Wherein Katie Prances Around Rome Some More...

...for academic reasons, of course. Thursday is our field trip half-day, and we mostly stayed close to home, visiting a few of the sites of former Roman forums and temples, as well as Tibur Island.

Jumping right into the pictures--this is the Round Temple. We don't know who it's dedicated to, or much at all beyond the fact that it was the second marble temple built in Rome, and the only one to survive to the modern day. Archaeology is apparently a very dicey subject, and one of my favorite things about my professors is their willingness to say "we just don't know". Regardless, it has become one of my favorite temples, because it's relatively small, and round, and for some reason that just appeals to me.

Here are more columns! Eleven out of the twenty capitals (the decorations at the top of the column) that surround the Round Temple are the originals--the center one here is obviously one of the replaced ones. These are capitals from the Corinthian order, which are the most advanced and are naturally my favorite. And if you're thinking that there's no way that I could have gotten a picture this close from the outside of that gate, well, you're right.

I don't think I can possibly stress enough how indescribably awesome it is to be a Centro student. We were met at the temple by someone with a key, who let us in so that we could see the temple close up and go inside (where you can see it was once consecrated as a church). I behaved myself and did not take any pictures of the poor sods outside the gate who were standing there wondering why they didn't get to go in. It's very unattractive to gloat in public :P (okay, I'm really not that evil--I was actually feeling a bit guilty).

The situation with the Round Temple and the aqueducts on Tuesday also brings up a point that Mom asked me about, and I thought I should clarify it for everyone at once: while we are obviously going to visit a fair number of tourist sites for our studies, I believe a majority of the places we visit and study are not the sort of thing you're going to see as a tourist. Some of them, like the tombs at Tarquinia and Cerveteri, are certainly accessible to tourists, but are off the beaten track (and out of the guidebooks) enough that most people aren't likely to see them. Then there are the ones like the Round Temple and the aqueducts, where unless you've got the clout of a major academic institution, you're not going to be able to get access and get up close to these bits of history. I say this not to make you all jealous (much), but to stress why this is such an amazing program and opportunity. And, of course, it gives you all a way to see some places you're not likely to see any other way unless you look it up in an art book or on Google, but that sort of loses the personal touch :)

Speaking of the personal touch, here I am with a column. This surprises absolutely no one. If you're wondering why I'm not hugging it, I'm saving that for the Pantheon.

Here are some fragmentary pieces of columns and edging that are stored inside the temple. The carvings are absolutely beautiful even in pieces, and it's not often you can get this close to see them.

This is an example of an interesting little sculptural trick that the Romans did--they used large blocks of marble to build the temple, then carved the blocks to appear as though they were made of smaller blocks and mortar and thus were more work to put in. It's a very cool effect from a distance.

Here's the other temple we saw in the first area--the Temple of Portunus, who was a god of harbors. It's sadly not in very good shape, and much of it is covered in scaffolding. The columns are still nice though!

Here you can see a piece of the frieze atop the columns. The temple is in the middle of restoration--maybe I'll come visit Rome again in a few years and see if it's in better shape.

This is the Arch of the Argentarii, or the Arch of the Bankers for you silly people who don't study Latin. It's not actually an arch, but it's structurally similar. I was disappointed to find I didn't have a better picture of the whole arch than this--one of the hardest things to deal with in pictures is the bright sun, since I rarely have time to find the proper position to take a shot that the sun doesn't bleach out. Actually, I've gotten lots of practice at taking good pictures while walking!

Here's a much better shot of a section of the arch. This particular sculptural technique is called horror vacui, a fear of empty space :) Just about every piece of the arch is covered in some sort of carving--which is certainly beautiful on its own, but the overall picture is rather chaotic.

Here are the remains of a few mysterious altars and temples--there were several layers, each built on top of an older altar or temple. I have to admit I wasn't very enthusiastic about these--they're sadly not well excavated or documented, and what's visible is confusing and difficult to sort out.

There was a column, so naturally I had to take a picture of it. More seriously, I liked the image of the nearby church just building around the surviving column--it's a wonderful analogy for the modern city of Rome as a whole.

The last place we visited was Tibur Island, which was historically the easiest place to ford the Tibur and later became a cult site of Asclepius, the god of healing. There was a hospital here in historical times, and there remains a modern hospital here even today. There's not really any effective way to take a picture of either the island or the hospital, so I just took pictures of the river, which I'm always ridiculously excited to see. I've been reading about this river and the city around it for six years now!

Because this was a half day, we then all trooped back to the Centro for lunch, which I took pictures of for an eventual post on all the wonderful food I'm eating here--but that's for another time.