Ostia Antica

Ok, this post starts with an interpretation contest/quiz. Ran across this sign on a pizzeria in Rome. What do you think they are advertising? Post your thoughts in the comments section.

So, Ostia Antica, where is it and what's it's importance. Ostia was ancient Rome's port city on the sea at the mouth of the Tiber river. Unlike Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were resort towns and preserved in an instant by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, Ostia was a working town that more represented real life in the Roman Republic/Empire. Founded in the 4th Century BCE, it reached around 75,000 inhabitants in the 2nd Century AD. It was hit with barbarian invasions and malaria in the 5th Century AD and abandoned. Over the course of time, the silt from the Tiber covered Ostia as the Tiber built up its delta. The mouth of the river now stands 2km from the remains of ancient Ostia. Because it was covered up for so many centuries, it remains remarkably well preserved.

You can see the locations of the ancient course of the Tiber and the location of the sea in relation to the present course of the Tiber.

As you enter into the modern day Ostia site, before you enter through the ancient walls, you walk through the necropoli of Ostia.

The Roman's were great urban planners. Most cities, based on military camp plans contained two intersecting roads, one of them the Decumanus. Here in Ostia, the Decumanus is the longer of the two and runs East-West.

This is a bath complex, which contains a cold room (frigidarium), pool room (tepidarium) and a hot room (caldarium). Notice, how the archeologists have prevented further erosion of the site by capping everything with cement.

Many of the beautiful mosaics remain.

The other main road, is called the Cardo.

Here at the intersection of the Cardo and Decumanus is the back side of the Capitolium, which fronts onto the town Forum.

Near the intersection of the two is also the Ostia Teatro. The difference between Greek theaters and Roman theaters is that the Romans built a backdrop, the remains of which you see as the low running wall at the rear of the stage. The Greeks left the natural scenery be the backdrop.

From atop a building along the Cardo, here's a view of the Tiber today.

As mentioned earlier, Ostia was a real functioning town with back streets, houses, apartments and markets.

Here we see a house with walls painted in what is called "First Style", which consists mostly of rectangular panels. Although many of the houses are fenced off.....

That didn't stop us from climbing in. It was so much fun to be inside these ruins and to walk in the footsteps of the "everyday" ancients.

In the neighborhoods, there are remnants like this millstone.

And, here's a bar on the ground floor of a home.

Here's the bar from the loft of the home. And yes, of course, we were not supposed to be inside.

Here's an oven that still has the marble facing, which is what probably covered most of the buildings here.

The mosaic in a palestra (gym). Must be motivation/ideal for all who worked out there.

Another mosaic in the palestra. Perhaps an early precursor to the Statue of Liberty?

If you had the chance to climb atop a Corinthian capital, wouldn't you do it too?

My First Art Auction

Foreground left, Roberto and bald head right front, Alessandro

So, my wood restoration teachers invited me to an art auction held in Rome. No reason for me not to go, so it was in the car and off to Rome on a Monday evening. Typically Italian, the auction started at 9PM. There were about 60 people and 200 items were auctioned off. Roberto and Alessandro, being furniture guys, were only interested in bureaus, side tables, etc. Things moved at a fast clip. The auctioneer would start bidding and the piece would be sold or returned to the store room in 30 seconds or less. The item that sold for the largest amount? Two small paintings for 5,500 Euro. It was a bidding war between a person in the room and a guy bidding by proxy through a guy on the phone. Very artsy!

I know that Roberto, the more "sane" of the two purchased one table for 650 Euro. But, I'm not sure how many pink purchase slips Alessandro had at the end of the night. I've been to Alessandro's house and asked him where he was going to put all the stuff. His typically Italian response? "I don't worry about that now, live in the moment!"

Rome's Tate Modern -- Centrale Montemartini

It's a beautiful day in central Italy and I'm done with a morning swim, puttering around online and find out that part of the famed Capitoline Museum is housed in a separate part of town in what used to be an old electric plant. What's a boy to do but hop on the train and go see it. So, the story goes, in short, that in 1912, the Montemartini power plant was built outside the walls south of the Ostiense station, an industrial area very few tourists ever see. It was Rome's first power station and through the early 1960's it generated a significant portion of the electricity for the city. After that it was decommissioned and abandoned. In the 1990's when the main section of the Capitoline complex was being renovated, the idea came to turn this power plant into an exhibition space. For those of you who have been to the Tate Modern in London, same idea, EXCEPT, here in Rome, they left the big machines and those are a stunning juxtaposition with the excavated artifacts of Republican and Rome of the Early Empire.

Entering off Via Ostiense, here's the facade of the former Montemartini Power Plant.

The first thing you see as you leave the entrance is this 5th Century BC statue of Aphrodite with a part of the power plant machinery as a backdrop.

As the home to pieces from early Rome, lower floor houses many of the smaller items. Here is the "Togaed Barbarini" (we studied it in Art History). It shows a male of status and wealth holding portraits of his father and grandfather. Only the wealthy class were able to make portraits of ancestors.

An younger portrait of Augustus, shown in a more serene and gentle pose of "classical beauty".

Augustus, as I have mentioned before, was a GREAT administrator. Here was the map of how he divided Rome into different regions, each of which was run by publicly elected ministers.

In each region, an "augustuslares" (as shown) was erected. Augustus Lares means the "Genius of Augustus"

Here's Augustus' right-hand man, and probable best friend, Marcus Agrippa.

With their many victories and incorporation of foreign lands into the Empire, luxuries, such as this fish mosaic, were part of the beauty and high life of living in Rome.

Going up one flight, one enters into the main machine room (diesel) of the Montemartini.

It's an AMAZING juxtaposition of the beauty of art from the Roman Empire and what is essentially industrial machinery as art itself.

In a second room, the backdrop is the old steam generator, which was turned into electricity.

A kore, wearing a peplos, with a control panel in the background.

After Augustus and Hadrian, my third favorite Roman Emperor is probably Caracalla, even though he wasn't a great one, I like his scowl.

It's the contrast of the white marble and the black machinery that is an amazing visual combination.

Villa Adriana

Hadrian, one of the top 5 greatest emperors of the Roman Empire, traveled throughout the Empire to take stock the vast wealth and resources in its domain. What Hadrian also did was bring back to Rome parts of different cultures that he liked and built a retreat, known both as Hadrian's Villa and Villa Adriana, for himself in the hills east of Rome.

It was the Las Vegas of its time and spanned an entire square mile.

Here's the large pool complex with the hills in the background.

Hadrian, himself an accomplished architect, designed these round domed structures. His architect made fun of them and called them "pumpkins" and was fired from his position and eventually executed. The holes you see had hooks in them to hold up the beautiful ceilings that one would see from inside this bath.

A "pumpkin" vault still intact.

The most famous part of the complex was this "maritime theater. It was a circular colonnade which had a round pool in which stood an island that could only be accessed by a drawbridge.

Once again, I personally get to see something we studied in Art History class.

All SYA Italy students will know what this picture is about and who it is in honor of!

And here they are doing their pose in honor of Augustus at Hadrian's Villa.

Time to repay Mom and Dad

I'm 40 years old and in my lifetime, I have inherited 5 cars from my parents. In fact, I bought a house before I ever bought a car. Since, my car is sitting in my sisters garage, my parents are now taking my car for themselves. For those keeping score, I'm now down 4.

To do it officially, I had to have it notarized here in Italy. I had to go to Rome to go to the consulate at the United States Embassy (Hillary Clinton's picture was on the wall!). It's in quite a posh part of town and I snapped this picture of it before the policeman in the bottom corner of the photo told me to stop.

So, the DMV in Washington State is going to get a form notarized by a civil servant in Rome, Italy and is embossed with the seal of the United States of America.

El Djem

The last stop on our visit to Tunisia was the amazing well preserved Roman amphitheater at El Djem.

It was built in the 3rd Century AD by the Roman consul, Gordian I. Because of the dry arid, climate, it has survived almost intact to the present.

The amphitheater was used for gladiator shows and chariot races. Here is the staging area underneath. It also has a working well.

The amphitheater could hold up to 35,000 spectators, the third largest in the Roman Empire.

The amphitheater might not actually have been finished, but was partially destroyed in the 17th century.

Randomly, here's how dates grow!

A beautiful island off the coast of Tunisia as we embarked on a 26 hour boat ride back to Italy.

A Latin Teachers Dream Come True

CARTHAGE!! Founded originally by Queen Dido of the Phoencians back in the 9th Century BCE, it is sited on a spit of land in modern day Tunisia. The Punic Wars (between Carthage and Rome) were epic wars, with Carthage being burned to the ground after the 3rd Punic war. By the way, my Latin recitation was one where Aeneas breaks up with Dido to go found Rome. She puts a curse on Rome, most likely leading to the Punic Wars.

The remains of Carthage are limited to these Roman Baths built when the Roman Empire ruled this area. Modern day Carthage, an upscale suburb of Tunis, most probably sits on top of a wealth of archeological sites.

These baths in Carthage were the third largest built in the Roman Empire. The site, here on the water, thereby making it a naval power, is so good that the Royal Palace of Tunisia sits just to the north of this UNESCO site.

That's our Latin Teacher, Frank T. realizing a lifelong dream and seeing Carthage in person.