Teaching my son about the Roman Empire, I ponder how that 500-year era still has a grip on us today, and the movies and TV series that have brought it to life.
Are movies about the Roman Empire so popular in the US because they remind us of ourselves?
Three memorable ones for me:
"Gladiator" (2000): In the year 180, the death of emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) throws the Roman Empire into chaos. Maximus (Russell Crowe) is one of the Roman army's most capable and trusted generals and a key advisor to the emperor. Set to be executed, Maximus escapes.
Rome (HBO series, 2005-2007): Begins with Caesar’s invasion of Gaul and continues with the rise of the first Emperor Augustus. The series centered on soldiers Pullo and Vorenus, who appeared to die at the end of the series.
"The Robe" (1953): tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that crucifies Jesus.
My wife Lucia recounts her January, 2010 trip from Kayseri, Turkey to Italy. First of all, she experienced harrowing flights.
The descent into Istanbul from Kayseri was one of the more terrifying I’ve experienced. The plane seesawed. There were sudden drops, leaving my stomach airborne hundreds of meters above my body. This experience left me shaking for well into my bus ride through a snow-covered Istanbul.
I’m not sure I’ll ever do an international flight in January again. My plane to Rome was delayed an hour and a half. Once we boarded, we sat on the tarmac in a snow storm for two hours. I wish I’d had someone from the family with me. I saw many planes, angled and still; a few with dark interiors, but red beacons on, primed to go.
Finally, after an hour, my plane revved up for takeoff. It began its taxi and then lurched sideways. I turned from the window. An Italian man and a Muslim woman stared fully and thoughtfully at me. The plane came to a screeching halt.
My wife, Lucia Holliday Buie, has written up her trip to Italy in January.
Brent and I took the vaporetto to San Giorgio Maggiore in the hopes of catching a Gregorian chanted mass at 11 am. We searched the church, stumbling on a regular mass, but alas, no Gregorian mass. This island church is famous in landscapes as its domes and turrets rise in gorgeous symphony. The day was chill and gray, but we walked everywhere, across canal bridges and past the palazzo backs.
Venice was enchanting. The majority of the buildings, 14th - 17th century palazzos and churches, remain close to authenticity without the antiquity refurbished away. We speculated on the laws that might cause restoration to be a disincentive to residents, apart from the associated towering costs.
Gothic, spiked lanterns were everywhere. The city has no cars or trucks. And there were stepped bridges over all the canals. Woe betide you if you’re in a wheelchair.
Everything, everything brought into the city has to be hand-carted over the stepped bridges. I saw these poor stalwarts carting mighty loads up steep steps. The garbage is placed in handcarts and boarded on canal boats. Instead of a car, residents have motor boats. The average resident is 50 or older. There appears to be a lot of aged relics soldiering along the cobbled byways. Venice is perhaps too expensive and too old for a young family with tourism Venice’s life bread and the city is a museum.
Yet the feel and look of Venice remains exquisite. The shop windows display Murano glass, antiques, gilded portrait frames, dazzling clothes and carnevale costumes, and leather accessories. A persisting holiday feeling stirs from the lack of cars, some of the most alluring store displays in the world, the jaw-dropping architecture of old, and the divine food.
Florence was a “must” in my life. The art found in the churches proved a great source of wonderment…the paintings, the use of marble, the architecture. One of my happiest times, during an Italian trip, is to sit in a church, gazing at a typical eye-filling altar and meditate for a time without limit.
I once read a New York Times’ reporter’s account of his trip to the Uffizi. It was summer and he said he couldn’t see the pictures for the people. That made a deep impression and I vowed I would never go to Florence in the summer. So, in January, I soaked in the Uffizi for a thorough five hours.
What made this trip so compelling, aside from Italy itself, was my friend Brent’s deep knowledge of the cities and the itinerary he set. He said it was his 10th time to Venice. He saved me a fortune in time because he knew all the streets. Venice is known for its ability to lose people in its walkways. During the nine days I was in Italy, I never took a bus and a taxi once only. Brent led the way from 10 am to 6 pm, not stopping for lunch, only for exploring. This resulted in my losing nine pounds during that week. While Brent is happily retired, I had to make the observation that his particular brand of touring and his knowledge could profitably place him in a second career.
Uffizi Gallery
Duomo
Bronze doors of the Baptistery
Pitti Palace
Ponte Vecchio
Orsanmichele Church
Santa Trinita
Loggia del Mercata Nuovo
Accademia
The Arno
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
Bellosguardo Villa
Piazzo della Signoria
Re-reading what I wrote about modern Rome -- seeing mostly decline, decadence, inefficiency, surliness and corruption -- maybe I am just an arrogant American, as my own country will be hard pressed to make
nearly the long-term contribution to Western if not world civilization, to art, architecture, religion, government, and cuisine -- that Rome
has done over the centuries. The Roman Empire lasted 500 years in
Western Europe, and a thousand years in Asia Minor, dominating both continents, as well as the Middle East and northern Africa.
The fall of the Western Roman Empire around 500 A.D. led to the Dark Ages in Europe, 800 years of cultural stagnation before the Renaissance and the Enlightenment began to form modern Western thought.
If the American Empire fell -- if it faced economic collapse and the "united" states like California, Texas, and Alaska seceded and declared their independence -- does anyone believe that would lead to another Dark Ages? Perhaps. With a global and interdependent economy, in ways we all rise or fall together. Or would countries like China and India easily step in to the vacuum left by America's economic collapse?
Cruise ships travel slowly, lumbering along at only about 28 miles per hour, sometimes as slow as 18 miles per hour. From Rome we floated south overnight only about 200 miles, to the city of Naples, located in the shadow of a still active volcano, Vesuvius. The last time Vesuvius blew its top was 1980, but it still smolders, and tremors are frequent in the region. No telling when Vesuvius will again wreak havoc like it did in 1906. Then it killed 2,000 people.
The most celebrated eruption of Vesuvius was in A.D. 79, when it buried the town of Pompeii under 60 feet of ash and mud. Remarkably, all that ash preserved the town for nearly 1700 years pretty much the way it was on the day the volcano erupted. Pompeii now comes alive with more than 2.5 million tourists each year. The most macabre displays in Pompeii are the mummies. Haunting faces stare out from the eons. One mummy is shown above behind Alex's shoulder. The volcanic ash mummified hundreds of bodies in an air-tight avalanche of mud. The few mummies on display aren't actually skeletons, but imprints made from the hardened mud.
Archaeology Blogger Rossella Lorenzi for Discovery News: "If you can't be one of the 2.5 million tourists who wander through the streets of Pompeii every year, you now have another option: Google's Street View."
I have read that there is sadness in the heart of every Italian because he knows that whatever he and his countrymen do, they will never accomplish as much as their ancestors accomplished in the Roman Empire. By one measure, Rome's future is behind it. The government is corrupt, there's widespread scofflaw mentality among the people, and some economic sectors seem hopelessly disorganized. That said, Italian food, wine, art and art appreciation, and some automobiles are still more advanced than most of the world.
My first impressions of Rome were not great -- really expensive, inefficient, and a surly service sector. Maybe it had to do more with me being tired than Rome itself. Here's my account of 30 hours in Rome. And here are our slideshows of evocative photos we took of
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