Caesarian-Era Boat Found Off Italian Coast

Amphorae in the Musee Archaeologique/Saint Raphael.
These jars are similar to the amphorae found in
the shipwreck noted in the BBC piece.
(photo from Athena Review)

I admit I'm a sucker for stories about antiquity and archaeological finds related to Greece and Rome. With that in mind, I read with interest today's BBC article about the discovery of a presumed ancient Roman commercial vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. What's intriguing about the finding is that the boat is nearly intact, as it was concealed in mud for centuries. We'll see what mysteries the discovery illuminates, or what enigmas the ship generates for a new generation of archaeologists and those simply curious about the ancient days.

When Rome Was My Home

I lived in Rome a long time ago. How I got there, stayed there, and left there require separate chapters of a book yet unwritten. For decades, I would not write anything about my time in the Eternal City. I would talk about it over the years, sometimes embellishing details, and more than occasionally omitting inconvenient facts. However, no words about my Roman interlude ever saw type, except for very brief references to my "overseas experience."

Fontana di Trevi
I worked around the corner from the fountain.

Rome, by its very nature, challenged me in ways I had not anticipated at all. The city's sensuality was both an awakening and a provocation. The language, supposedly simple to learn, was in fact quite difficult to master and I certainly never came close to that accomplishment. Even though I was most definitely a foreigner in Rome, I could easily spot American tourists and often tried to avoid them. Yet, the irony of living in Rome was that I often thought about America and gained a useful perspective about it that I've retained since that time.

Of course, living an everyday sort of life amidst Rome's aura of dramatic history was definitely a singular experience. However, the grandiose monuments and subdued historic remains found their counterpoint in Rome's edgy, turbulent politics. It's hard to overstate to an American reader how Italian political unrest felt, even to a foreigner. I lived there when an Italian prime minister was kidnapped and murdered, buildings were bombed, and mass demonstrations and strikes were part of the city's political fabric. The sense of politics was quite different from what I had known in the States, even though I had lived in New York and went to arguably the most politically restive college campus of the 1960s (Wisconsin).

All of this was simply an operatic background to the personal relationships. Some people found love (congrats to you) and were lucky enough to keep it through the years. Some found love that unraveled over time. I'm still not entirely clear what I had and what I gave, but it was something short of love. However, there was respect and some genuine caring, and that's not bad. This part of the story gets a little complicated, and I've avoided articulating what happened. However, to tell the true story of when Rome was my home, I'll have to get into matters of the heart.

Phew....that's asking a lot. The reward will be worth it.

Rome Removes Giant Papier-Mache Christmas Tree

Controversial Roman Christmas tree (photo from La Repubblica)

Rome, reeling from the Euro crisis and the country's sovereign debt crisis, responded swiftly to a controversy about a Christmas tree. According to an Agence France-Presse story appearing in Yahoo, the Italian capital's city council decided to remove a massive white papier-mache holiday tree after the item had one day in the public eye. The tree, located in the Eternal City's equivalent of Times Square, resembled an inverted ice cream cone. Apparently, its design, characterized by the Roman daily La Repubblica as "postmodern," was considered in poor taste. (La Repubblica has 13 photos of the tree, and they're worth checking out.)

The episode reminds me of arguments over the virtues of "real" versus artificial Christmas trees I've had over the years. For a long time, I was in the traditionalist camp. I grew up in a town where my two brothers once went into the nearby countryside, chopped down a tree, and brought it back on a sled. It was unthinkable, until a few years ago, to have an artificial Christmas tree in my home. However, I finally relented and we purchased a fake tree.

It's standing in our living room now, in the throes of being decorated. I've learned to appreciate and even like the artificial tree. It's not as elegant or as self-consciously avant-garde as the Roman version. Then again, I think the Romans, a notoriously opinionated lot, would rather have something like our tree.

Bringing Water to LA Becoming More Expensive

Roman Aqueduct

Among America's great engineering triumphs is the transportation of water to Los Angeles. To accomplish the task of bringing fresh H2O to arid LA, an assemblage of aqueducts, power plants, and reservoirs was created, much of it a century old today. The collection goes about its business every day, providing blue gold to the millions who call Los Angeles home. One difference between Westerners and East Coasters is that the West respects water, while Northeast Corridor residents take water for granted. Another distinction is that bringing water to LA is an expensive proposition. It's going to become increasingly costly in the coming years, partly thanks to California's new cap-and-trade regulations, and LA's loss of certain electric resources.

I've had an interest in aqueducts ever since I lived in Rome. One aqueduct was especially memorable. It was an arched structure that stretched across the flat Roman plain for miles. It was as if someone drew a straight line from Point A and Point B and had it carry water. The aqueduct was easily seen from the train that went between the Eternal City and Naples. Its simple, pleasing design looked best at sundown, when its terra cotta-colored stone gracefully partnered with the setting sun.

Baths of Caracalla

The ancient Romans did not take water for granted. They became skilled at finding it, transporting it, and leveraging all its qualities. Roman baths were a step forward for health care. Their ardor for bathing led them to build the Baths of Caracalla, so that the body and soul could be refreshed. They had the right idea, and would have scoffed at the idea of a gym.

In a way, Los Angeles has continued the Roman skill. The LA Times recently ran a thoughtfully story on water and LA's future. It provided a thin overview of the issues involving water, and some directions for going forward. Some details, especially about the pipeline that crosses the desert, make for intriguing reading.

September 11, 2001 -- Ten Years Later

I was working in New York on September 11, 2001. Here are some thoughts about that day and its echoes:

Around noon ten years ago, I was trying to get out of New York and get home. Both World Trade Center towers had collapsed, bridges and tunnels to the mainland were closed, the sense of "there's more" was in the air. Thankfully, I was able to communicate with my wife using e-mail and, then, private messages via an Applchat chat room. She suggested immediately going to an ATM and withdrawing funds. That was sage advice; I might have needed the cash to bribe my way out of town, obtain food and/or water, find shelter.

I thought my one chance to get across the Hudson River was by ferry. The mainland ferries were not well known at that time, although I was familiar with them, as I always made it a point to know every possible transportation angle in and out of the City. I walked over to the ferry slips on the West Side. They were crowded, but there was a chance to make it across. I took that chance, and in the late afternoon boarded what turned out to be the last ferry to Hoboken.

The boat's route ventured within a mile of the smoldering Trade Center site. No intervening buildings blocked the view. Everyone onboard became quiet. We were close, very close, to the heart of darkness.

Once the ferry docked, passengers were separated by those who had been south of Canal Street and those who had not. Those who had been south of Canal were washed down from head to toe; their clothes were not replaced. They went on their journey wet.

Amazingly, I got on a train and went home. (Hoboken was a mainland railroad terminal and was consequently not shut down during the 9/11 incident.) The ride went by in a kind of daze. I did observe four office workers helping one of their colleagues, who was in shock, get home.

Given her condition, the afflicted woman could never have gotten home on her own.

My wife met me at a railroad station near our home and I finally felt a sense of relief. Before we drove away, I bought a six-pack of beer and a large bag of potato chips. I consumed four bottles that evening and did not feel buzzed or anything.

In the days and months following the 9/11 incident, I continued to work in the City. I kept enough cash in my pocket to allow for "contingencies." I completely avoided any underground subway or railway, except to briefly cross the Hudson River. (I take them now.) I took the bus from the West Village to the Columbus Circle area where my office was located. I walked whenever possible. Sometimes, I would go a little out of my way to the now-closed St. Vincent's Hospital, which was Ground Zero's front-line hospital, and look at the pictures on "Missing" flyers affixed to the outside walls and nearby streetlight posts. I avoided the Morgan postal annex, the West Side site of the post-9/11 anthrax episode that was so disturbingly mishandled by federal security and health agencies.

The 9/11 incident was not my first time living in cities where politically motivated murder had taken place. I was in Rome when Italian prime minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped and ultimately killed. (For an Italian perspective on the Moro case, read the excellent writer Leonardo Sciascia's book The Moro Affair.) A year later in Rome, an extreme right-wing group blew up a nightclub for ostensibly political reasons. Earlier in my life, I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in the aftermath of a left-wing group's bombing of a building housing armed forces research projects; a researcher was killed in the incident. My student newspaper, of which I was a staff member, was a highly interested party in the articulation of the group's point of view and later, in legal defense for one of its members.

The 9/11 incident was nothing like the Rome or Madison situations. 9/11's purpose combined nihilism with fanaticism in ways the Roman or Wisconsin participants never imagined. Whatever one feels about 9/11's perpetrators, their common denominator was a willingness to use mass murder to achieve their aims. For the perps, if the achievement of their goals included the end of the world, their attitude was "so be it."

Recently, I was talking with someone who had fled a war zone created by religious animosity. As it turned out, his once peaceful backwater had erupted into hateful violence. He noted that there was no reasoning once the conflict had started, and, at the time, no obvious path toward ending the conflagration existed between religiously-charged communities. Once war began, he said, you never knew where or how it would end, or what would change. The one thing you could count on was nothing would be the same.

He could have made the same observation about New York, and the United States, in the post-9/11 era.

The photo shows "Missing" flyers posted outside St. Vincent's Hospital in the days immediately following the September 11, 2001 incident.

Fiat 500: Please Park Your Horse

Bloomberg Radio's morning team is camping out at the Detroit Auto Show this week. I've been listening to their reporting and interviews while driving my 20th Century Honda to work. One story that caught my ear involved the launch of the 2012 Fiat 500, better known as the Cinquecento.

The new Fiat 500 has enough automotive bells and whistles to make me jealous, especially as my Honda features roll-down windows, a cassette deck, and push-back seats. Driving in a legacy Honda and listening to a commentator discuss the fine points of the new Fiat reminded me of my first experience in a Cinquecento.

That occurred when I lived in Rome three decades ago. A Texas friend owned a Fiat 500. He used Texas license plates on the car, which led to some wonderful dialogue between him and the Eternal City's opinionated citizens. One salty-tongued Roman suggested the "cowboy" park his horse in a rare available, legal parking space.

The Texan's blue Fiat had a funky charm. Its most endearing quality was a white door on the driver's side. The car had been in an accident, and the original door was replaced. As I recall, the car's prior owner never got around to getting the body work completed. The white door was included in the deal when the Texan sold the car.

For many reasons, I'm sentimental about that Cinquecento. I associate friends and some good times with it. It was the vehicle that opened the Italian countryside to informal, impromptu exploration. I left Italy in that car, not to return until my honeymoon fifteen years later.

I also learned how to drive in that Fiat 500. It was an adventure. One could say that not having anything resembling the Italian version of a learner's permit was an issue, and part of the thrill. My doubtful immigration status was another. Practical matters also made matters exciting: I was learning on a stick in a city where aggressive driving was the only way to go. (Coming from New York definitely helped me cope with that aspect of Roman driving technique.)

I suppose my unofficial road test was the time I drove along the Amalfi Coast. Let's just say I was focused on the task at hand. The American woman who taught me, and who sat beside me, enjoyed the view. It was her car, and she had guts to let me drive it on the narrow cliffside passage. She named the vehicle "Massimo," mostly in irony.

I wonder what name she would give the 2012 Cinquecento.

Independence Day in Rome and New York

When I lived in Rome, America's Independence Day was just another day in the Eternal City. Yet, thousands of miles from anything resembling the United States, I had an irrepressible urge to have a picnic, eat American-style food, and drink ice tea or beer. (Ice tea is a decidedly un-Italian beverage.) I got together with a few friends who shared a similar feeling, found someplace to eat outdoors, and had a makeshift celebration.

Most other Independence Day gatherings haven't stayed with me as the Roman one has. The New York holidays are mostly memorable for fireworks displays. When I lived in Astoria, at that time a largely Greek community, the 4th of July was living hell for my cats. The fireworks hurt the animals' sensitive hearing and the noise frightened them. I could not help or console them. I wanted the neighbors' gunpowder orgy over with as quickly as possible.

One brighter holiday memory was watching fireworks over New York Harbor. I was invited to a rooftop July 4th party along Brooklyn's Red Hook waterfront. At that time, Red Hook was a somewhat menacing slum where one could feel desperately anxious on its dimly lit streets. The rooftop was like any other New York tenement rooftop on a hot summer night, except that it commanded a sensational view of Lower Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and the harbor. And so, while enjoying Mexican food and beer, I watched a celebration of our nation's independence with a mixed crowd of American citizens and undocumented aliens.