Maxentius’ Hippodrome

As some of you know, I’ve just finished a draft of a book on the hippodrome of Constantinople, which should be out early next year. Among yesterday’s highlights, while walking a few miles along the storied Via Appia (see post below), were the ruins of the palace, mausoleum, and hippodrome of Maxentius, the emperor who was famously defeated by Constantine at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 CE. Here’s a shot of the western, short end of the hippodrome. Between the two towers are the low, curved outcroppings of the carceres or starting gates for the chariots. The last time I was there was 1981, 36 long years ago. Then I knew little about the things I was seeing, but full of wonder at them nonetheless. Atypical fall rains fooled the Italian landscape into thinking it was spring, and the hippodrome was filled with green grass and white daisies.

Quiet Quintili

I’m staying for two weeks in Rome, at an AirBnB on the Via Appia Nuova about half a kilometer from the remarkable ruins of the Villa dei Quintili, a site few tourists visit. It was a vast suburban complex built by two wealthy brothers in the middle of the second century CE, on a low hill by the Via Appia. The emperor Commodus was so envious he had the owners executed and confiscated the villa for himself. The most monumental sector was the bath complex, part of which you see here, the caldarium and tepidarium or hot and warm baths with their mosaic floorings. Beyond, you get a sense of the panoramas the villa would have had in its heyday; the residential areas are on even higher ground. The villa had its own aqueduct to supply the estate and baths with water.

Sicilian Dylan

I don’t take many pictures of people, but this very talented young woman wasn’t camera-shy. She was belting out Sicilian folk songs in Ortygia, (Syracusa) Sicily, in the piazza beside the city’s remarkable cathedral that incorporates columns from the ca. 500 BCE Greek Temple of Athena in its fabric. She really made the whole place come alive and I admired her for singing songs of Sicily, in Sicilian dialect, and not international pop songs, which might have filled her guitar case with more coins. Her wonderful voice echoed off walls 2500 years old. Athena would be proud of her.