Thursday, 23 October 2014 – Everyday life
We are about to move into
daily life, both modern and ancient. We
walk to the Colosseo metro station and take linea A to EUR Magliana and
transfer to the Ostia line to Ostia Antica.
The metro is full of life – everyday life. It’s interesting to watch people go about
whatever their business is, and it leads me to wonder what their life is like
(where they live, what they do, what their mood is, etc.) Bonnie was hoping for a nice train trip,
comfortable seat, a window, scenery passing by, but none of that was to be
had. Like the Romans on board, we too
stood and waited for the station we wanted.
Just as in Rome along the
Via Appia, the entry into Ostia
Antica from the east is a highway through tombs. To enter the city teeming with life one must
first honor the dead. Like the cemeteries
that we know, these tombs are a mixture of simple and ornate, stone and
brick. The ornate brickwork shown above
is outstanding. In fact there was a college of brick workers in Ostia, their
headquarters still standing. In that
building we can see the pride they took in their work. Once through the gate and into the city one
sees rows of storage and workhouses, and then there is pleasure and health.
At the Thermii Cisarii we see a large array of
rooms, the floors of which are all mosaic.
It was here at the baths of the cart drivers that we get to see some
wonderful work both ancient and modern.
The mosaics are black and white, but wonderfully ornate – depicting gods
and goddesses and all the mythos of the Romans. Working on the floor, however,
are curators and restorers as they work on each of the floors. Some are covered for a time, to save them
from the elements, and others are left for us to see, and even more are in the
process of restoration.
One thing that has been
added to Ostia Antica is the placement at various places in the town of
contemporary sculpture, most of it with a classical feel. Some of the placements work quite well, so
that you don’t get the feeling that you have stepped out of time.
Again, like the Neronian
Cryptoporticus on the Palatine Hill there are examples of stuccowork that have
survived. The work shown here is at the
theater, in the central aisle that serves as an entrance to the seats. What is interesting about this work is that
if you look closely you can see the work of the artisans in sketching out the
placement of stuccowork that was placed later.
Again, a reminder of human daily life and work. To the rear of the theater is a “mall” of
sorts, lined with the stalls for the various corporations that plied their
trade at Ostia’s harbor. In the front of
each stall is a black and white mosaic depicting fish, ships, rivers, or gods,
meant to indicate the kind of work the corporation was involved in.
After a “lunch” at the
bookstore/restaurant on the site, we go to the forum of Ostia and see the
remains of a large Pantheon-like circular structure that sits opposite the
Curia in Ostia. To the west and a bit
behind is a shrine where the town Lares sat, and lovely example of brickwork. There are other sacred places in Ostia,
temples, and shrines, and a couple of Nymphaeum. The one pictured below was later converted to
Christian use as, I suspect, a baptistery.
In fact a martyr is honored with a plaque here. There is a Synagogue in the forum area and at
least one Mithraeum as well.
The sun begins to sink
slowly in the west and we take a train back to Rome, getting off at Circo
Maximo. We decide to walk over to
Trastevere to have dinner, so we walk along the circus, making a brief stop by
the Temple of Vesta on the banks of the Tiber.
It is a lovely building
and I’m sorry that we can’t stop in to see Sancta Maria in Cosmedian that sits
right across the street. We take the
bridge that connects Isola Tiberina with both the east and west banks. At the end there is a church dedicated to
Saint Bartholomew, which also serves as his burial place. My friend Barton and I bumped into this place
in 1989, and I wanted to show it to Bonnie and Wendy. In the center of the stairs leading up into
the chancel, there is a wellhead. It
seems that in ancient times this was an asklepieion where healing and dream
telling was done. The well is a remainder of that site, and is still use in
healing offices.
We make our way into Trastevere,
and I get us lost. However, we are near
a restaurant where people are standing in line to get in. Wendy sees the possibilities of something
wonderful here and so we stand in line to get into da Enzo al 29. We do get in and it
is flat out wonderful. We all start out
with the Panzanella, a composed and moulded salad of bread, celery, tomato,
basil, olive oil, and lemon – quite good. I have the Cacio e Pepe, a simple dish
of wide spaghetti dressed simply with a very fine pecorino and lots of pepper.
It was quite delicious. I followed that with Polpette, but quickly came to the
opinion that the Polpette at Piccino
in San Francisco are much better. I don’t remember dessert, which says
something. We all agreed, however, that
it was a superb experience and would go back in a minute.
We walked back to Navona
through Campo di Fiori. I really over-reached the walking part. I need to ask
Bonnie and Wendy if we need to take a cab!
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