All roads lead to it

Itinerary

• Circus Maximus
• Colosseum
• Bocca Della Verita and two cool movies
• Drew's new purchase
• Orange Indians and whizz bang subway surfer types

 

 

Started the day by being lasered at breakfast. Damn kids.

 

 

Once molecularly reconstituted, we headed off to the Circus, the Drain cover sea God the remains of the Flavian amphitheatre.

 

 

Circus Maximus.

I didnt really understand that Circus Maximus was a different entity to the Colosseum until now. It was immense in scope. The Colosseum held 50000 spectators, the Circus could hold up to 250000 Romans and was 12 times bigger.

The circus was like the sports arena of the day. Chariot races, sword swallowers, flame throwers, large wild animals. A kind of fun park for one and all.

A word about Gladiators.

The real gladiators fought in the Circus as well as in the Colosseum. . They were very expensive to train and highly respected within Rome. They would fight and fight hard, but then like all good sport, would shake hands and off they would trot. No fights to the death or the even worse alternative "to the pain" - if not familiar click on the link to the scene in one of my favourite all time movies. That little pause at about 19 secs in makes me laugh every time I see it. It would be inconceivable to not return to Inigo Montoya, The Dread Pirate Roberts and Andre at his acting peak.

So the real Gladiators were pretty much like professional boxers today. The slave "gladiators" of the Colosseum were a different kettle of fish. These are the folk that got to die in the name of sport. They were usually criminals or prisoners of war, were poorly trained and didn't stand much of a chance of being alive by the end of the day.

 

Chariot race reenactments - cute host!

 

 

 

 

We had lunch on the hills along the Circus today. Beautiful day for eating our cute packed lunches, doing a bit of chariot race reanactment and for the kids to play with a couple of dogs that had ben hanging out with their owners on the embankment with us.

So there is it, a lot of talk about Gladiators, but if you stop and think about it, its a kooky concept. Did some research (asked Zoe) and found out a bit about how the whole Gladiator thing started which is really a story of keeping up with the Jones'.

Most of what comes next comes from Horrible Histories regurgitated by Zozo to me too fast to type. It all started at Etruscan funerals. The Etruscans (who came before the Romans) would murder one of the newly dead person's enemy for revenge - a gift to the dead man. The first dead man (the original funeral guy) would be happy and so not come back to haunt them all.

Then they got the idea that they could get two slaves, call them Gladiators and let them fight to the death at the funeral (saved the hassle of trying to find an enemy for revenge). as that got a bit boring they started Gladiator schools to make the fights more interesting.

As time went on, Romas started wanting Gladiator fights before they died. They started as one on one and then Mrs MAximus would say to her hubby, how come the flavius's get a Gladiator fight for their anniversary. Next thing you know the fights are getting bigger and bigger and the Trevis get to keep up with the Aurelius's etc. Reminds me of a book I got for a birthday years ago called Bobo's in Paradise.

By about 100BC they started building special complexes to house the fights.

 

 

Colosseum

Finished in 80AD, and opened in a spectacle of 100 consecutive days of "Gladitorial Combat", the Colosseum could house 50000 spectators. It was known as the Flavium Amphitheare (Vespasian the Emporer who was there when it was commissioned was the first of teh Flavians). It was actually Nero's idea to build the Colosseum but he died before it was done. It was called Colosseum because it was close to the statue of Nero which was 40 metres high i.e. Colossal.

It looked a whole lot better in its day than it does now. The outer walls were Travatine with seats of marble within. It had a roof of canvas which could be riased or lowered just like at Wimbledon or the Australian Open.

Also just like modern day sporting events where you sat depended on status. Ground floor dierctly in front seats were for senators and other big wigs and then up an up toward the plebs. Right at the top level, above the slaves and foreigners, was the Women and poor folk section who got wooden seats.

One of the reasons the Circus was much more popular than the Colosseum was that men and women got to sit together (but not the Vestal Virgins).

The program consisted of a morning of animal hunts / games. The midday segment was for executions and then the games began.

The animal games included as many exotic creatures as could be brought in from the Empires reaches. Big animals such as rhino, bear, wild bull and elephants, cats including tigers, lions, panthers, leopards. The animals usually got to fight unarmed slaves but as time went on the combinations of animals vs other animals or humans with weaponry various were experimented with. On one morning according to a board within the colosseum, an Emperor (forget which one) got in 200 Ostriches and then had them decapitated by archers! On another single day around the inaugeration ceremony, more than 5000 animals were killed. For more info see here.

For the curious, it may be noted that for a lion vs tiger fight the tiger would almost invariably win (much bigger). They tired a few bear vs big cat fights but the bear always wins. As th cat jumps at the bear, it grabs the cat and hugs it till its skull is crushed (cats have thinnish skulls to keep the weight down).

The afternoon entertainment slave fighters "gladiators" would enter the arena from their headquarters through a tunnel that we got to walk through on our underground tour. Drew was fully immersed in imagining being a Gladiator who would walk into likely death through a dark tunnel, muddy floor with the smell of animal excrement, the roar of creatures never seen and a 50000 strong crowd baying for blood.

 

Enter here for your fight to the death

 

As a Gladiator you would fight to the death. Occasionally, the vanquished would admit defeat and the Emperor could go the thumbs up or the thumbs down). Sometimes it would be the crowd who would decide. Very seldom ws there much mercy flung around. Note - thumbs up meant death, thumbs down meant mercy.

Faking death was a no-no. To stop any possum playing, the dead Gladiator would be poked with a red hot iron brand and then bashed on the noggin with a Thor hammer before being carried out the dead man's gate.

 

Looking at the Gate of Death. The Gladiators would enter the arena from the tunnel beneath that gate

 

The fighters would enter the arena after getting elevated from the tunnel directly below onto what is now the wood platform in the picture below. The underground section wasn't built at the start but added later. There were more than 60 elevators on which to raise animals or fighters into the arena. In its day it was an architectural marvel but it still smelled of animal poo.

 

 

 

 

Boca Della Verita

Firstly let me say that for the last few days i have been going with the great Seinfeld Dell Boca Vista blooper in my head. I loved George's dad (who is Ben Stiller's dad in real life). I won't at Ree;'s insistence put in clips of him "stoping short" or launching into Korean but as I tap the keyboard, I have a big smile on.

 

 

 

Onto the Bocca Della Verita, the mouth of truth! Its a carved image about 2000 years old of a mans face (thought to be the God of the Ocean) on a round background that was probably a Temple water collector although some suggest less salubrious origin such as old manhole cover or maybe part of a fountain? Of no particular interest, the marble was origianally from Turkey.

Story goes that if you tell a lie with your hand in the mouth of the sculpture, the hand will be bitten off.

It stars with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday.

 

 

Massive line, tiny sign

 

 

We waited in line for about an hour.

 

The couple in front of us were Italian. The mum spoke great English which she didn't need use to point out that their son and Zoe looked exactly like brother and sister. The kids kinda played near each other but weren't great at breaking the language barrier

 

We all had a go and all left with their arms.....or did we.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why you put your non-dominant hand into the mouth

 

 

Afterwards you exit into the associated Church. cant remember the name but something like "Saint something of the blessed small donation for each photo and another small donation for entrance to the ....dum dum dum...crypts". If not exacty accurate, perhaps my Italian needs a bit of work. would love to but cant afford to pay for lessons after all the "donations".

For a small nominal fee....ahem, "donation"

 

 

 

The Crypts were a small underground cave like thing that you enter (after the aforementioned small donation per person) down some steps near the back of the church. The Crypt is dark and moisty cool. As per Cool hand Luke, Drew was a bit naughty (for the sake of the picture) so had to "spend some time in the box".

 

What we have here, is a failure to communicate

 

 

As an aside, "Cool Hand Luke" was a family favourite movie. We were brought up hearing that if we didnt behave we would "spend a night in the box" and the tradition has carried on in the Dembo family to Grandchildren and their cousins.

 

 

One of the greatest last lines in movie also became a part of Dembo vernacular in times of childhood behaviour not aligning with parental expectations "what we have here, is a failure to communicate".

 

 

 

 

In other big news, Drew got his Rome souvenir today.

He knew exaclty what he wanted and would ponder and meander through all the highest quality hawker trinkets looking for "the one". Then today.....it happened.

 

 

Special price just for him. Lucky or what!

 

 

Trends in street Hawking.

The biggest thing in town at the moment are the orange clad meditating, levitating Indians. Its a good looking trick that seems to draw hundreds of onlookers. Pretty simple trick once you know how but they are making a lot of Euros on the streets of Rome at present.

 

These guys just set up. They do it in a black Houdini like cover and emerge "meditating " to the "oohs" of the crowd.

 

The guys from every piazza in Greece are also in Rome. Everywhere you look a green laser is shone in front of your feet often refracted and or through a template so you see hundreds of small green dots on you, in front of you, on buildings etc. They also sell the elastic band things that we first saw in Hearklion. Essentially a two little bits of paper in the shape of a helicopter wings and some tiny multicoloured LEDs. You catapault them high into the air so that when passerbys turn to gaze at (say) the Pantheon, you see little lights in the air like small flashing LED butterflys - first time you go "wow", next (maybe) 1 thousand times, you politely say noIi dont want one of your dumb nanobots or just ignore the Hawker completely

 

Flashing, eye enucleating, catapault butterfly

 

 

The most amazing guys are the subway surfer graffiti guys who sit down with a milk bottle crate of spray paints and then at amazing speed and with quite unimaginable skill, end up with a painting which gets loud applause and usually 10 or so Euros from the passerbys (plus the mega amount of coins deposited in their lil hat thing). In Rome they tend to paint the Colosseum. Drew is mesmerized watching them.

 

 

 

Till next time