Rome Diaries: The grandeur of antiquity

Keeping my head on a swivel in the Italian capital

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“Toward the end of the twentieth century, while living in Rome, I became conscious of what used to be called the grandeur of antiquity.” Geoff Dyer

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They say Rome is an open air museum. They being the many different tour guides I encounter during my time in the city and they really do all say it. They mean, obviously, that there’s so much to see out here on the streets that you don’t need to bother with the actual museums, although since Rome has some of the best in the world then of course you still should.

The streets of Rome differ from actual museums in one key way, though. In actual museums it takes oh, about ten minutes for me to become restless, for me to begin checking my watch and debating if I’ve been there long enough to justify the ten quid I’ve just spent to get in. Almost as soon as I’m settled in a museum I start thinking about leaving.

Rome on the other hand I never want to leave. I could walk these streets for days on end, weeks even, and while I’m here that’s what I do, I walk and stare at the grandeur of antiquity. There’s so much antiquity you practically fall over it.

There’s the obvious: the Colosseum, or Flavian Amphitheatre for the hipsters and the pedants. The Baths of Caracalla, Palatine Hill, the Forum, which lies like a very expensive old rug below the Via dei Fori Imperiali. The Via dei Fori Imperiali was built by Mussolini, incidentally, who was less bothered by antiquity, but clearly quite bothered about grandeur.

These are the classics and I dutifully visit, though it’s easier to get into a nightclub in slippers than it is to get into the Colosseum. You are given a strict time slot and should you veer from this by even a minute you will be sent away to wait out that minute.

I know this because this happened to me. Get through the busybodies in the first tent and you need to show some ID at the second. Then there’s the airport-style security, okay, fine, it would be bad if someone blew this thing up. Then for good measure they check your ticket again, though by this time you are literally inside the Colosseum so this can only be a thing because they got a bit overzealous with their hiring and have to give all of these extra people something to do.

There are some museum-style sections in the Colosseum and I shuffle around a few of them but really, who wants to read about the thing when you’re in it, in one of the actual wonders of the world. The only thing to do, really, is to go and stand at the edge of the railing and just take the whole thing in. This would be easier if there weren’t so many people doing exactly the same thing. I do stand there and take in the view, the view of antiquity, but I also take in the Irish family in front of me who seem less interested in antiquity and more in some family drama back home. I also watch a family from somewhere in Europe - I never quite place the accent - take approximately a thousand photos of themselves but none of the actual Colosseum.

I move onto the Forum. By the time I’ve taken in the Colosseum I’m hot and bothered, drunk on antiquity, but I have been to Rome two previous times and both times I have skipped the Forum and so out of a sense of duty, duty to antiquity, I drag myself to the gate.

This is a good idea, as there are less people here. The Forum may be full of grand old antiquity but it isn’t the Colosseum and so, despite having tickets for it by virtue of having tickets for the Colosseum, lots of people skip it.

But it’s nice, in a confusing sort of way. There’s both too much and not enough of it. There are lots and lots of things to see, so many that my guidebook has given me a top ten list of things I must see (if I want to properly appreciate the grandeur of antiquity). But of those things there often isn’t much left. One of the temples marked out for me to see is actually just three columns. It was more than that in its heyday, of course, it did used to be a whole temple, but now it’s only three columns and there’s no getting around the fact that this isn’t quite as good.

About that guidebook I mentioned. I usually look down upon the humble guidebook traveller. I follow my nose, walk around the city, see what I want to see, not what Lonely Planet thinks I should. But ten minutes in the centre of Rome and I’m stressed. I’m seeing lots of things that in most other places in the world would be the one thing to do, the only thing worth seeing.

In Rome those things can be minor attractions, out of the way spots that only people with guidebooks know about. I don’t know what I’m looking at and this gnaws at me and so in I go to a bookshop and out I come with a guidebook.

I spend most of the next five days walking around with guidebook in hand, consulting it when I look at something, a church or fountain, say, that I think must be incredibly significant but which, I am amazed to find, has only three pithy little lines devoted to it. I wonder as I walk, guidebook in hand, whether this is ageing, enjoying walking around a city with a book of facts to accompany me. I come to the conclusion that I’m actually still a whipper-snapper and that it’s just Rome. There’s too much to see and not enough time and a guidebook is actually just a good idea.

Here’s my last example. Julius Caesar, you know him. Ides of March, “et tu, Brute?” etc. etc. You know that he got shanked by Brutus and a load of his mates, with only a pen to defend himself. Well he was stabbed, right here. Oh, sorry, you can’t see where I’m looking. I’m standing by the Largo di Torre Argentina, a patch of ruins in the middle of modern Rome, and it’s where, or very close to, Caesar was stabbed.

The most famous Roman in all history, the most famous Roman event. It was all here, and because Rome is a ridiculous place you can just stand and look at it, take it all in. Granted it was a long time ago so it’s not as if you’re looking at bloodstains on the carpet, but still, Julius Caesar died right over there, thousands of years ago, and we can still stand here and look at it. Or I can, anyway, and you can read about me doing it.

Rome really is an open air museum. Although it’s a good job it is open air, and not actually a museum. If all of this shit was in a museum I’d have still left after ten minutes.

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