Murdered Emperors and Public Executions

---

This morning we've organised a tour of the Colosseum and the Forum. It's again very hot. The tour company is the same as yesterday's, so everything is again organised with military precision. We meet our guide, whose name is Patrizzia. As was the case yesterday, she's a vertically challenged archaeologist, and she carries a white umbrella to make sure we don't lose her. This is a serious risk, as not only is she short but the crowds are massive.

Patrizzia tells us that the Colosseum was built by the emperor who succeeded Nero. Nero was seriously unpopular and not at all nice, and was emperor in around 60 AD when most of Rome was destroyed by fire. Rumour has it that he started the fire himself to clear land for a new palace. After the fire most ordinary Romans had nowhere to live so they moved to the Colosseum site, which remained unscathed because it was mostly swamp. They were then evicted so that Nero could build his palace. It seems that politicians were the same then as they are now. Not content with his palace, Nero then built a 30 metre high metal statue of himself, which he called the Colossus (hence the name Colosseum) of Nero. The next emperor decided that being unpopular wasn't a great move, so he went out of his way to be liked. He dismantled the Colossus, and melted it down to make coins. He then built the Colosseum as a venue where all Romans could attend events, even slaves, although they only got standing room tickets up the back. It could hold as many as 50,000 to 75,000 spectators.

A typical day's entertainment started with a morning of animal fights. The Romans liked to bring in exotic beasts from places they'd conquered, so the spectacle included lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes. Most spectators would never have seen the likes of these before, so displaying them was a good PR exercise to demonstrate the success of the military campaigns. After the fights the animals were killed and their meat was cooked and served up to the spectators. Next on the agenda were public executions, which were usually held over lunch. Methods included being burnt alive, eaten by lions or tigers, or beheaded. I’m not sure how I'd go trying to hold down food while watching this, but I guess times were different then. Gladiators fought in the afternoons.

Patrizzia corrects a few false impressions perpetuated by Hollywood. She says firstly there's no evidence to suggest that any Christians were ever executed here. Secondly only one pair of gladiators ever fought at a time. Thirdly, it wasn't the idea that the loser always died, but if he looked like he wasn't likely to survive his wounds the crowd would sometimes give him the thumbs down. The emperor would however always have the final say on his fate.

As we're listening to Patrizzia, Issy spots her cousin Sandra and her family from Melbourne in the crowd. It's clearly a ridiculously small world. We stop to talk to them for a few minutes, but we have to move on quickly or we run the risk of losing Patrizzia in the seething mass.

We move on to the Forum. We're told that this was the centre of government here for around 500 years. One of the main temples contained a flame that was said to be the symbol of the life of Rome, so it had to be kept alight at all times. This was the job of the six highly honoured vestal virgins. They were anointed at 6 years of age, and had to stay in the role for 30 years. They had to abide by a number of rules, including, as the name suggests, that they remain virgins. I'm not sure how much understanding your average six year old would have about what it means to sign up for 30 years of virginity, but I suppose it's possible that kids grew up a bit more quickly back then. Rule breakers were sealed in an underground chamber and left there until they starved to death. Wow, that's a tough school!

We trudge up Palatine Hill which overlooks the Forum and is where the emperors lived. It's also supposedly where twins Romulus and Remus founded Rome. Legend has it that their mother was a vestal virgin who was raped. This didn't however spare her from being starved to death for losing her virginity, which also seems a tad harsh. The twins were then abandoned to die on the banks of the river, where they were adopted and raised by a she-wolf. Ruins of huts found on Palatine Hill have been shown to be from around the same time as the legend suggests the twins founded the city. I think Patrizzia's trying to convince us that the legend might be true. I can believe parts of it, but I am struggling slightly with the bit about the she-wolf. The ancient Romans seemed to be big on rules. Romulus mapped out the city boundary, and decreed that no citizen was allowed to go outside it. Remus broke this rule, so Romulus killed him. So much for brotherly love.

It sounds like being a Roman emperor was a bit of a hazardous occupation. Julius Caesar was murdered because he wanted to disempower the senators, particularly those who owned a lot of land. Another emperor was so unpopular that he decided he couldn't risk going to chariot races unless he sat by himself, well away from the rest of the crowd. He was eventually murdered by his own bodyguards, and it’s suspected that this was at the direction of his wife. I make a mental note to remember to stay on Issy's good side.

The tour finishes. It's still ridiculously hot, and the queues to fill water bottles from taps are very long. I leave Issy sitting in the shade while I try to navigate my way to the very top of Palatine Hill for a better view.

We try to leave the Forum. We assume the exit will be next to the entrance, but it isn't. We’ve been noticing that Rome seems to be a very one-way city. Most of the streets are one-way, and all the train stations seem to have separate entry and exit tunnels so you never run into anyone coming the other way. True to form the Forum's exit's a long way from the entrance.

We've noticed that there seem to be lots of very small cars here, and they park so close to each other that the only way we could see them getting in and out would be to lift them up and carry them. We’ll be hiring a car in a few days, so I think we should try to make sure that we always park a long way from any other vehicles. It would seem to be a bit embarrassing to have to ring the hire car company and tell them that we couldn't bring their car back because we couldn't get it out of its parking spot. We see a very short car parked at right angles to the kerb in a parallel parking spot. It's so short that it doesn't stick out any more than the parallel parked cars next to it.

We have a well earned siesta and then catch the bus to Piazza Navona. It's a hive of activity, and well populated with an assortment of artists, musicians and street performers. We have dinner at the nearby and similarly busy Campo de Fiori square. The setting's idyllic. It's cooled down a bit and there isn't a breath of wind. Issy says that she could happily live here.

We walk back to the hotel through the Jewish Quarter and pass a synagogue with a plaque on one of its walls with reference to a date in 1943. We recognise an Italian word on the plaque that looks very much like "Nazi". This is very sobering. It's hard to imagine that really evil things must have happened here so relatively recently.

---

Comments

[maree young]

Enjoyed the Roman history.I studied this for years & it's very interesting ! The art in the chapes also sounds amazing !