Volcanic Southern Italy and the Temples of the Gods

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

 

Here I am with my "Fund for Teachers" bag in front of the entrance to "Sibyl's Cave" in Cumae

  

Today the group spent time in Cumae (modern Cuma) itself. It was originally a Greek colony that was later taken over by the Romans as they expanded through Italy. We took a good look at the remains of two temples there, one allegedly built by the mythical character Daedalus, Icarus' father and the inventor of the Labyrinth on Crete and of human-powered flight. This was a temple to Apollo. We also visited Sibyl's Cave, the place of Apollo's Oracle at Cumae. We had a rare opportunity to visit its forum and spend some time in its bath complex. After lunch the group traveled to see the Macellum at Pozzuoli, modern-day Puteoli, and then went on to Solfatara. The day was great fun. 

Matthew in front of one of the volcanic vents at Solfatara

Tomorrow we will visit the Villa at Oplontis in the morning and then head to the island of Capri for two days. Capri is beautiful, and I've never spent the night there, so I am looking forward to the night in the hotel. 

The accommodations at the Villa Vergiliana are very basic. There is no air conditioning, although the evening breezes are pleasant, and the group of 30 must share showers. My room is the smallest I have had so far. I like my new roommate, though, and am quickly adjusting to the changes. At least there are some lines outside for the laundry I do in the sink in our small room, so I have a place for my things to dry.

An Emperor's Outdoor Dining Cave: Sperlonga, Italy

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Cave at Sperlonga. The fish pond and remains of the imperial dining room in the foreground

 

Matthew and I successfully met up with the group from the Vergilian Society program at 9 AM. The group made stops at Terracina and at Sperlonga on the way to Cumae. I especially liked the museum at Sperlonga, which is suspected to be the site of one of the Emperor Tiberius' villas. There are some Hellenistic-style statures there on the theme of Odysseus, including a nice reproduction of a statue group of Odysseus and his men blinding the Cyclops, Polyphemus. The statues were originally in a triclinium set in a cave, or spelunca in Latin. The name, Sperlonga, might actually be a corruption of the Latin word for cave. Sperlonga has a beautiful beach within sight of the museum and cave, but we didn't have time to go there. Sigh!

Exploring the interior of the cave, the original location of the museum's statues

Upper-class Romans liked to grow fish in ponds on their estates

A view of the dining area from inside the cave. Tourists on the right give an idea of the scale.

We can tell from these holes on the dining platform that the Romans raised lampreys, a delicacy, here

Another exterior view of the cave at Sperlonga

Rome: the Colosseum, Palatine, and Capitoline Hills

Sunday, August 1, 2010

 

At the Colosseum

 I let my son, Matthew, sleep in until about 9 this morning. After breakfast we headed out to the Colosseum. First we saw the Ludus Magnus, the barracks outside the Colosseum where the gladiators trained while waiting for their turn at the fights. They didn't live there long term, however, because the Romans were leery of having armed slaves trained to fight hanging around the city. 

Then we splurged on a tour guide to beat some of the lines heading into the Colosseum. The guide was actually pretty good and had some good illustrations and explanations. Then we headed to the special exhibit on gladiators, which had some good reproductions of gladiatorial costumes that can give my students a better idea of the different types of gladiators.

A type of gladiator: murmillo

Included in our Colosseum tour was entry to the Palatine Hill and Forum, so we spent some time there. Our tour guide was so bad and rude that we left him and finished looking around the area on our own, which was more satisfactory. 

We saw the Palatine Museum. The House of Augustus and the House of Livia were closed to the public, unfortunately. But we got to see “Romulus' Hut” where evidence of the first huts on the Palatine Hill, the first settlements in Rome, are to be seen. It's basically just some holes for supports of these huts in the ground, but it's still neat to see. In the forum there was a special exhibit on the family of the Aemilii,  which had some beautiful relief sculptures in it. Matthew also liked looking for the remains of coins on the floor of the Basilica Aemilia in the forum. There had been a massive fire there, so hot that coins left behind by the bankers actually fused to the marble floors.

 Our original plan had been to make our way from the Capitoline Museum to the Pantheon before it closed, but we had trouble finding the right bus and couldn't make it there on time, so we made it back to Trastevere to pack and take it easy before our trip to Campania, modern-day Campagna, tomorrow. Seeing the inside of the Pantheon again was one of my big goals for my stay in Rome, so I was sad not to have made it. Hopefully it will be incentive for Matthew to come back and see it someday. It is my favorite spot in the city.

Reunion in Rome!

Saturday, 7/31/10

Matthew and I at the Baths of Caracalla, waiting for Rigoletto to start

 The trip to Fiumicino Airport to pick up my son, Matthew, was fairly uneventful. His plane was delayed about an hour and a half because of mechanical trouble. The plane he was supposed to fly in on needed its engines replaced, something discovered during routine maintenance checks. So the flight could have been much later. But Continental Airlines found another plane ready to cross the Atlantic. It was a smaller plane, so some passengers were rerouted and others got bumped. But Matthew got here OK.

 After getting his things situated back at our hotel, including presenting his passport at the desk, which all of the hotels require  now due to a government regulation, we headed to the Vatican. We took a quick tour of the museums, visited St. Peter's Basilica, found a quick bite to eat, and headed back to the hotel so Matthew could nap for a couple of hours. His favorite snack so far is gelato. The chocolate was especially good. My favorite snack yesterday was a chocolate-filled cornetto, a type of pastry, and a cappuccino I grabbed on the way to the train for less than 2 Euros. It tasted too good to be true.

 In the evening we headed to the Baths of Caracalla for Verdi's opera, Rigoletto. It was fun together, and the baths are a fantastic setting for an opera. And the singing was fantastic. I like Aida better, however. That's playing tomorrow night but I didn't want to be up late on Sunday if I can help it, since we have a bus to meet on Monday morning. 

After the opera was an adventure! The late night transportation in Rome is rather spotty. We assumed, wrongly, that there would be some extra buses heading to Trastevere after the opera. There were not. According to a sign, a night tram runs from 11:30 PM to 3 AM but we waited a long time and saw no sign of it. Finally the group of us, about 10 in all, hailed a cab, who called two more cabs on the radio, and we got back to the hotel by 1 AM. 

Not too bad. 

Matthew must have been particularly happy to see the hotel room since he had slept only about 4 hours including his nap.

Endings and New Beginnings

Friday 7/30/10

Latin Teacher on the Appian Way

 This is it, the last official day of our N.E.H. Program, and the last day that all the participants will spend together, although many of us will take in the sights of Rome during this weekend, since the flight back for Rome is not until Monday. I meet my son, Matthew, in the morning, of course, and after our weekend together in Rome, we will be meeting up at the Villa Vergiliana program for a bus ride back to Campania and more educational touring, thanks to the Fund for Teachers and the Rural School and Community Trust, which are underwriting my portion of the next two-week trip.

 The morning we traveled by coach to the House of the Quintilii. This house excited me because it was once the property of Marcus Tullius Cicero's best friend, Atticus. It has had a long history. At one point two remarkably admirable brothers, the Quintilii, owned it, until they were suspected of a plot against the throne by Emperor Commodus. They were killed and their property confiscated by Commodus. The property then became Commodus' favorite property in Rome. He expanded it to suit his tastes. We walked around just to get an idea of its immensity. The bath complex has traces of marble floors and columns and the hypocaust or heating system.

Statue of Zeus

Next we headed for the Via Appia Antica, the ancient road that led from Rome to Capua and eventually to Brundisium. Along the way we stopped at the Villa of Maxentius, the Roman Emperor who ruled with and eventually fought against Constantine the Great at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge; he obviously lost. He died in 312 A.D. His son, Romulus', tomb is also on the property; Romulus is obviously not the same guy who founded Rome in the 8th Century B.C. The most interesting part of the villa is the Circus of Maxentius, smaller than the Circus Maximus but better preserved. It is “the only Roman Circus in existence in which all of the architectural components are still well preserved,” according to the brochure. It seems huge when you stand in it: it could hold 10,000 spectators. But this is puny compared to the Circus Maximus, which could hold 150,000 spectators.

 Finally, we went to the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella. She was a wealthy relative of (we think) the wealthy Crassus of the First Triumvirate. The Metelli were a prominent family of the first Century B.C.,  and the tomb was built around 30 B.C. Tombs, by Roman custom and law, had to be built outside the city, so the Appian Way was lined with them. The group also walked past the museum and mausoleum to the part of the Appian Way that still has some of the large, ancient Roman paving stones, and we took turn taking our pictures as we stood on them.

 For more pictures of any of the above, visit this set on Flickr.

Sharing a Laugh at Pompey's Theater

Tonight we went to a dinner-party in the substructure of Pompey's Theater. It was sad to be together for the last time as a group, but we had a lot of fun. Sister Therese, Sister Theresa, and Tom made up a “final exam” for us. They gave us hints from the trip, and we had to figure out which member of the group the comment belonged to. One person was so gregarious she spent lots of time talking to the Carabinieri, or military police, for example. I was the person who could not get enough of archaeology  from this experience and so had signed up for two more weeks in Southern Italy. That one was easy for everyone to guess. As people's names were guessed, Tom handed out their certificates and letters of participation. I have to take good care of mine, because I need it for CEUs for recertification in Latin back in North Carolina. This program was worth three graduate courses, according to the paperwork. That should more than take care of my CEUs in my content area.

 Jessica gave the Sisters and Tom some framed photos of the group. The picture was taken in front of Cicero's Tomb and came out nice. Each frame was a little different, and all three were wrapped in paper that Susan had hand-decorated. Wendy presented them with information about a cat that the group adopted from the program at Largo Argentina. We will be supporting this cat for the coming year. He is Feline HIV positive, is easily frightened, and is having a hard time finding a home. Allen and Ryan did a top ten stand-up comedy routine that was pretty funny, especially when Kaitlyn, our former Poppaea, acted the part of a rather bad tour guide we had suffered through in Etruria, rambling on about things we already knew or didn't want to know in broken English. Justin Short wowed everybody with a little poem he wrote about our trip that was inspired by Ovid and the tradition of the lover complaining to the lover's door that won't open for him. It's an actual genre. 

Sister Therese told the group that we are not allowed to apply for future NEH programs at her school, but if any of us ever applies to another NEH Institute, to have her write us a recommendation. She said we were a fantastic group and that she would write a “recommendation for any” of us “for anything.” I have to admit, that comment brought a tear to my eye. It has been that fantastic a group and that fantastic an experience. I hope we stay in touch through email, Facebook, or some other means.

 When we get home we have been asked to submit to Sister Therese through Blackboard a final project as well as to take the NEH Evaluation Survey that will be linked to the group's blackboard site. I'll try to take care of these things shortly after I get back.

 I got a quick call from Don tonight to tell me that Matthew's flight for tomorrow is being bounced around by Continental Airlines. He said Matthew called to tell him his plane might be a half hour late or the flight might be four hours late at this point. I told him I'll go to the airport for the time Matthew was originally expected and wait as long as I have to. Don will call me if for some reason this plane is not expected tomorrow. I hope things go well and our plans for the day and evening don't get too messed up. I'll wait for him and read, I guess. 

I can't wait to see him here in Rome!

My heartfelt appreciation goes out to the National Endowment for the Humanities for making four wonderful weeks of academic study in Italy a reality for me.