June 7 -- Roman Forum

Hello to everyone again. Its been so nice to log on here and see the responses from everyone.

First of all, congratulations to Christina on her big news. I definitely think that change is good, and I know you will have a great time in your new position. for those of you that have no idea what I am talking about, make sure you are reading the comments for each post. If you dont know how, all you have to do is click on the number of comments listed at the bottom of each post, and they will all open. Theres some really interesting stuff there!

As far as my day went, there is not a lot to report...we visited the Roman Forum and were there for several hours, but absolutely everything Prof. Terranato told us was new to me, which was very exciting! He lectured on the earliest history of Rome and told us how the valley that the Forum is in used to be far lower, and helped us envision it before human settlement, then described how the Romans reclaimed it from multiple yearly floods by filling the bottom in with sediment scraped from the sides of the towering hills above. From there he went on to describe what we know about the various levels of human construction in the area, beginning with wattle and daub huts and coming through past the Roman period of the buildings as we see them now and considering the later MEdieval structures that were sadly destroyed by archaeologists interested only in the Imperial periods of Rome.

After the lectures several of us went wandering around the Forum on our own, and a very amusing thing happened...three of us were considering an inscription put up by Augustus to his sons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, and discussing the grammar of it, etc. A woman came up to us and said "Im a guide if you have any questions." I very politely told her thank you, but we didnt need a guide (she of course would have expected money for it) and she got very annoyed and said "Oh yes, I can tell you dont need a guide...I heard you just making it up as you go along" then stormed off. It was a little annoying considering that the combined academic backgrounds of the three of us (a Latin epigrapher, an ancient historian, and an ancient Art Historian) was obviously more than sufficient to understand the inscription. I also thought it was a bizarre tactic for someone that lives off of convincing people to use their service. As Nonnie would say, you catch more flies with honey than with
vinegar.

Afterwards, we visited the Forum Boarium, walked the length of the Circus Maximus, and went to the Capitoline to see Michelangelos piazza and the statue of Marcus Aurelius, all on our own. Then another yummy 3-course meal at the Academy, and now we will all convene on the roof of our Villa for some conversation and that will be that! Tomorrow is the visit to Caere (Cerveteri) the Etruscan necropolis and yes, I will watch out for killer rabbits, Dan!!!

Hope you are all well and I hope to hear from you soon!

Love from Italy,
Candace