AAR CSS: Day 10

Double digits!

We were originally supposed to go to Cosa today, but instead we went to Vulci, another Etruscan town. It involved quite a bit of hiking.

The most boring triumphal arch ever:

Cat alert:

In the cryptoporticus ("hidden portico", a system of underground hallways) of a giant house:

Coffered ceilings (still underground):

Another Mithraeum (with re-enactors! members of the cult of Mithras were all male):

Another re-enactment, this time with crosswalk boulders:

A little translation trouble?

Inside the François Tomb:

A giant statue of a kantharos (wine vessel) at a rotary/roundabout/traffic circle:

The beach at Tarquinia:

Bus driver: Carlo (Fabio's brother - they have a family run bus business)

Dinner: Spaghetti alla carbonara | Ovoline e prosciutto e pomodoro | Profitterol (hand-made!)

AAR CSS: Day 9

This was a half day for the CSS but a full day for me.

We started in the morning with the Republican temples of the Forum Holitorium (vegetable market) and Forum Boarium (cow/bovine market). The best example was under scaffolding, of course.

A church using a wall from a Republican temple in the Forum Holitorium:

A spoliated column (ancient material reused as part of the later building) in the above church, with an ancient inscription:

Other side of the church:

Republican temple in the Forum Boarium (best preserved Republican temple at Rome, once thought to be to Fortuna, now thought to be to Portunus):

Temple to Hercules(?), formerly called Temple of Vesta, in the Forum Boarium (the round plan is Greek; the use of marble indicates a date after 146 BC, when the Romans sacked Corinth):

Then onto Santa Maria in Cosmedin to see the basement, a crypt of Pope Hadrian I built next to the foundations of the Roman Republican altar called Ara Maxima.

The church (the entrance portico has the Bocca della Verità - the Mouth of Truth):

The crypt of Pope Hadrian I:

The custodian who let us down there decided to light incense. Maybe that was his way of making sure we didn't spend too long in the crypt.

Next up: the Circus Maximus. We staged our own version of a race - Tom (far l., in red) won:

From there to a Mithraeum (sanctuary to Mithras; the cult was in some ways similar to the Masons):

And finally Tiber Island, starting with the Pons Fabricius (made by L. Fabricius, curator of the roads, as this inscription shows - you can click on the picture for a bigger version):

At 2 we were dismissed. I went over to the Colosseum to ambush meet up with Ms. Lewis, my high school Latin teacher, and her class.

We did the Forum:

...and ended up at Trajan's Column and Markets. It was hot, but fun. Our tour guide was approached by a plainclothes police officer, who stopped him to check his special tour guide ID. Apparently everything checked out.

Dinner: Pasta e fagioli | Braciole d'abbacchio con patate arrosto | Anguria

AAR CSS: Day 8

Didn't do much today. Walked to the cartoleria (notebook store) with a few people, got some pizza at Da Simone on Via Carini, hung out around the Centro, had a Clue party (as in the board game) and played some cards.

Seth and Susann gave a lecture on building materials and techniques at the AAR at 4 in the afternoon.

Saw these cuties on the way back:

ETA: Dinner: Mezzemaniche alla Sorrentina | Petto di pollo all'arancia, spinaci sultanini | Crem Caramel

AAR CSS: Day 7

Finally, the weekend! I slept in - til 9. Then I headed out to the park a block away. It's really the sprawling estate of the Villa Doria Pamphili (or Pamphilj). I went in, looked around, found the villa and its various gardens, then went back for lunch. On the way out, I ran into Julia Scarborough (also from Harvard - there are three of us total from my program here in Rome), who asked if I had made it to the lake with the swans and the turtles. So after lunch I headed back in, went past the villa, and found the lake. I think I spent over five hours in the park altogether. Here are some highlights:

First impressions:

Soccer (a.k.a. football):

Random ancient statue with later basin:

The Villa Doria Pamphili above the Fountain of Venus:

The Grotto:

The Theatre:

A bee:

A fountain in the shape of the she-wolf's head with inscription SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus - the Senate and People of Rome):

The Villa and its hedge maze:

On the way to the lake:

From the lake:

ETA: Ended the day with a cookout. We got permission from Franco to use the grill, and we finally found some charcoal for heat. Tripp, Tom, and Chris led the cooking side of things. In addition to veal, burger meat, and "pure swine" wurstel, there was mozzarella cheese, chocolate chip cookies, and a wine called Bacchus - which is particularly amusing to a classicist because the name Bacchus (as in the god of wine) can also be used as the word for wine in Latin.

From l. to r.: Chris, Tom, and Tripp

From l. to r.: Katie, Kenny, Ross, Colby (hiding), Erin

Bacchus, a red wine of Piceno:

Tom and Chris cross swords spatulas in front of the grill:

AAR CSS: Day 6

Today was a half day. We spent an hour and a half circling the city by public transport to reach Villa Giulia, which houses the second biggest collection of Etruscan artifacts after the Vatican. It probably would have taken us a similar amount of time to walk there, but most of us got to sit on the bus, which was much better than walking in the heat. We had breakfast at the little cafe there - the woman behind the counter was completely overwhelmed by 25 people walking in and ordering food and drinks. I had a great little pastry - kind of like a yellow cookie with some chocolate cookie bits in the middle. This was a strictly no-photo museum, but they do allow photos of the grounds:

Afterwards, I picked up a mozzarella and tomato sandwich from the cafe (with some lettuce-y stuff and what looked like a whitish condiment stuck in there as well - I closed my eyes and ignored it). Then Tom Keeline (from Harvard) and I went in search of a couple of bookstores he had written down and wanted to go see. We went through a bit of the Borghese gardens...

...and the Piazza del Popolo:

We were distracted by a bookstore window on the same street as the first one on his list but across the way - it was closed because it was Saturday. We crossed the street to see the bookstore he had noted down only to find that it had moved - across the street. We'll probably go back at some point, since the books in the window looked cool. They'll probably be expensive, though. The second bookstore (remainders at 50% off, a la Raven) had closed permanently. On the way to the bus stop we found Libreria M. T. Cicerone (basically the "M. T. Cicero Bookshop"), which just seemed to attract classicists - we met up with four other people from our group there. Got a small catalogue of the Domus Aurea, which is now permanently closed following a structural collapse two years ago. Glad I got to go with school years ago.

The night's entertainment was a lecture by Larissa Bonfante, a leading expert on the Etruscans who currently teaches at NYU. Among other things, I learned that Etruscan is not an Indo-European language (languages in that family include Latin, Greek, the Romance languages, English, etc.), and that we have some 200 Etruscan roots and 16,000 Etruscan words from some 9,000-13,000 epigraphical sources (i.e. inscriptions). However, our Etruscan dictionary is basically a telephone book: we have 15,000 personal names, which means we don't have enough Etruscan to recreate it as a viable language (that requires 2,000 words that are not names).

There was no dinner at the Centro, since it was a weekend, so I went with a few of the girls to a place in Piazza San Calisto (#7A) called Paris in Trastevere. Charming elderly waiter, good pasta, phenomenal chocolate mousse. Not cheap (not fantastically expensive either), but highly recommended.