Rome is built on Rome
Over the centuries subsequent Roman generations have simply built over what came before. In some cases, that is hidden below the surface, many metres below. In others that is very evident at just a casual glance:
There are too many to detail, however one site deserves special mention as it is the oldest - the remains of the house of Romulus, the founder of Rome, dating around 900 BC:
As well as providing lower levels for modern housing, the ancient Roman buildings also provided building materials. Our various guides gave different versions of how this occurred. For example, one of the iconic views of Rome is the Colesseum with chunks missing:
One guide said that by paying a fee, the wealthy were able to remove parts of the building to use in their own homes. Another guide said that the earthquake in the 5th century collapsed part of the building and only the fallen pieces were reused elsewhere.
The truth is probably a mixture of both of those stories. Certainly, many parts were used in private palaces and in the Vatican, especially when building St Peter's Basilica.
What was evident was where, in the medieval period, people dug out many of the iron spikes holding the blocks together, leaving the surface looking like a war zone:
It's a testament to the degree of over-engineering that the whole place hasn't collapsed!
More organised and deliberate were the actions of the Catholic Church generally and the Vatican specifically.
For example, many of the original pre-Christian monuments had Christian symbols added to their highest point.
In some cases, pre-Christian temples had Christian churches built directly on top, or in such a way that they could be seen to arise, phoenix-like, out of the earlier building:
Note that in these cases the original wasn't destroyed to allow reuse of the materials, instead bits were simply added. My personal theory is that I suspect, at least with the monuments and temples, the Popes of the day wished to symbolically demonstrate the assumed superiority of the Christian faith over the earlier pagan practices.
Walking around the centre of Rome, one finds many interesting sites, such as the first masonry stadium in ancient Rome, although much of this is now covered by a public square and only the outline of the track can be seen at street level:
Right in the centre is the crowning glory of ancient ruins, containing the Colesseum, Palatine Hill, Circus Maximus, and Forum.
This site is huge, and like Pompeii one could spend a full day or more here.
For me, the difference with this site and Pompeii is that this site is all about the imperial life and large civic amenities, whereas Pompeii is about everyday life.
We probably spent about 3 hours here, and every corner, every view, every building all had a story.
The story of Romulus and Remus is well known, but like all ancient stories is of debatable accuracy. For example, typically it was held that Rome was named after Romulus, yet apparently it is now believed more likely that it was named after the river on which it's built, 'rome' being the ancient Etruscan word for 'river'.
That sounds likely but not as interesting as the legend, hence the variance. I guess since the first spoken word, stories have been 'improved' over time...
The other interesting stories we heard came from a Dark Side of Rome tour at night.
My two favourite stories from this tour both concerned Popes:
In the 1500's, the Catholic Church started to impose 'morality' on paintings in response to the rise of the Protestant faith, which resulted in many paintings being altered to add clothing or fig leaves, including Michelangelo having to redo parts of the Sistine Chapel.
A logical extension of that earlier campaign was Pope Paul IV getting the penises lopped off nude statues to be replaced by fig leaves, and apparently 275 were duly modifed.
In modern times experts had been carefully restoring paintings to the original versions, although I don't know why as surely the modifications are a genuine and important part of the history. Anyway, they decided to do the same with the modified statues. You might ask how is that possible? With the paintings the original is still there underneath a layer of paint, but with the statues the offending items were chiselled off. Well, it turns out that the Pope kept the stone penises in a box in his private quarters.
Why would anyone want 275 stone penises?
History does not provide an answer, so it is left to our imaginations to fill the gap...
A side note to that story: the decision to replace the penises was made in 2019, but only 4 have been done so far. Even allowing for pandemic disruptions, one can only assume it is a difficult task to match each penis with the correct statue.
And how does that sound in a job interview?
"Francesco, what have you been doing for the last 4 years"
"Sizing stone penises to reattach to ancient statues"....
The other story that stuck in my mind was the legend of Pope Joan. Yes, Joan.
The story arose around the 14th century and goes that an ambitious woman wanted to be a priest. She had masculine features and a deep voice, so after cutting her hair she easily passed as a man and entered the priesthood. Having all the right values and intelligence she rose quickly through the ranks to be a cardinal, and eventually got elected Pope.
She proved to be a successful Pope however had one problem. She had a lover and became pregnant.
Nobody noticed her increasing girth, possibly due to the robes she wore, or possibly if they did notice then they were sensible enough to not comment on the Pope's weight.
They did notice when in the middle of a public procession her waters broke and she gave birth in the middle of the street!
The Pope and her newborn baby were allegedly killed on the spot, and a new practice initiated of freshly elected Popes on election having their gender checked by someone feeling their testicles.
This story, and the gender checking procedure, do not appear in any reliable historical records. Not surprisingly the Church says that is because they never happened. Equally not surprisingly, the conspiracy theorists say that's because the Church wrote the history and excluded embarrassing stories.
Either way, this story arose in the 14th century and is based essentially on the idea that women can do anything, predating current thinking by 700 years.
Proving once again that Modern Rome is built on Ancient Rome...
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