The Eternal City

I want to start this blog off with a unique experience I had in Rome. I was waiting outside our hotel early one morning, standing on the curb watching the cars go by when I noticed a pigeon landing near me. I observed some of the talons on his right leg were broken as he sort of settled down on the cement. Despite all of the loud buses, cars, and people passing right by him on the street, he didn’t move, as if he was waiting for something. He continued to sit there for at least five minutes when an old man came walking up the street. The bird immediate recognized the man as he called out some phrases in Italian to it in greeting. The bird got up and walked towards him as he opened up the shop right next to our hotel and enters, the bird waiting outside. A minute or so passes and the man emerges with a handful of birdfeed that he spreads across a crack in the pavement. The man sat there and watched the bird eat, saying a few phrases in Italian to it every so often, looking blissfully happy. I feel this best describes the feelings I got from Rome: the depth, the history, the friendliness of the shop owners. Everyone seemed to be rushing yet moving slowly at the exact same time. The locals interacted with each other in a way I have never seen before. Needless to say, it was fascinating to see how a city so ancient can thrive so massively in an economic and social way over the years.

The Pantheon

We did so much in Rome, I am only able to write about the parts that most stood out to me, lest I write too much. The Coliseum was the first place we visited after a tour and the Pantheon, and it was clear everyone was blown away. The motivation behind building such a structure was largely political. It was constructed in 72 AD under the emperor Vespasian to entertain and appease the masses with gladiatorial contests and a variety of other public spectacles. Today it remains to be one of Rome’s most popular tourist attractions, raking in large amounts of money for the city. Vendors lined the streets outside selling all sorts of souvenirs and trinkets. I feel structures like the Coliseum are the definition of how Rome’s economy stays afloat. If a huge earthquake devastated many of the major structures in the city, the economy would completely fail. Knowing this, the city puts a vast amount of effort into preserving their history with rules and regulations. In one class conversation, we discussed why there are no modern looking buildings in Rome. We discussed the possibility that maybe it is just because it would look so out of place next to all of the ancient buildings. Would it create community uproar? There isn’t a lot of space left for new buildings in Rome, so would they have to tear old buildings down to do so?

The Coliseum

After the Coliseum we went to see the ancient Roman bathhouses. The bathhouses were used as a place for the Romans to get clean while socializing at the same time. They were massive structures that were open to the public but you had to pay to use them. The water could be heated by a log fire before being channeled into the various baths. Heating the water this way used up massive quantities of wood every day, and that wood had to come from somewhere. We discussed how they acquired all of the wood they consumed and determined they had an industry for it internally, took some from nations they conquered, and traded for it through the supply lines. All that is left of the bathhouses now in Rome are ruins, but walking around it was easy to see how lavish they must have been. The Roman concept of public bathing hints on the importance of social status in the ancient Roman world.

The ruins of a Roman bathhouse

As we were leaving Rome the next morning, I noticed something that will always stick with me I believe. I was telling another class mate about the pigeon from the day before and realized it was around this exact time it happened. Sure enough, a few seconds later a pigeon lands near us with broken talons on its right foot. As we were walking to our bus, we could turn around and see the pigeon sitting on the pavement, waiting for the shopkeeper to open his shop and feed him, as I am sure he does every day. It was the little things like this in a city so massive that made Rome a truly memorable place for me.

-Tyler Larson

View of Rome from the top of St. Peters Basilica