Italy #6: Roma

After the Vatican visit, the next day was all about going around in Rome. Starting with a guided tour of the Colosseum. Our guide asked us to guess how long it took to construct the Colosseum. The answer was surprising: just 10 years. It takes longer today to build a metro station in Rome today, she joked. Rome may not have been built in a day, but it sure wasn’t built at a crawling pace either. Jokes aside, our guide acknowledged that was possible because they used slave labour back then.

 

The underground system below the arena that housed the wild animals and gladiators with its many holding areas and passageways is open and visible. This guide too was an archaeologist (like the one at the Vatican), which explained why she was so keen to convey the reality of the Colosseum, not the nonsense that Hollywood peddles, she said contemptuously.

 

Yes, it was all bread and circus, something to keep the masses entertained. No, gladiators did not fight to the death. Sure, sometimes they might get injured, but those were accidents. In fact, most fights were “planned” ones, i.e., the outcome was decided beforehand. Kind of like how WWE wrestling works today, she added. Props like artifacts, flora and beasts from faraway lands were used in the mock fights. After all, she said, the Roman empire was so huge that most citizens of Rome would have never seen the novelties and differences of most of the empire. If the Roman could not go to every part of the empire, well then the empire would be brought to Rome. But no, she said with irritation, there were never any sharks in the Colosseum the way Gladiator 2 movie has it – there are no sharks in the Mediterranean, where would they have gotten them from?

 

The only people who actually lost their lives at the Colosseum were prisoners who were condemned to death. And also Christians. Public executions were a form of entertainment. But once Christianity took over as the “official” religion of the Roman empire, the Popes were always unsure what their stand should be on the Colosseum. Condemn it as a place where Christians had been persecuted in the past? Or let it continue since it was so popular among the masses? While they may have let the Colosseum continue, the Christians badmouthed Nero far more than he deserved, she said, as later-day revenge for his stance on Christianity. As Napoleon said, what is history but fable agreed upon?

 

There are monuments from multiple eras in Rome. From Julius Caesar’s era. The Colosseum itself. Victor Emmanuel’s monument to symbolize the unification of Italy. It is a layered city, she said. Like lasagna! Turns out Italians are taught about Roman history in fair detail at school, no wonder most of them take such pride in it. 

Later in the day, we visited the other tourist spots including Victor Emmanuel’s monument, the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps. (My wife had timed the trip right. A couple of weeks later, a huge crowd would descend on Rome for Easter and the queue to get to the Trevi fountain would have been impossibly long. And we got lucky with the Colosseum – King Charles came over a few days later and they shut off the place to all visitors for those days).

 

It was time to move on to the next city in our Italian holiday.