Aqueduct Time

Yesterday, the first day of fall, was one of the longest and most strenuous days of my entire life, and one I will certainly never forget. The schedule read:

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

7:30 Breakfast

8:00 Bus leaves for Alba Fucens

10:00 Arrival at Alba Fucens + Site Orientation

11-12 Group Project

12-1 Lecture

1:30 Bus to the Aqueduct sites

2:30 – ?? Aqueduct Explorations

I didn’t really think much of it when I glanced at the paper before leaving the Centro and checking weather.com; it was just going to be another long Tuesday trip that illuminated our discussion in class on Monday.

The bus ride through the Apennines to the Alba Fucens archaeological site brought back repressed childhood memories: day long rides through the US rocky mountains my sister and I endured when we were little kids on family ski vacations. The day was not particularly nice – overcast grey skies and scattered clouds – adding an aura to our journey into the mountains. Sunny skies are more suited to days when we explore the remains of the bustling city itself.

Our bus followed a winding autostrada. We crossed over valleys between mountains on bridges with monumental masonry. Looking down into these valleys I could see fog rising against the green. No one believes me, but I swear I saw a shepherd with a stick leading a huge flock of white sheep as we drove through one plateau.  I can see why the Romans called these mountains the “foot hills.” Looking at the rolling peaks from a distance, it did seem a perfect place for an easy day hike. But, as I learned later that day, beauty can be deceiving (even in the case of mountains)!

We loaded off the bus at Alba Fucens and looked down a hill at a grid of ruins. Our day began with a long climb in the opposite direction of the ruins to get a view of the entirety of the sight. In a three-hour lecture the day before, our teachers discussed the early Roman colonies, why they were formed, how much of a reflection of Rome they physically were. The Romans founded Alba Fucens (located on the edge of the Apennines – the mountain range – directly to the east of the city) in 303 BC as a result of their wars with the Samnites, a rugged native mountain people who inhabited the area. Alba Fucens is very different from Tarquinia and Cerveteri (the Etruscan locations from last week’s field trips) as it was founded centuries later by the Romans themselves during their sweep of the Italian Peninsula (i.e. phase one of their rise to control the entire Mediterranean).

Ancient writers wrote about the specifics of the Roman tactics, analyzing the question of how they rose above all other nations throughout Europe to control the Mediterranean. These past two weeks in Ancient Greek Class, we have been reading and interpreting a selection of analyses from the Greek perspective (peoples from across Greece observations on the Romans) under the guidance of my brilliant (literally) Professor Serfass. We have come to realize as a class that we must take what these Greeks say with a grain of salt, as they ultimately link everything back to their own country, and embed in their writings the notion that Romans learned everything by studying Greek culture. For example, the text we studied –by the Greek author Plutarch (who wrote biographies of many important ancient people) claims that that the greatness of the second Roman King Numa is due to the fact he was taught by Greeks and in the Greek way. I still can’t decide if I am team Italy or team Greece. The reality is that yeah, the Greeks were the philosophical and artistic masters who the Romans could not surpass (don’t get me wrong there were some great Roman intellectuals and creativists), but at the end of the day the Romans ruled the world… and these pompous Greeks were certainly under the dominion of the Romans as much as any other “barbaric” nation in the empire.

Enough digression - We hung out in the ampitheater by the hill for a while, and after being entertained by two of my goofy classmates playing gladiators with their umbrellas, checked out a church that held the remains of a temple. We finally descended to the site that was once the town’s center (a nice and compact grid area probably no larger then a football field), and engaged in a group project in which we walked around and identified the purpose of the various buildings based on the nature of the remains. We haven’t had much practice at this task – so it was great. Afterwards, our teachers in a long and organized fashion lead us through the entire complex, helped us determine the errors in our guesswork and instructed us in what to look for. I nailed the identification of only one group of remains – the bath complex – which was pretty obvious because of the underground “hypocasts” or stone heating devices that have a unique formation that I observed in a pit of excavation. All in all, I realized that the Romans were more similar to modern day peoples then I imagined. The teaching fellow Dora guided us to an area of town with the remains of what looks like a modern day bar, and we learned this would have been a sort of fast food joint. It was an incredibly taxing morning, but I appreciated learning about classical archaeology and engaging in fieldwork, things I have shied away from in the past.

After eating our cestini (lunch), we headed to the Aqueducts located at the edge of the Apennine range (closer to the city). The manager of our program, Franco, joined us on this trip, and announced over the microphone that he had a very special surprise in store for us. The bus stopped at a large, locked gate in the middle of what seemed to be nowhere, and we unloaded and walked through a path covered with a canopy – the sort you would find in a winery with interlocking vines - and found ourselves in front of a gorgeous monastery. Franco’s friend, who only spoke Italian, greeted us and walked us to a door that looked dormant – like the one to the secret garden. To my surprise, the door opened to a treacherous staircase that I could barely see hidden among a mess of uncultivated plants. To the side of the stairs was a cliff, which looked down upon the shining blue/green Arno River. After going further and further down the stairs and finally almost reaching the river itself (this took about half an hour), we entered a tunnel – literally the path of the Ancient Aqua Claudia – that took its water from the Apennine ranges. We walked in the Aqueduct for probably about twenty-five minutes. The Romans engineered these Aqueducts as early as the fourth century with an early form of concrete (a masonry which did not contaminate the water flow) and were able to supply the entire peninsula with drinkable water. Incredible! On the walls of the tunnel it was possible to see where the water level had been due to calcium deposits, which resulted in a different coloration upon half of the wall. Interestingly in some areas there was black ash, apparently from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, showing just how catastrophic and far reaching the disaster was. We climbed all the way back up to the path, and proceeded down another on the opposite side of the monastery, this time aiming for the Aqua Marsha.

I did not enjoy this descent. Although there were no crumbing staircases this time, I had to push through a mess of thorns, overgrown weeds, and rocks while going down a massive hill. Not to mention I was wearing shorts, and was constantly being pricked and overcome with itches. Let’s just say that by the time we finally arrived at the entrance, it took nearly every fiber of my being to contain my inner JAP. I took a few deep breaths and entered the cave with the first group (I will admit to being slightly aggressive to make sure I went in the first wave, because there was no way I was standing in the hellish entanglement for another half hour). I was slightly disappointed, for all we endured to get down there, it was basically the same thing as the cave on the other side. I knew it was time to go when we were stopped at an end point in the tunnel for Dora (the young teaching fellow) to point something out and I flashed my flashlight on the wall only to see a spider about as big as my hand. I shone my light across the wall and saw at least 30 more of the same species in pattern formation – not to mention this was in a space that was less then 4 feet wide so their proximity to my body was less then a foot. At this point I (probably rudely) interrupted Dora because I started hyperventilating and screaming that I needed to get out (Ok I cracked) – BUT when she realized the situation she had the exact same reaction and started moving more quickly than I did.

We finally departed on the bus at 6:00 (we had been at the aqueducts since 2:30) and headed back to the centro for a divine dinner. SALMON! Thank goodness!!! In our lectures about Roman religion, Professor Serfass explained that one of the few places an average Roman would have the opportunity to eat meat was the feast that followed a sacrifice at a temples (when they would burn only certain parts of beasts to the gods). These feasts would occur on specific holidays. If I were an ancient Roman, I would have kept a calendar that marked every single festival day to make sure I reaped the benefits!

Soccer Game this weekend! Whoooo Azzurri! Homecoming Italian style?

Isabella.