Rome part tre

The next day the conference ends at lunchtime and my afternoon is my own. It’s time to think big.

Big, in Rome, is easy to find. Piazza Venezia, which vaguely reminds me of our capitol building in D.C. but seems about twice the size. Behind it, the Roman Forum, where I can nearly hear the rumble and bustle of an ancient metropolis teeming with life and power. Above the Forum, the Palatino. Behind the Forum, the Coliseum.

I remember sitting nine years ago on a hill overlooking the Forum, wishing I had someone to tell me about it all, when I noticed the garden on the hill opposite.

“I’d like to go up there,” I said, maybe out loud.

We didn’t.

This time I do. I walk around the South side, near the Circus Maximus (and, as it turns out, the Belgian embassy), which is actually the long, long way around. The entrance is within sight of the Coliseum, and I get the little handheld tour guide so I won’t just be staring at piles of rocks.

The ticket costs 12 euro and is good for the Palatino, Forum and the Coliseum. The machine is 4 euro to rent. The majesty of the palace (as envisioned in my imagination based on the ruins), as well as the absolute power of its inhabitants, quiets me. This was a private room. This was a bath. This was where Nero sequestered his own mother.

My favorite part, as I’d expected before, is the garden. The view alone is worth the entrance fee, and I only have to fight with one Japanese tour group to stare at it. The entirety of ancient Rome is at my feet. And it does not notice me.

Oranges are in season here. I steal one from the trees, but all of them within easy reach are gone so I have to climb a stone wall and jump. It’s sour. Thanks a lot, Nero.

I can’t think of any way to describe the great halls of justice still standing in the Forum, the pillars of the Coliseum, the weight of history through the ages, other than it makes me feel small. I am but one of millions who will set foot here this year, gawking at the grandeur of a cornerstone of Western civilization. My entrance fee goes to help keep this history alive, but otherwise it is unaffected by my presence.

I, on the other hand, cannot remain unchanged when I see the great bronze cross in the Coliseum. It wasn’t until this past century that the Coliseum became a symbol of early Christian persecution and martyrdom. The Pope leads a procession through here every Good Friday.

I find the Barbarini chapel, which is down the street from my hotel. This chapel was the first in Rome to commemorate the Immaculate Conception, but what distinguishes this church is its crypt.

“WHAT YOU ARE NOW, WE USED TO BE. WHAT WE ARE, YOU WILL BE,” the bones of saints scream through the years from the walls, where they are arranged in a grisly replica of the beautiful frescoes and arched ceilings in cathedrals throughout Christendom.

Skeletons in monks’ robes bow as if in prayer, and recline in death. Dust to dust, this discordant display observes like a rat’s claws on broken glass. A child’s skeleton flies above the final graveyard, holding Death’s scythe.

I emerge into the evening breathless. I stumble to a café, haunted by mortality.

“Spirit is born of spirit,” I write, “and Spirit evermore remains.” It may not be a perfect quotation, but the waning light helps, and the Scripture heals.

My Facebook picture is me standing in an old Roman piazza under that even-older Egyptian obelisk under the misty moon. I am smaller than all of this. What they are, I will soon be.

Night falls over the city, and the via Veneto begins to glow in urban anticipation. It’s Friday night in Rome.