Thoughts from A European Summer (3) - The Romans

Something I was appreciate most from this trip, was the opportunity to appreciate - and with greater understanding - the outstanding achievements of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. For some fortuitous reason, we kept encountering the antiquities during the course of our trip: in Pompeii, Naples, Northumbria and at the British Museum. However, those encounters would not have meant as much but for my daughter's interest in history and her voracious appetite for books on the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, which meant I have also gained some knowledge which made me better appreciate what I saw.

All the time, my thought turned to China. One could only wonder what treasures have been lost forever - or is waiting to be discovered - from comparable era of the Chinese civilization which I believe must be no less impressive. Just look at the Great Wall. The main difference can perhaps be summed up in one word: stone. Things made from stone withstood the test of time better than finer materials like wood, paper and cloth.

Looking at evidence of human affairs and creation from so long ago, I was reminded that all human concerns and undertakings are mere scratches on the surface of history.

As we landed in Naples, the ominous outlines of Mt. Versuvius loomed clearly alongside the Bay of Naples. It was the same sight that greeted Greek mariners who came to establish their colonies, ancient Romans who came for leisure and for escape from public life in Rome (or fresh from slaughtering some Gothic tribes or putting the torch on the Temple of Jeruselem) or which greeted 18th century European grand tourists. Even as a young and turbulent mountain, it was a constant relative to the rise and fall of human society and civilization all around it.

Even though it was buried 2000 years ago, the ruins of Pompeii puts much of modern-day artistry, town planning and development (especially in the ugly urban sprawl around it today) to shame. And it was humbling to realise that it was already a very old town (300 years old) even when it was destroyed in AD 79. And Pompeii was also much larger than I had imagined. It easily measured 2km long and just as wide. Many of the ruins are not even excavated yet. But what can already be seen are highly impressive: the road system (complete with pedestrian crossings and track-marks from ancient chariots and carraiges), the public utlilties (water system etc.), the shopping area (long stretches of fast food shops as evident from "countertops" with holes for bowls and jars to display the food), the public forum, the various temples to different gods, numerous brothels (locked when visited: but apparently with interesting "menus" for pleasure decorated on the walls), numerous theatres, a stadium and above all, the many private houses - some of which have been partly restored to display beautiful and well-preserved mosaic works and wall paintings. What is surprising is that so much of that were left at the ruins and exposed to the elements; quite apparently, those are not the best stuff which have been taken away for storage in museums.

The next encounter was not far away, beneath the streets of Naples. We had taken a tour of subterranean Naples which brought us (100 feet below ground) to witness an amazing water system which was built first by the Greek and later expanded by the Romans. The ancients had excavated by hand out of rocks a whole system of underground acqueducts, cisterns and well-points. The aqueducts brought water from a source 170 kms away but as it entered the city, everything was moved underground where the water moved around in man-made underground "rivers" - tunnels up to 10 feet wide and 30 feet high - into a series of larger caverns where the water was either stored or can be picked up from well-points above the ground (one can see tubes leading from the ceiling to ground level. Some of the cisterns are private so can be accessed only from within a private compound and some are public wells. (Picture from inside a cistern below, the whole space hacked and burrowed from solid rock). The system worked so well that it was in continuous use to supply water to Naples for 23 Centuries, until 1888 when it was contaminated during a cholera outbreak. 2300 years! One could still see the wall markings chip marks made by the tools of ancient slaves who hacked away the stones blow by blow, a testimony of immense inhuman suffering amidst a magnificent work of ancient engineering and ingenuity.

In Naples, the past is never far away. We visited an apartment, where in 1999 (not too long ago) some archeologists noticed that the building (which is a mere 400 years old) has an oddly-slightly curved wall on one side. When they knocked on the door and asked to look around inside, they found the tell-tale shape of a Roman arch in the living room. They went into the basement - then used as a garage for motorscooters - where they found more arches. Those arches have been established to be part of the largest Roman theatre in the area - so magnificent that Emperor Nero performed there - and which later on, in the 17th century, people built on top of the ruins, making use of the still-standing pillars and foundations.

In the basement where we saw the remnants of the theatre, we noticed a perculiar pattern of brickwork (something we also saw in Pompeii) where the bricks were laid on their corners - at a 45 degree angle - such that they form the shape of diamonds. Upon asking, it turned out that those were walls build using Roman "seismic" or anti-earthquake technology! (Some of those brick arrangements can be seen above the arch in the picture of Pompeii's "small" theatre above) Apparently, the Romans learnt that walls built that way could withstand the impact of an earthquake. No wonder, so much of Pompeii had survived a strong earthquake just a few years before the volcanic eruption buried the town.

We saw more evidence of Roman civilization at the Naples Museum the next day. The highlights were the relics from Pompeii and other ruins from the area, and the Farnese collection of Roman sculptures. One rarely sees such wonderful works of great artistic merit notwithstanding that they were 2000 years old. From the excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum, we saw very finely detailed wall paintings done in exquisitely beautiful hand by the artists. There were decorative objects, I was most impressed by a glazed glass bowl with different layers of glass from which the artist etched relief drawings from mythology.

There were great numbers of statues, among them many enormous (20 foot high) masterpieces from the Baths of Caricalla. Many of the status are Roman copies of (even more ancient) Greek status that are long lost. Through them, we know what Homer the Greek Poet and Plato the Socrates actually looked like - well, as well as the artists could make it anycase. In fact, among the great numbers of mosaics taken from private villas that have been excavated - the most famous of which is a large mosaic, made from perhaps 1m pieces of finely crafted stones, (pictured left), depicting Alexander the Great's defeat of Persian King Xerxes, which remained the only likeness we know of Alexander the Great. All the other figures, even the horses, showed great fluidity of movement and distinct expressions and personality.

Though made of stone or bronze, the standard of artistry of the sculptures is so outstanding that one feels the energy/spirit of the figure represented; and the lightness, beauty and balance of the composition; and forgetting the denseness of the materials used. (Pictured below, a massive sculpture originally from the Bath of Caricalla)

We would eventually get to see more of them (and even more ancient examples) with the Partheneon Marbles in the British Museum. On the debate, I happen to believe that certain objects are human patrimony, such that it should no longer "belong" to any nation or government, as much as no one should be allowed to (mis)treat them in ways that rights of ownership would imply. Imagine the Red Guards deciding to blow up the Great Wall or take down the Forbidden City to use the wood, or level Huangshan to build a steel mill, or do what the Taliban did to the Leshan Buddha. Having said that, the British Museum has equally no rights to keep it there. Unless its wellbeing is threatened, relics should belong to its natural place where the world can see it where it was intended.

Fast forward to the northern borders. A thousand miles away from Italy, we were at the northern boundaries of the Roman Empire in Northumbria and Hadrian's Wall or the Roman Great Wall.

It ran only for about 100 miles with a garrison fort at every mile and 2 watch towers in between each garrison. It is perhaps what the original Qin Dynasty great wall was like, made of piled stone approximately 8-10 feet high plus an outer defensive ditch, and greatly utilizing the natural contours of the land to best benefit. It was the outer reaches of an immense empire that is linked militarily, administratively, economically and culturally from the windswept hill tops of Northern England to Mother-Rome; and from there another thousand miles south to Aswan in Egypt, a thousand miles West to Spain and Morocco, a thousand miles east to present day Iraq. There I felt that I had come to realised what the immensity of empire must have felt like to the citizens of Rome or Qin or Persia: it must have felt like one is has the power and responsibilities over all of the civilized world.