All Roads Lead To Rome

The civilization which would ultimately become Rome is generally acknowledged to have begun in the year 509 B.C., when a group of wealthy Romans led by Lucius Junius Brutus overthrew the last Roman king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (awesome name, by the way; if I ever become a king I'm adding Superbus to my name). That coup would establish the Roman Republic, a period of rule when Rome was generally governed by the Senate. The Republic would last until 27 B.C., when Gaius Octavius, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, consolidated power in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination some 17 years earlier and declared himself emperor, adopting the name Augustus Caesar in the process. Augustus' ascension marked the beginning of the Roman Empire, which would last until 476 A.D., when the Emperor Romulus Augustulus was forced to abdicate by the Germanic warlord Flavius Odoacer who then became the first King of Italy. Got that? Good.

Combine the Republic and the Empire and you end up with a civilization that lasted for almost 1,000 years and at its height extended over most of modern day western Europe, including into England; over to Turkey; into Syria and the middle east; and around the Mediterranean Sea to emcompass the shore of all of northern Africa. The great civilizations of Carthage, Greece and Egypt were all eventually integrated into Roman territory. It is estimated that at one time the number of people living under Roman rule represented between 15 and 25 percent of the total population of the planet. That's pretty impressive.

The Romans gained control over much of their territory quickly. Once the Republic was established, they wasted little time expanding their borders. A couple of hundred years into the Republic, Rome had all of present day Italy under control. Conflicts about 100 years after that over the governance of Sicily led the Romans into their two and a half wars with northern African power Carthage. When they were done defeating the Carthaginians, the Romans found themselves with a territory which stretched into Spain and across much of the Mediterranean Sea. The Republic, and later the Empire, would continue to grow until the middle of the second century A.D., after which time things began to get a little beyond their control.

The Romans were able to expand and control their territory for a pretty simple reason: they built really really good roads which allowed them to move their superior military hardware everywhere they wanted to either maintain control of what they owned or conquer the next city or tribe. At the peak of the Roman Empire, there were hundreds of roads and highways connecting all the various important parts of their territories. And they were built to last. Roman roads were not just a series of stones laid on top of the surface of the ground; they were engineered marvels, excavated first and backfilled with gravel (which could be compacted and stabilized) before the final top layer of flat paving stones. Their roads were built with camber which allowed rain water to drain into gutters and were typically laid out completely straight, connecting one spot to another in the most direct and simplest fashion possible. Very Roman!

One of the earliest major roads built by the Romans was the Appian Way, which connected Rome across the Italian peninsula to Brindisi in the southeast corner of the boot. Brindisi's location on the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Adriatic Sea was important for both trade and warfare and a direct route over land from Brindisi to Rome was extremely valuable. The initial construction of the road as a paved route for trade and troops was completed just before the turn of the third century B.C. Part of the same road is in place today within the modern city of Rome. This seemed like a can't miss opportunity to understand more about Rome's history.

There are a few ways to get to the Appian Way, or Via Appia Antica, which has now been converted to a sort of park with historical attractions on either side of the road. The most obvious is by car, but since I didn't have or want a car in Rome and didn't feel like paying for a cab, that option was out. Walking is always an option and God knows, I did plenty of that in Rome. But the sidewalks are so narrow along the Via Appia Antica that they actually turned the bus stop signs parallel (rather than perpendicular) to the direction of traffic (yes, the extra four inches or so makes a difference) so that didn't seem like a good idea either. So that left the bus.

I love taking the bus in Europe. They generally run on schedule; the scenery is typically gorgeous and there are lots of windows; it's a really cheap way to get around; and maps of the routes are usually available on line so you can plan how to get where before you arrive on the ground in your vacation destination. Plus there's something about taking the biggest form of motorized transportation possible to get around streets which rarely seem big enough to accommodate anything larger than the smallest Fiat without risking some sort of vehicular or bodily harm that is somehow thrilling. Thrilling that is unless there is actual vehicular or bodily harm, which (spoiler alert) there was thankfully none of on this trip.

My bus experience in Italy was typically European with a sort of Italian flair. There's no doubt they were cheap; the six Euro all day Metro pass is an incredible tourist value and it includes bus rides. There's also no doubt the place was gorgeous; ancient houses, Roman ruins and major tourist attractions are all visible from the buses that trail around the city. Things running on schedule, though, is a bit of a flexible concept in Italy; we generally found there was little sense of urgency to get to anything. Maybe that's a good thing sometimes but it took a bit of getting used to, especially when we had no idea what time the bus would really come.

My trip to the Via Appia Antica had two objectives: (1) to say I've stood on the same road that the Romans used about 2,300 years ago and (2) to learn more about Roman history by visiting some of the sights along the side of the road. I mean aren't vacations all about learning? I was especially excited to check out the Catacombs of San Sebastiano and the remains of the Villa of emperor Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius Augustus (also know simply as Maxentius) who ruled the Roman Empire from 306 to 312 A.D. It seemed like these two stops would provide a window into two uniquely Roman stories.

My journey that day started at the Piramide metro stop, where I planned to catch the 118 bus down the cobblestone road to the Via Appia Antica. Unfortunately, the Roman transit authority, ATAC, had changed the route just one day before we landed in Rome, forcing me to re-adjust and catch the bus on its new route from the east end of the Circus Maximus. The bus, which seemed to arrive unannounced on no schedule that made sense, didn't take long to show up and we happily were on our way.

I don't really know how to adequately describe the bus ride down the extremely tight Appian Way. This is quite possibly the tightest vehicle on a road experience I've ever had. There's no wonder the bus stop signs are turned parallel to the direction of traffic. There is so little space between the outside of the bus and the stone walls on which the signs are mounted onto or in front of. We wanted that extra four inches; we needed that extra four inches. The cobblestones, which I deduced toward the end of the day were not the original paving material, also made the ride unforgettable. They shook the bus in a way that is almost indescribable and without doubt extremely noisy. When I disembarked from the bus, I wasn't sure if the vibrations had given me a really good full body massage or had knocked a few teeth loose. Nonetheless, the ride was effective: it got us where we wanted to go quickly and cheaply. First stop: the Catacombs of San Sebastiano.

In the Church of San Sebastiano, with the arrow riddled statue of the saint's body in the background.

It is difficult to conceive of Christians in the western world as being victims of persecution, especially considering the history of the United States and western Europe over the last century or so where if there was any one religious group doing some persecuting, it was the Christians. But the early Christians, trying to practice their faith either openly or more usually in secret, indeed did have it rough in ancient Rome. Religious practices for Romans involved worship of and sacrifice to their own pantheon of gods during the Republic and that same pantheon of gods plus the emperor, who was granted semi-divine status, during the Empire. Anyone who didn't step in line with these practices was generally a target for some sort of punishment.

The Roman state's attitude towards Christians (and indeed other religious minorities such as Jews) varied over the approximately 500 years after the birth of Christ until the fall of the Empire. In stressful or difficult times, Christians were persecuted more than in peaceful or prosperous times. Similarly, some emperors were much more enthusiastic about the oppression of Christians than others.

Technically, practicing Christianity was a crime, and refusal to participate in the Roman religion was an act of treason punishable by death. More frequently, it was a specific event, like the fire of Rome, or person, like Nero who blamed the fire on the Christians and ordered them rounded up and killed, that drove persecution. The worst acts of anti-Christian violence seem to have occurred during the reign of Diocletian from 284 to 305 A.D. During this almost 20 long year period, Christians were targeted by the state in an institutionalized way. Homes were torn down, religious books burned and the people sometimes found themselves forced into gladiatorial combat, meaning pretty much just death by combat.

Most of the Christian persecution ended in the year 313 when the emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan decriminalizing Christian worship. As if to prove that he was really serious, Constantine punctuated that Edict by himself converting to Christianity. That's not to say that the mistreatment of Christians stopped entirely immediately, but the end was in sight. Given all that history, it's easy to understand why some Christian practices needed to happen in secret. Which brings us back to the Catacombs of San Sebastian.

Burial within the city limits of Rome was forbidden in the Roman Empire. Normally for Roman god or emperor worshippers, this wasn't a problem, as the Romans cremated their deceased. But Christians bury their dead so that they can arise after death and have everlasting life conferred upon them. Combine the prohibition on burials with the general illegality of their religious practices and you get what you can find halfway down the Via Appia Antica: underground secret Christian burial chambers.

A tour down into the Catacombs of San Sebastiano is sort of creepy. I mean, it's an underground cemetery where the bodies are entombed in graves that are about the thickness of a stone plaque away from being visible. It's also very impressive. There are a total of 12 kilometers (about 7.5 miles) of tunnels dug out of the tufa rock on three levels. Say what you want about the value of Christian beliefs, but if nothing else you have to admire the perseverance and persistence of the early Christians. What they accomplished despite risking harm to themselves up to an including death to preserve their burial beliefs is extremely impressive.

The half hour to 45 minute tour takes you through a fraction of the tunnels and gets you a glimpse of everything from the early Christian secret symbology (including the origin of the famous Jesus fish you can see on cars in abundance in certain communities south of the Mason-Dixon line and elsewhere) to underground mausoleums of wealthy Christian families erected within the underground passageways. I can't imagine what it must have been like to sneak inside this place and have it mean something so deep and personal like it did to the people who dug the tunnels by hand almost 2,000 years ago.

And apparently San Sebastiano was kind of a big deal. Our guide advertised him as the third most important Christian saint (after Paul and Peter) but he may have also been a little biased. Sebastiano was apparently martyred twice during the rule of Diocletian both for refusing to renounce Christianity. The first time he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows but miraculously survived; a few years later, he was clubbed to death and this time he didn't survive. I think the big deal part might be right. In the days following our visit to the Catacombs, we saw depictions of San Sebastiano a number of times, including at Florence's famous Ufizzi Gallery.

Just a little further down the road is the remains of the Villa of Maxentius. Maxentius ruled the Roman Empire right after Diocletian and ascended to the post in a sort of last man standing fashion. He was son of an emperor but was initially passed over for lack of any sort of military or governmental pedigree in favor of Diocletian. But when Diocletian abdicated, Maxentius was able to grab at least a share of the Empire for himself (apparently the northern part of Italy was ruled by another during Maxentius' few years as emperor). He was forced out after not doing a very good job.

While he may not have been the poster child for Roman emperors, Maxentius did manage to have a spectacular villa built for himself while he was head of the Roman Empire just a little ways down the road where Christians were defying official policies by practicing their religion. The Villa of Maxentius today looks not so much different than the many many ruins around the center of Rome: pretty well built walls of brick standing impressively in place after 1,800 years. The size of the place seems big today; it must have seemed enormous in his time.

But the real attraction for me was the remains of the circus he had built for himself next to his house. Apparently the Circus Maximus near the Palatine Hill wasn't enough for Maxentius. He definitely wanted his own private chariot racing track. So, being emperor, he got one. Despite its mostly ruined or almost gone appearance, I found a visit to the Circus of Maxentius extremely valuable, especially after walking through the Circus Maximus the day before, which is difficult to recognize as any sort of ancient speedway especially with the last of the stands concealed behind graffiti covered plywood barriers. Today, the Circus of Maxentius is the best preserved Roman circus in existence.

The circus is aligned along an east-west axis with what appears to be the ruins of two towers at the west end (photo above). A little further to the east is the track itself, today covered in overgrown grass, daisies and buttercups but worth a stroll out to the point where the chariots turned around on their laps around the circuit. It's amazing that the thing has survived to this date but being on the track, I could just imagine the power and excitement of chariots racing each other around this thing, being pulled by horses driven to their limit to pull their loads around the track. While it was nowhere near as impressive as the Colosseum we visited the day before, being on the playing surface itself was actually more thrilling. Combine that with the fact that there were about four other people there with us as opposed to hundreds in the Colosseum and I'm counting the Circus of Maxentius as one of my favorite Roman memories.

The remains of the Circus of Maxentius.

Despite having been underground to see the remains of the dead (or at least their tombs) and walked around the Circus of Maxentius, I still hadn't seen the road I'd hoped to have seen on the Via Appia Antica. The cobblestones our bus barreled down the narrow alley that got us to the Catacombs of San Sebastiano can't possibly be the original surfacing material for the original Roman road. They were uncomfortable riding over them on a bus. They also caused my feet some pain having walked the better part of 48 miles (not a typo) in my four days in Rome. No way were these things the surface that vehicles moved over before Christ was born.

Turns out, I don't think they were. Towards the southwest end of the road, it finally turned to a surface of larger flatter stones which were far more pleasant to walk over and which we also found in our time walking around the Roman Forum the day before. I'm convinced this end of the road represented the original paving surface of the Via Appia Antica and can imagine Julius Caesar himself riding down this road chasing his rival Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus from the capital after naming himself emperor. I can finally say I stood where Caesar rode and that makes me happy.

If you know differently, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I came. I saw. I ran for the 660 bus at the end of the Via Appia Antica with a hankering for some gelato and I knew the bus would get me closer to what I wanted. I feel this was important for me to do and I'm glad I did it.

What I believe is a portion of the original Appian Way. Don't tell me if I'm wrong.