Down to San Clemente

This afternoon I found myself standing outside the Colosseum, with some of my fellow students in probably the coldest Rome day yet.  At 2pm in the afternoon, it was 3 degrees.

I've already mentioned that my language school, the Leonardo da Vinci scuola, runs extra activities during the week for students.  These range from Monday tandems (language exchange) to Tuesday pizzas or pastas, Wednesday history walks with Silvia, Thursday pronunciation classes and Friday or Saturday tours or trekking.

Today we visited the Basilica of San Clemente with Claudio.  We arranged to meet outside the Colosseum Metro stop at 2pm.

I took a detour before meeting up with the group through Rome's Jewish quarter where the restaurants, who specialise in carciofi dishes, were displaying the last of the season's bounty.

These beautiful artichokes are slow braised until tender, then crisp fried in olive oil and served as an antipasto dish, and I plan on trying some before they disappear in the Spring.

After climbing up to the Capitoline Hill past the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, and a very quiet museum office, I headed down past the Roman Forum onto the Via dei Foro Imperiali.  From Trajan's Markets, you can look back to the huge Vittorio Emanuele monument, with the quadrigas on top visible from just about anywhere in Rome.

Rome is very quiet now with only a smattering of tourists.  As we stood fidgeting in the cold, and listening to Claudio recount the history of Nero's Palace, the Great Fire of Rome and the subsequent construction of the Colosseum by the Emperor Vespasian, I was slowly conscious of beginning to pick up more and more italian.  Of course Claudio's expert mime techniques also help with comprehension.

As we made our way over to the Basilica of San Clemente, we passed the excavated gladiator school and stood peering over the edge into the honeycomb of rooms used for training and fighting.  Claudio recounted how the gladiators used a secret tunnel for approaching the Colosseum, no doubt springing into the central arena to much audience surprise.

 
 

I've written about San Clemente before, the three level church that stands just behind the Colosseum in the Via Labicana.  The 12th century church at today's street level is really lovely, with its golden mosaic apse and Cosmatesque marble floor, and its ancient columns of marble and granite.  What makes this church fascinating, though, is that it stands over the footprint of a 4th Century church, and under that, 60 feet down, is an a Roman house of the Flavian period and mithraic temple.  For five euros, you can collect your ticket from the kiosk and descend 2000 years.

As we explored the faded mosiacs of the second level, Claudio told us that scholars have been able to discern the passage from Latin to vernacular italian in the annotated scenes of the life of St Clement.  And there is profanity here too, with the capture of the saint by Sisinnius who exhorts his slaves 'Fili de le pute, traite', which translated means 'Come on, you sons of bitches, pull!'.

 
 

Climbing down to the lower level, once a Roman street, we passed the narrow passage between the private house of wealthy Romans and the public offices, thought to have been the imperial Mint of Rome.  

Within this room, the subterranean waters can be heard rushing below, and a niche cut into the rock shows the water cascading down over the stones.  Claudio told us there were two theories as to the source of the water: it either comes from one of the original aqueducts of Rome, or a lost spring, attributed to the deities.