The First Day of School

May 08, 2019

The First Day of School

The reason why I went to Italy was for a study abroad; I was able to walk at graduation last week under the promise that I would be finishing my last required six credits on this study abroad. So, school is required. I am taking the Renaissance course and an Independent Study. Because we are all on this trip, I'm attending every course Steve teaches.

We started our studies with a lecture about the Roman Forum. If I post the pictures without any context, it's just pretty pictures of pretty old things. So there will be brief history lessons from here on out.

A Brief History of Rome:

Legend has it, there was a guy named Aeneas who escaped from Troy with his family; he claimed to be descended from Venus. Somewhere down this family line, was a guy named Amulius who killed his brother and forced his daughter to be a Vestal Virgin (we'll cover that later in this post). The god Mars (who is always the worst, honestly) rapes her and she gives birth with two sons named Romulus & Remus. These kids get put in a basket and they float down the river (like Moses) to the Palatine Hill where they are nursed by the She-Wolf and later raised by a shepherd and his wife who already have 12 sons (does this sound familiar? It should! think the 12 tribes plus Ephraim & Menasas (sp?)). Anyway, these two brothers try to form a city but unfortunately, there were not enough women to keep the city alive so they made an agreement with the Sabine people which ends in a massive fiasco known as the Rape of the Sabine Women (rape in this context means 'the taking' not sexual assault).

Now the people at this time were very superstitious and competitive, so when Romulus formed a sacred line to form the city that would later be known as Rome and Remus crossed the line, it was a Bad Thing. Romulus killed Remus (Cain & Abel, baby).

It was important to cover this history because this history (or legend) is just embedded into the Roman Forum. A building that I didn't take a picture of was the building outside of which Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by the Senate and his home boy on the 15 March (Ides of March).

My favorite thing that we saw and talked about was the Atrium Vestae. This building had three floors and fifty rooms; it was initially built in 700 BCE for a group of women called the Vestal Virgins (I said we'd talk about it later). These women were among the elite class of Romans; they took a 30 year vow of chastity during which they could not be married as well as engage in well dot dot dot. Their purpose was to devote their life to the study of state religions in addition to other duties. They were so important they had an excellent annual salary. Starting around the ages of 6-10, they worked for 10 years as an apprentice then they would finish up their service as a Vestal Virgin. After their service was done, they could get married, but by then, they could be around 40-50 years old, so I don't know how well that worked out for them in the end.

The building had a pool, which I'm not sure if it was meant for swimming, since the Romans already had a great public bath (I'm pretty sure the Vestal Virgins had something of their own because of their high status). Within the surviving portion of the building, there are some incredible figure sculptures of women. Some rose bushes started growing there and I think they're gorgeous!

At the Temple of the Vestae, the eternal flame burned; however, only fragments survive today.

After the Forum, we took a look at the Arch of Titus. The Arch of Titus commemorates a major victory of the Romans during the Jewish War. During the Jewish War, the Romans sacked the Temple of Solomon and the relief sculptures (the sculptures that are carved to the wall but still attached to it) depict the spoils they stole which include a menorah and silver trumpets. Making this work of art was a piece of absolute propoganda. This particular piece of art is significant because it is the first attempt at the illusion of space; they tried to create foreshortening so the sculptures looked incredibly real. In addition to the artistic developments, it also influenced other major works of art such as the arch in Washington Park, NYC.

Following the Arch of Titus, we looked at the Arch of Constantine. Here's a brief history lesson: Before Constantine became emperor, Diocletian created a form of government called the Tetrarchy. This was done because Rome was so friggin' massive and one person couldn't possibly effectively handle all of it. So there were four rulers (two major, two minor). One guy ruled the south, one ruled the west, one the north, one the east. This worked for maybe a generation? Anyway, Diocletian made sure the art gave the impression that the rulers were beyond human (basically, they looked real freaky in all the works of art) so there would be no guessing their authority. Anyway, there was a guy named Constantius Chlorus who had a son named Constantine who ended up putting a stop to the Tetrarchy and became the emperor. He continued to have the art be extremely abstracted and weird; so all the realistic figure sculptures the Romans were once so good at was now out of practice (which I think is a major bummer).

Another significant thing about Constantine is that he basically saved Christianity. Under Diocletian, the Christians were under immense discrimination; he just killed a lot of them. Constantine went into battle and had a vision that a messenger from God told him to have his soldiers put the Chi-Rho on their shields and they would be successful. Surprise attack: they were successful. It's debated if Constantine ended up converting to Christianity at the end of his life, but who is to say.

So this arch is significant because most of the art that is on it isn't from contemporary artists; it's mostly art from artists who created art during the time of Hadrian, Tragen, and Marcus Aurelius (the three great emperors dating back about a thousand years prior). This was done as propaganda to mark him as one of the great emperors.

We finally learned about the Colosseum. History lesson: So, Nero sucked. He stole the money from Rome to build himself a very expensive play house and the Romans hated him for it. Vespian became emperor and wanted to make sure the Romans liked him so he had the Colosseum built for all Romans, even the poor and the women. It's made out of concrete and could sit 50-80,000 people. There are 80 entrances, 13 stories and was built in only 10 years. They would put on plays, naval battles, as well as gladiator battles. The bloodier, the better. How did they put on the naval battles? They would flood the stage. Crazy! What would they do about the blood? The floor of the Colosseum would have lots of sand which would just absorb it right up. For all you Lizzie McGuire Movie fans, there is no way they could have a concert there. Not a chance. Also, we just got pictures back that Steve and Paula took when we saw it for the first time. Priceless!

With that, class ended for the day around 2 PM. We stopped by a pizza and sandwich shop then 12 of us headed to the International Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. We got lost along the way but found some beautiful sights!