anyone doing modern day construction in old Rome to notify the authorities if they uncover anything of historical significance. This puts a bit of a dampener on projects as there is a risk that the whole site may be taken over for years of research if something important is dug up (which is quite likely in the circumstances.)
We also looked in on the site where Julius Caesar was assassinated and is buried. There were flowers on the grave - from the annual ceremony marking the event. Beware the Ides of March!
Next door is the colosseum. Thats not its true name as you will all know - it is more correctly called the Flavian Amphitheatre. It was named the colosseum after the colossus - a huge statue of the Emporer Nero. The statue was 30m + high and stood beside the amphitheatre until recently (it was last mentioned in ancient writings in 354AD, but its foundation remained until the 1900's) and the name colosseum seems to have stuck. The colosseum was apparently used to stage mock naval battles for entertainment in its early years by flooding the interior and floating boats in it - this had to stop as the water was undermining the foundations. So the naval battles were relocated and 'only' dry land death was put on show. If you were killed in the colosseum you got to be taken out by a special doorway, some small consolation perhaps.
Basically the colosseum shows were an ancient Roman form of reality TV. How many steps away from that are we now?
It is quite an amazing structure - we learned a little about how it was designed for managing the huge crowds (up to 50,000 people), getting them in and out, allocating seats, toilets, even a retractable roof for inclement weather. Something for the Wellington cake tin to consider? If you were important and brought a season ticket you would have your name engraved in the marble of your allocated seat which was then yours for life.
There is so much history here that one can easily overload on it, but I think we have struck a nice balance to get an overview and learn a little about a few selected things, rather than be totally overwhelmed by trying to look at 'everything' in 3 days.
Speaking of ruins, I was one myself yesterday for a bit. I blame the restaurant we ate at the previous night - I do clearly recall feeling sick when I got the bill. But all seems good again now and I have saved the cost of a couple of meals by not eating them!
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