Lessons from ancient Rome: Do less, see more

By ELENA JOHNSON

For Coeur Voice

“Your homework,” Joe Click, a friend and assistant layout editor for the Press, told me, “is to do nothing. You’re on vacation, for goodness’ sake.”

Three days into a trip in Italy I had called him upset at how little I had accomplished. Some of us don’t relax well.

Thinking back to other trips, Joe may have had a point about abandoning all expectations.

My first trip to Rome made me cry – and not in a good way.

Since middle school Latin and on through Classics courses in college, I’ve dreamed of ancient Rome, the city and the people. The ancient Greeks and Romans - those two civilizations whose impacts reached beyond their own time and borders - also traveled to both cities, to experience and write about it rather like modern tourists and explorers.

I daydreamed of walking the Forum like an ancient tutor, of peering into the center of the Circus Maximus (otherwise known as the Colosseum), imagining mock naval battles with cannons and a flooded floor that sometimes echoed in the arena.

But instead I may have threatened to punch a hawker.

I’m a pacifist, I swear, and never would have done it, but the disappointment of nearly a lifetime of fantasies and righteous anger overcame me.

Roman site-seeing is now dominated by a system of pushing tourists into buying skip-the-line tours at inflated ticket prices. This puts native Italians at a disadvantage to see their own heritage and encourages visitors to torpedo through monuments, instead of admiring them.

I feel justified, but not proud. I let disappointment (even if it was partially justified) sour the day.

Recently I went back to Rome for a day trip, this time with another objective: the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.

The Forum and the Palatine make a large complex. The Forum and the area surrounding it in a small valley were the ancient center of republican Rome. Despite being largely in ruins, visitors can amble around the ancient square, passing by numerous temples, probable shops, grand arches dedicated to the glory of Roman rulers, and even a suspected house of ill repute.

Next to the republican Forum are the remains of the Imperial Forum, where the emperors of Rome added monuments to their preeminence.

Overlooking both is the Palatine, a sort of Beverly Hills of Rome. The elite, and many of the emperors, resided there. Some archaeologists suspect it has been occupied by ancient Italians since 1000 BCE.

Remnants of palaces, an arena for chariot races, mosaics, and even a garden added in the 1500s by Cardinal Farnese are all located on the grand hill.

I didn’t manage to see the entirety of the complex. I had slumped out of bed late, abandoned my coffee in order to make the train, took the longest route to the ruins from the station, and struggled to get anything out of the few vending machines in the park.

But I had a lovely time.

Touring the grounds allows the modern visitor a glimpse into ancient life, with a better appreciation for scale. Walking the ruins brings history to life in a way even the best biographies can’t.

Nature has taken over the remnants. Between fragments of stone walls and foundations, flowers creep and soft grass contrasts new life with a world now past. In short, it’s magic.

It is magic, crowds of tourists (and hawkers) aside. When you’re doing what makes your heart sing, visiting the site of your dreams, inconveniences shouldn’t matter.

The archaeological park is large, and probably can’t be appreciated properly in a day anyway. Yet these sites are normally seen in conjunction with the Colosseum, sold as a joint ticket by the park. The aforementioned hawkers promise 1-2 hour tours of each, all included with their skip-the-line deals.

Tourists eagerly shepherd themselves through wonders of the ancient world, through a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to exist where others have lived thousands of years before.

This is a wider problem in countries crowded with tourists like Italy. As art conservators like to say, everything is in a constant state of deterioration; the best you can do is try to slow it down.

The masses of tourists increasingly accessing popular sites slightly accelerate that deterioration.

Even the heat from our bodies packed into small spaces drives up humidity and can damage the colorful frescoes or even paintings hanging on museum walls.

That damage happens at glacial speed, and to some extent will happen “naturally” with time, but every admiring footstep furthers that deterioration along.

But since global tourism is reaching record highs (with over 1.4 billion tourist arrivals worldwide in 2018, according to the July 1, 2019 edition of the Guardian) questions of sustainable site-seeing are rising.

One small way to keep this in check is to diversify and, I argue, relax.

Instead of doggedly pursuing every site that lands itself on a “Top 20 Things to See in Rome” list, go see your Roman Forum – whatever has filled your daydreams since childhood, the one that makes your heart full.

By all means, take that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Rome you’ve been dreaming of since you first learned to say “Latinam indefesse studio” (I study Latin tirelessly).

But also consider a week in Arezzo, a quiet town in Tuscany with its own modest Roman amphitheater and a monthly flea market that takes over the town center.

Stay home once in a while. Visit mining ghost towns and see the Cataldo Mission. Every piece of human civilization has something to offer.

Let the devout revere the Vatican, the Renaissance junkies have Florence, and if you can’t remember Julius Caesar apart from Constantine, stick to the Catacombs.

And while you’re there, take it easy. Walk slowly. Wait in line and drive down demand for hawkers whose practices encourage rampant tours.

Travel enriches us, not by checking off every famous site you find in a guidebook, but by tasting a piece of what a people, their country, and their culture have to offer.

Walk around the block. Find a café. Try the local supermarket.

Live the vita bella as the Romans do.