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Remains of Trajan's baths |
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A lot of effort is going towards preserving what is left of Nero's Domus Aurea |
From here we made our way to the colosseum, and joined the queues, although because we already had tickets, it didn't take long to get in. Before we climbed the stairs to enter the arena, we had a look at an interesting exhibition on literature, writing, and libraries in the historical Roman context. Vellum started to be used after the ban on the export of papyrus from Egypt in the early centuries AD came into effect, because King Ptolemy wanted to prevent the Bergama (Turkey) Library from becoming bigger than that of Alexandria. Vellum was also cheaper, more flexible, and had a significantly higher durability in moist climates, so was an improvement anyway. Libraries became a accepted part of a bath house complex. Before that they were the prerogative of the rich. People were read to rather than sitting and reading themselves, partly because reading from a papyrus roll was an acquired skill, and partly because copies of manuscripts were expensive.
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View of the undercroft at the Colosseum. The structure allows cages of animals to be hauled to the surface by a sophisticated pulley system |
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The Baths of Caracalla - the circular area was the hot room. The walls are almost 40 metres high! |
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The Roman city walls seem to be symbolic rather than effectual |
As we were effectively on the Via Appia Antica, we thought that we would walk along it for a bit. There are still the remains of many mausoleums and other Roman ruins along it so thought it would be interesting. The first part of it was lined by tall brick walls on both sides. We passed some catacombs but they weren't open. We reached the the gate of San Sebastián, one of the gates in the original Roman walls, and decided to go no further. It was peak hour, and there didn't appear to be any footpaths on the continuation of the Via, so walking it was not going to be any fun. We decided to walk around the walls for a bit, before heading back in the direction of our hotel. The walls didn't really look as if they were defensive, certainly not against artillery (the Romans did have siege engines) although it appeared that arrow slits had been introduced into the walls at a later date. There was a walkway on the top of the wall, but the walls themselves were not very thick and wouldn't have stood up to a battering, so must really have been for controlling passage of people and goods in and out of the city.
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