A Full-Time Job

So I’m going to have to go way back. I guess one good indication of my not writing is the old adage that no news is good news. I've been too busy living it to write it down! Let’s start with the end of October.

Before that, we’d gone through the Aqua Claudia aquaduct, though. THAT was really cool.

Yeah, in an aquaduct, no big deal.

Our field trips at that time were mostly within the city of Rome, so we saw things like the Theater of Marcellus and the nearby Temple of Apollo and Portico of Octavia.. stuff we see every day on the bus, you know? And then we went into the Forum of Augustus.

This was cool because it meant we got to go somewhere special that regular tourists do not have access. This will be a theme. The Forum of Augustus, like most of the fora, is today cut up by the “Road of the Imperial Fora” which Moussolini set up back in the day. It was awesome nonetheless to be in the place I’d read so much about. We were also let into Caesar’s Forum before that.

Just hanging out in Caesar's forum

We also visited Augustus’ home on the Palatine (it was Augustus week) which was freaking awesome. We were taken down in small groups to see the excavated area, right next to the Romulus Hut which may not have actually contained Romulus, but which the Romans kept up as if it had. There was another temple to Apollo nearby, in which the terracotta plaques used to be. I used this plaque in a paper I wrote for Latin class, so I was way excited to see it in person.

It's Apollo and Hercules fighting over Apollo's tripod. But we know who will win. And guess who they symbolize!! Augustus = Apollo, and Hercules = Antony!

After that (still on the 30^th of October) we went to the Palazzo Massimo Museum which is right next to Termini train station. I had already been there with the Emilys to look it over and prepare for my presentation on the Fasti (Roman calendars),

Genuinely excited.

so after giving my presentation (which was fine, although at the end of the day, so I don’t blame Vinny for falling asleep) and seeing Emily G’s, we cruised around once and went home. The museum has a full reconstruction of Livia’s wall-painted dining room, though. Sweet. And a mummy child in the basement. And some original bronzes from Greece, and some awesome sculptures. Including PIOUS AUGUSTUS, on which Emily gave her presentation.

At the feet of the master

The next week, we went to see the Ara Pacis and Mausoleum of Augustus in the rain. The Ara was closed and the Mausoleum is kind of decrepit by now. But it was a short day.

We went to Ostia on November first and we saw a lot of stuff. It was cold and rainy, though, so mostly what I remember is that I wore boots (excellent protection from water but not comfortable for trekking across a whole ancient city, which we pretty much did) but not a proper coat, so I was cold the whole time.

This is how we have class in Ostia

But, there was an underground tunnel in the baths, and we discovered bats inside it. That was really sweet. We followed the sounds of bats until we found a whole bunch of them, the disturbed them with camera flashes and flashlight beams until they swooped around us. One narrowly missed my head. I could only think “I wish I had Achilles with me.” Achilles was the name of my MagLite this summer.

Bats! Bats bats bats! Bats bats bats! Bats bats baaaats...

We did see a lot of cool stuff, and Ostia is an awesome place to visit. It’s a nice one-stop site for everything from forum to temples to vigiles, sort of like Pompeii except that it lasted longer, and a lot closer to Rome. In the baths near the forum I accidentally said something that could be wrongly interpreted, and Vinny actually sprinted away from me laughing, to prevent me from explaining myself. I also got really excited when I found wall tubulae.

TUBULAE!!!

The teachers were feeling it too, by the end. We got to the “Round Temple” and Prof C said “Three things to remember about the Round Temple. It’s a temple. It’s round. It was the last major public work built in Ostia.” I don’t think we’ll ever forget. Then, we got to go home.

Friday immediately following this (that week we had two all-day field trips, of which Ostia was the second, Thursday.. we always have them on Tuesday) I hadn’t had enough field-tripping for one week, so I went along on the art history field trip to some churches. We went to St. John Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore, and also St. Nicholas in Chains, where they have the Moses carved by Michelangelo.

Moses.

All of the churches were amazing and impressive and just awe-inspiring. I love looking at the marblework for some reason, I just think it’s so pretty. I had lunch with Captain Cook outside of the Lateran (which is the head of the churches in Rome, we found out) and it was a lovely day.

And, since that obviously wasn’t enough yet, I joined up for the optional Saturday morning field trip to the Horologium of Augustus. The gnomon of this sundial is a big obelisk that now stands in a public square (my dad and I found it at night while they were here), but the actual ground part which charts the passing shadow is all underground. So we went into the basement of some shop that had some Greek writing down under the floor under a few inches of water. Yeeeaah. It was really, really awesome.

This is the line between Virgo and Taurus

Total hours spent on field trips that week: 32. Yeah, buddy; add that to the hours spent in class and doing homework and don’t ask me how I got sick shortly thereafter. G-Unit had a cold. There are only a couple of ways for me to get sick: short myself on sleep, spend copious amounts of time with someone who is sick, or stress out and try to do way too much stuff in a small amount of time. I did all three.