Yay for pride! Though you can barely see it. :P
Today got off to a slow start. I slept a full night for the first time in about a week, got up at 10, and prepared myself to tackle the list of places Sister TerTer had laid out for us. Antonia was going to come with me, along with Kirby, who's in town. But we, along with everybody else, forgot about siesta. Rome totally shuts down for like three hours every day. Also, it was Monday, so the Etruscan Museum, one of the sites on our list, was closed. So, with some quick reconfiguring (and our professors being very nice about the situation), class got pushed from 4pm to 6pm, and we got to go out and see San Clemente with the mithraeum underneath as well as Giovanni e Paolo (especially the domus under the church).
I only took a few pictures today of these sites because they didn't really allow pictures, but there was a spring running underneath San Clemente, so I took a video. :)
I took down a few notes while I was there. We saw frescos and sarcophagi, including a pagan sarcophagus that protrayed the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus. If you don't know that story, it's from Greek mythology, and they told you the story while you were at the site. Hippolytus was the son of Theseus (the founder-king of Athens), and his Roman counterpart is Virbius, a forest god. Hippolytus refused the advances of the married Phaedra, who killed herself in fury after his rejection but left a note making it look like he'd raped her. So, her husband got pissed (or in some cases, Theseus got pissed) and prayed to Poseidon to send a sea monster after Hippolytus. This happened, and the sea monsters got Hippolytus's horses and he was killed. After this, the truth was found out.
Sidenote: Sometimes Carlyn decides to take a flash photo right after a sign tells her not to, and right after she does, this voice comes over the loudspeaker and is like ITALIANITALIANITALIAN PLEASE NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY. Haha!
I also saw a fresco of Jesus (though it was extremely hard to make out). However, they found an inscription at the end that said "God have mercy on unworthy John," so they figure that some guy named John made the fresco. That kind of attitude is very much the attitude of ancient artists, I find. Caravaggio felt the same way. There's a pure aspect to it but also kind of a manipulative one. I'm not sure what I think.
I also found a Madonna and child painting from the 8th century. The man who discovered it, Joeseph Mullooly, O.P. (aka Order of Preachers aka DOMINICANS) found it, and the hole that he dug in the wall to get in was still in the wall on the left side of the painting. There was at first a very "precarious" Madonna and child that then fell out to reveal the present one, which was nearly perfectly preserved. Isn't that weird how things happen like that sometimes? The drawing is flanked on either side by paintings of what they think are St. Euphemia and St. Catherine of Alexandria. As all the figures in the paintings are decked in stones and pearls, they think that the paintings are either Byzantine-era or had a Byzantine makeover. I didn't know who St. Euphemia was or St. Catherine of Alexandria (though to be fair, there are a lot of Catherines), so I looked up some information on them:
St. Euphemia lived in the 3rd century and lived in a rich family in Byzantium (which later became Constantinople). From an early age, she was consecrated to remain a virgin. The governor of Chalcedon (around where she lived) said that everyone had to make regular sacrifices to Ares. Euphemia was found in a house with other Christians worshipping God, which was forbidden. She was taken with the others and suffered numerous tortures before she was killed, probably by a wild boar or lion. Because she was the youngest of the group, she received the harshest torture, including the wheel, which involved being tied cartwheel-style to a wheel and being beaten with a hammer that would break bones. One would be left in this state of pain for days. She is often pictured with a wheel for this reason. She can also be pictured with a cross and lions.
St. Catherine of Alexandria's symbol is also a wheel, as she too suffered this torture. She was born to a wealthy pagan family and said that she would only marry the best of men. This brought her attention to Christ, and she converted to Christianity in her early teens. She converted the Emperor's wife and several people brought to her to try and change her mind. She was eventually beheaded after lots of torture.
After San Clemente, we headed to Giovanni e Paolo, the house that at some point belonged to two Christian martyrs. I have a few pictures in here that I took before I was told to stop using my camera (but to be fair, there was no sign that I saw that said not to).
There's a peacock up there, which we all saw immediately, the sign of Juno. Mary's in the pictures too, so there's the parallel between Juno and Mary, who were both queens of heaven. There was a room of the worshipper, characterized by a person who looked like she was worshipping (it was an orante). We also saw some of the waterways that the domus used as well as a wine cellar (or at least that's what the discoverer Father Germano said when he saw it for the first time). There was also a grave that people found and they have no idea who was actually in there (though they have plenty of suggestions, haha).
I found an interesting scene on one of the walls that involved two men pouring drinks for a woman while baby cupids danced in the background. They weren't sure what it was. Suggestions included Proserpina and Hades; Bacchus and Ceres; or Bacchus and Venus Marina. The sea theme was very prominent.
Other things we saw in the frescos were a lot of geometric shapes like circles and triangles, goats, and ugly faces (demons?).
Sights from the city today!
We headed back for St. John's, super excited that we'd gotten to see everything. We had a little trouble at the Metro stop. One train came by our stop completely empty and didn't even stop, followed by three COMPLETELY FULL trains. We were worried we wouldn't get back on time, but finally, a train came with enough elbow room for all of us. We squeezed in and switched to the red line fine, though I had to get a little belligerent (and, well, Italian) with people in trying to get off.
I was proud of myself.
Today, in class, we furthered the theme of mockery in the Bible in order to discredit or delegitimize people. Three ways they do this to kings are portraying him as grossly obese, effeminate (or gay), or as terrified. We also learned that calling someone bald or referring to someone has having a hunchback was a huge offense in Rome. Then, we discussed kings Herod, Eglon, and Belshazzar and how these themes apply to them.
Belshazzar ends up being slain, by the way--right after Daniel tells him what the invisible hand writes on his wall for him. Like that night. Ouch.
After class, Carlyn, Lauren, Jacob, and I went out to dinner and ended up running into the Fab Squad (aka Sebass, TerTer, and Elizabeth). We had dinner together, where Carlyn had FRENCH FRIES (yeah, I know, right?).
Of course, I had to try one then.
It was pretty good!!!
After, we all got gelato, and there's this ridiculous rum chocolate gelato that tastes like someone put gelato into a tub and just poured a bottle of rum over it (seriously, let's face it--that probably happened). RIDICULOUS.
Flavors of Gelato Kylee Has Had So Far in Italy
- Peach
- Coconut
- Lemon
- Chocolate
- Cinnamon
- Almond
- Hazelnut
- Strawberry
- Yogurt
SO GOOD. I can't wait to have more. I had pizza tonight with anchovies and capers, so I'm still downing gallons of water. It was totally worth it, though.
Tomorrow, we head for Ostia Antica, which is a WHOLE CITY OF ANCIENT ROME. It was a harbor city, to be exact, for the Mediterranean, and it sat at the mouth of the Tiber River, about 30 km to the west of Rome. I've heard about it before in Latin class but never looked into it that much. I'm really looking forward to this. :)
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