Saturday

Beautiful day! Coffee, fruit, and yogurt at home (I’m trying to be good). Walked along the Tiber with all the sycamores putting out new leaves to Isola Tibertina, and crossed to the Augustan monuments at the foot of the Capitoline. The Theater of Marcellus, Augustus’ nephew, son-in-law, and probable heir had he not died young, has a Renaissance palace built into it. The Temple of Apollo, Augustus’ patron deity, and the Portico of Octavia, his sister, are all swamped with tourists today. Walked over to the Forum Boarium, the cattle market, to see the two Republican-era temples, Hercules Victor and Portunus. The Temple of Portunus is finally getting a cleaning, and is covered with scaffolding. Across the street at Santa Maria in Cosmedin, tourists have lined up to stick their hands in the Mouth of Truth. Another time. Instead, I walked along the Circus Maximus past the ruins of the imperial palace on the Palatine. The circus is amazing: It held probably a quarter of a million or more spectators, eight times as many people as the Colosseum. That’s more than twice as many as Beaver Stadium at full capacity. Metro to Stazione Piramide, so-called because of the pretentious tomb of an otherwise nobody Roman. I hopped on Tram 3 to Staz. Trastevere, and walked up Viale de Trastevere home. I was saddened to see that even Trastevere now has a Mickey D’s. Carry-out pizza (mortadella and buffalo-milk mozzarella) for dinner, and was invited by a group of people at a table to go to a club tomorrow for music. Home to write, and then bed.