Rome via Brooklyn

Getting up bright and early I ran to get an umbrella/parasol at the local home goods store near my apartment. Only for me to arrive right at the front door and realize it wasn’t open yet. I walked back in defeat to the bus stop where my roommates were waiting for me. Luckily for me it wasn’t the hottest of days but the italian sun was still beating down on me as i made my journey to roma forum.

As we entered the forum the first thing I noticed were the two large arches; the arch of septum severus and the arch of titus. Seeing these arches in person I remember learning about them in my art history class. In the class we discussed the coffers on the inside of the arch and how on the arch of titus there was depiction of ransacking of Jerusalem. 

The part of the forum I found the most interesting was the House of the Vestals, the home of the vestal virgin of rome who worshiped the Roman goddess vesta and tended to the fire of rome. Their statues lined the outside of the house of the vestals. They were wearing their traditional togas and were standing in a puticitia pose to represent their purity as “good” women. I found it interesting that unlike the cristian nuns we see today they were released after 30ish years of service and were able to marry, have kids and become politically powerful women. Even though they were highly respected women I found it very cruel how they were put to death, being sealed in a room to die of starvation and dehydration. This was painful to hear because by today’s standards it is such an uneasily cruel fate for women to have devoted a significant part of their life to the preservation of Roman tradition. This seems to be an unfortunately common theme throughout history of putting “bad” or “evil” women to death in the most cruel ways possible, burning women at the stake for suspicion of being a witch and stoning them to death for being unfaithful. The only way for some of these women to not receive this cruel fate was to perform some miracle and give an over abundance of evidence to the contrary, though sadly this was often not enough.

A quote that stood out to me from the reading was “Another victim of Renaissance quarrymen, the marble superstructure of the temple was stripped in 1549, leaving only a round mound of concrete surrounded by a few courses of tufa blocks.” This stood out to me because it’s a massive shame and a disservice to history that the people of the past decided to ransack the temple of vesta, as I would have loved to see the place where the vestal virgins worshiped the goddess Vesta in its full glory.