Monday 21 April: We spend the Parilia in the heart of ancient Rome

Today was the Parilia, the birthday of Rome! Founded on 21 April 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of the god Mars and nursed by a she-wolf, the city is now 2,761 years old. Actually, there are traces of even earlier settlements as well. Where better to spend the city’s birthday than in the most famous monuments of its ancient glory? Beth and I headed to the Colosseum and spent a long time inside. Since it was early we beat the crowds. I’ve described the Colosseum before, including the various gladiators, centurions, emperors, and other people in costume with whom you can pose for photographs (for a price). What I haven’t described is how funny it is to see Caesar on break, pulling a pack of Marlboros out of a fold of his purple and gold toga, and lighting up.

After the Colosseum, EA and I hit the Forum Romanum, the civic and political center of the Roman world. It is amazing to see the ruins, some renovated like the Curia, or Senate House, and others leaving only traces of their former glory. We were particularly charmed by the wild poppies, acanthus, and other flowers growing among the tumbled marble of antiquity. In the Forum is the Aedes Divi Julii, the temple and altar of the Divine Julius. When Julius Caesar was assassinated, Mark Antony gave his famous “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” eulogy in the Forum. Roman law permitted funerals in the Forum, but cremation and burial had to take place outside the city walls for religious reasons. Well, after Antony’s speech, the common people, who were huge fans of Julius Caesar, went berserk. They tore apart wooden shop stalls and anything else that would burn, and spontaneously cremated Caesar’s corpse right there. A column was raised to mark the spot, and then an altar and temple were put there after the Senate declared Caesar a god (this also allowed Caesar’s great nephew and adopted son Octavian, the future first emperor Augustus, to adopt the title Divi Filius, Son of God). I have been in the Forum several times, and each time, there are still fresh floral tributes laid on the altar of Julius Caesar by modern Roman citizens and other visitors.

Past Caesar’s temple is the Temple of Vesta and House of the Vestal Virgins. The house is a big mansion, and the Vestals and their servants were the only people who actually lived in the Forum. The six priestesses were chosen as young girls from the best senatorial families in Rome, and served for thirty years as virgin attendants of Vesta, the goddess of the state hearth. Their main duty was to tend the sacred flame in the temple. Chastity was expected, and breaking the vow was punished by being walled up alive, but the Vestals were not cloistered. In fact, they had the best seats at the Colosseum and Circus Maximus after the emperor. After their thirty years of service, they could marry, and were given huge dowries by the state. Beth and I loved the courtyard of their house, now overgrown with wild roses.

From there, we climbed the Palatine Hill. During the Roman Republic, the Palatine was prime real estate, and the richest senators had their homes here. Augustus and later emperors bought everyone out and turned the entire hill into the huge Imperial Palace, an immense warren of mansions, temples, courtyards, and halls that occupied the entire Palatine Hill. This is the origin of the word “palace.” The ruins are still astounding, but only a pale reflection of the immense splendor that was home to the emperor, the imperial family, and the imperial court. Rivaling even the richest and most opulent temples and forums, the imperial palace was a glory of imported polychrome marble, gold, bronze, fountains, and mosaics of semiprecious stones. Not much is left here, but many of the most famous medieval, renaissance, and baroque churches and palaces of the city are built with materials looted from the palace after the fall of the Empire. Beth and I spent a long time among the magnificent ruins, shaded by beautiful groves of umbrella pines, cypresses, and sycamores.

Heading back to Trastevere in the late afternoon, we stopped to eat in one caffè, but left after the waiter tried to cheat us by selective mistranslation of our Italian and his English. We ended up at a nice place with great food, and had pizza with anchovies and a baked potato stuffed with mozzarella and ham. More notes in the evening, and bed.