Julian Barnett
Hidden Rome, Part 2: ‘Pleasure, Commerce and Warfare’: Further Lesser Known Parts of Ancient Pagan Rome

Julian Barnett - Hidden Rome, Part 2: ‘Pleasure, Commerce and Warfare’: Further Lesser Known Parts of Ancient Pagan Rome

- This is the second of five blockbuster lectures on Rome, a series on Rome. And you might recall, if you tuned into the first of the five, which, if memory serves me correctly, was the 17th of January, we looked at hidden Rome from the pagan point of view, obscure pagan parts of Rome. And the lecture today is going to be looking at Republican and Imperial Rome on the 28th of February, which is next week, not far away, moving over to Byzantine Rome, a very, very different Rome altogether. And then following on from that, middle of March, 14th of March, I believe is going to be Catholic Rome, with then a wrapping-up lecture at the very end, really giving a total view over this remarkable city. And in the last lecture that I gave, I talked about the fact that, as you know, am I on full screen at the moment, Emily? Is that still? Is everything okay there?

• [Emily] Yes.

• Sorry. Thank you. I talked about the fact that, perhaps there’s very few cities in the world that I would described as a concept. And Rome is one of them. People often forget, and I did mention this last time, that that term, the eternal city, is not something that has been coined in recent decades or centuries or even millennia. The term was first used by the poet, Tipulus, around about 54 B.C., and was then taken up by Virgil and others, shortly afterwards. So, the idea of Urbs Aeterna, the eternal city, is a very ancient, idea going all the way back to the republican period of Rome, which just shows what a powerful sense of self Rome had of itself at the very time, at the height of its powers, which is what I’m partly going to look at with you today. The other city by the way, which I would say is a city that is a concept, and I was delivering a lecture last night, not online, but live in the flesh so to speak, is Jerusalem, and in my series of Jerusalem, I talked about the concept of what is Jerusalem. So, it makes Rome very, very unusual, I would say. You will also recall that I talked about that SPQR that pops up all the time in Rome, Senatus PopulusQue Romanus, the Senate and the people of Rome. It cannot be over-emphasized, how important that is to the consciousness of Rome, of Romans today, and of ancient Rome. And I enwrap that within a very brief outline of the main periods of ancient Roman in history, as we would know it, there is the periods of the kings, which runs from round about 625 B.C., to around about 510 B.C. Then we move into the republican period, 510 to 31 B.C., then the imperial period. And again, I’ll be looking at that today, from 31 B.C. to 476 A.D. So, that key republican period and then imperial period, are around about 500 years each.

So again, to get a perspective of Rome, it’s really important to bear in mind, how long ancient Rome was going for. It was going for a thousand years, more or less. It reminds me a little bit of what I said about ancient Egypt, which is even more long in the sweep of time. The distance in time, from Jesus to the beginning of ancient Egypt, was longer than from our time to Jesus. We are 2023 years from the time of the start of Christianity, yet Jesus was living 2800 years from the beginning of ancient Egypt. So, it’s very important to bear in mind that these ancient civilizations, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans in chronological order really spanned over an immense period of time, themselves, longer than the British Empire ever spanned for, longer than the Russian Empire and so on, longer than the Ottoman Empire, indeed. So, these are very, very long periods of time and that, I think, is something really important to bear in mind. So, now we’re going to move ahead to the pictures. So, thank you, over to you Emily. As is normal, we will just sort of move around with the pictures, that you’ll hear me, move on as we’re going. Let’s get started, by looking at Emperor Aurelian, himself. He’s going to be central to the story I’m going to convey this evening, Emperor Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, the warlord emperor, very, very successful emperor, 270 to 275 A.D. So, we’re well into the imperial period by then. Just to put that into perspective, Julius Caesar was 44 B.C. when he died. Augustus Caesar died 14 A.D. The conquest of Britain, for those that live in Britain, was 43 A.D.

So, it puts Aurelius into context. We’re talking about mid to late republican periods, and renowned really for the building of the Aurelian Walls, which is central to what I’m going to convey this evening. Let’s just see a few pictures of Emperor Aurelius himself. If we just click on, please, and you’ll get an idea. That is a bust from the time of 273 A.D. And to the next one please. From that bust, we have this artist’s impression of what the emperor would have looked like. And again, please. And there is a statue of him, SPQR underneath, standing very close, but not actually in the Roman Forum, but very close to the current day Roman Forum. Okay, moving on. There is the empire of Aurelius, as it was at his time, the Roman Empire, pretty much at its height, a remarkable achievement, the whole of the Mediterranean basin, and of course, going all the way up to Gaul and onto Britain and all the way up to Hadrian’s Wall, the most northern outpost of the Roman Empire at that time. It was a phenomenal achievement, and you’ll remember that I mentioned last time, and I will be returning to this today, one of the reasons for that achievement, was something, in my opinion, not very glamorous, but it was something called, concrete. And I’ll be coming to that a little later, to emphasise what I was saying last week, where the Romans were supremely advantageous over all the other civilizations at the time, is number one, their invention of concrete, and a specific type of concrete, more on that shortly. Also their use of aqueducts, which I’m going to be looking at today, and also their high, high level of organisation. They weren’t great philosophers, they weren’t great poets, they weren’t great playwrights. They did all those things.

But what really propelled Rome, was inventions of a practical and pragmatic nature. That was the key to it, at that time. Can I please recommend to you, I’ve said it last time and I’ll say it again, anything by Mary Beard, the Cambridge classicist, all of her stuff is up on YouTube. All her things about the Roman Empire, it’s great stuff. And it’s a wonderful guide. She gives both a great sweep of Roman history and also an explanation for the specifics as to why they were so successful and so long lasting. Okay, on we move. And before we look at the Aurelian Walls, itself, we need to look at the earlier walls of Rome. Now, these walls were constructed during the period of the kings, as you can see, they’re sixth century B.C., Mura Serviane, the Servian Walls, named after King Servius Tullius, and the Servian Walls are few and far between to be seen in Rome to this day, partly because they’re very, very old, partly because they were smashed down, and new walls were put in their place, partly because the Aurelian Walls then took over them and sometimes enveloped them within them. And sometimes the builders of the Aurelian Walls actually took apart the Servian Walls, to put the stones to, what they considered, to be better use in the new walls. Let’s have a look, on the next picture, where those Servian Walls actually went.

And there, you can see on the left, is Roma, Urbs, top left corner, the city of Rome, the Tiber and the twists and bends of the Tiber are quite familiar to those that have been to Rome. Campus Martius there, you can see it, top left, and you can see what we now known as Trastevere in Rome. Trasteveres means the other side of the river, where there was no occupation, human occupation. So, you can see those Servian Walls there, were mainly yellow and green to a certain extent, but that was more or less it. They were very small, because at that time, Rome was not a big city. It wasn’t the city that it became, a city of one million people at its height, a phenomenal size for a city of the ancient world, by far, far, far the largest city of the ancient world. Let’s move on and let’s get an idea of what that Servian Wall looks like. Just a few pictures. This is the largest surviving section of the Servian Wall, sixth century B.C., and it is right near Termini, the central train station of Rome. There are many train stations in Rome, but Termmini, magnificent structure built by Mussolini and serves all the mainline services. And there’re a large section of the Servian Wall is there, as you can see, made of huge pieces of stone, which are formed from volcanic rock, almost like pumice stones, made into huge, huge stones to make the wall. But it crops up all over the place. You have to be really observant to see the Servian Wall. To the next picture, so we can go through these quite quickly. You can see the next picture shows the Servian Wall there. Now look at the picture on the right, and it actually forms part of a building. So, there are those big, almost clumsy stones. It doesn’t have the beauty of the Aurelian Walls, which we’ll come too shortly. This is a much more basic, rudimentary wall, which served its purpose in its time.

But you can see the primitive nature of it, compared to the Aurelian Walls that will soon follow. But there it is, holding up a roof and part of a building. If we move on to the next pictures, they’re slightly unclear, because it was difficult to get pictures ‘cause of moving traffic. But there you can see, once again, the Servian Wall pops up again. You have to really walk around Rome with your eyes peeled and all of a sudden you’ll see, wow, there it is a piece of Servian Wall. This is 2,600 years old. Very, very few people notice it as they’re walking around, but there it is, popping up from time to time, and to the next pictures. Again, look at these stones there, very, very powerful-looking stones. They form the foundation of another part of the Aurelian Wall, which is built on top of the Servian Wall. So, in this particular instance, the position of the Servian Wall served the builders of Aurelian Walls, who were building the walls 900 years later, 870 years later. So, they simply built upon it, but you can clearly see the refinement of the stones above, and the sheer mass and weight of the stones below. And moving on to another picture, and you can see again, here is a pretty old building, mediaeval building with a bit of Servian Wall within it. Now let’s move on. And you can see there, again, part of the Aurelian Wall with some beautiful white marble facing. I’ll explain more about that, a little bit later. Look at the right hand side of that picture, and we’ll be returning to this later on. You can see this strange structure, built above the wall, that is a three-tier Roman aqueduct.

It’s almost miraculous, a triple-decker aqueduct, built upon a part of the Aurelian Wall, which is built upon a Servian Wall. The reason why I love this picture, is that it had a sweep of Roman history from 600 B.C. through to 600 A.D. So, it was a really fantastic little span of history there. Okay, and to the next slides. So, now we’re coming to the meat of this evening, and that is Mura Aureliane, the Aurelian Walls. And the really remarkable thing about these walls, is that hardly anybody visits them. They are by far and away, the largest piece of ancient Rome in Rome. But most people go to the honeypots, the Colosseum, Saint Peters, The Forum. I’m not, in any way, downplaying most people going to those honeypots, but God bless honeypots, because that means that wonderful parts of the city are completely, almost completely devoid of tourists and sometimes even of locals. So, you have them all to yourselves. Let me tell you some basic facts about these walls. They are 12 and a half miles long, about 20 kilometres, 13 feet thick. So these are real walls, they’re 16 metres high, I think that’s around about 52 feet. And on those walls there’s 383 towers, on this huge circuit of walls that go around. And of those 383 towers, each tower is precisely 30 metres apart. 7,020 crenellations, 23 gates, 116 latrines that were built into the walls by the Romans. And 2066 large windows, punched into those walls. All of these, enclosed within the seven hills of Rome. And there are indeed seven hills of Rome. There are of course lots of hillocks, as well, it’s quite confusing. But you’ve got the Capitoline Hill, which is in the middle. I’m going to be talking about the hills of Rome in another lecture, the Quirinal Hill, the Viminal Hill, the Esquiline Hill, and of course the Caelian Hill in the Aventine Hill. Those seven hills of Rome.

These Aurelian Walls were built to envelop those seven hills of Rome. Now, the interesting thing about the Aurelian Walls, is that when you think about it, they were built in the third century A.D. So, the obvious question is, well, what happened between the sixth century B.C., when the Servian Walls were built, and 900 years, until the Aurelian Walls were built? And the fact is, is that Rome was such a tremendous success, the golden period of both Republican Rome and Imperial Rome, that Rome didn’t need any walls to defend itself. It was so powerful, it had no enemies that could actually form any form of threat. And the Romans themselves, from the time, were very, very proud of the fact that they didn’t have to defend their city with walls, so powerful and so lengthy was their reach across the known world. That said, it’s not so golden, because we also know that the Roman emperors understood the power of the visual. They understood, that if we have to start to build walls around Rome, that means we’re worried about our enemies. And that is a sign of weakness. So in fact, what the clever old Roman emperors did, was, they did station field armies all around ancient Rome. Those armies were miles away, up to 20 miles away. They were fed and housed and clothed. They were never seen by the citizens of Rome. But there were the field armies, just in case an attack came. So, what you therefore had was, you had the gains of feeling psychologically great and pretty much invincible, because we, the Romans, need no walls. But in reality they had the real gains of being protected by field armies that were stationed at very specific points, out of view of the citizens of Rome, to make sure Rome is protected, in effect. But once we get to the third century, the Germanic tribes and others, started to encroach on the territory.

So, you have the beginning of the barbarians and the vandals beginning to come, thus the need to build the Aurelian Walls. And they were built in a very short period of time. So, let’s now take a journey around the Aurelian Walls. Thank you Emily. So, we’re going to have a look at the Aurelian Walls. There they are. They pretty much encase everything that we know, as classical Rome, the Rome that tourists come to see, that is the Aurelian Walls. It’s really incredible and many people that have been to Rome, will have seen the Aurelian Walls, but they just see little glimpses of them from time to time and maybe even drive underneath some of the arches, if you’re in a taxi or a bus or sometimes a train. In fact, in some parts the trains actually go on top of the walls, more on that shortly. But the Aurelian Walls are so vast and so lengthy and so extensive, that they more or less cover, what is considered the base and of Rome, what tourists come to see. They’re huge and they’re lengthy. Let’s zip through some pictures of what I mean by this remarkable secret that is Rome. Now, this will be familiar to you all, because we looked at the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, last week and also when I did a lecture on Oxford’s, I went from Oxford to Rome, to talk about the grave of some English artists and authors, who are buried in the Anglican cemetery there. That’s Rome’s only pyramid, the Pyramid of Caius Cestius. And it’s next to Porta San Sebastiano. Oh sorry, no, it’s next to Porta Paolo. So let’s go to the next picture, and you will see what I mean by the pyramid itself, covered in limestone, more or less what the pyramids in ancient Egypt would’ve been covered with originally, beautifully coloured with limestone. Let’s move on and have a look at some more pictures, because this is where I started my circumnavigation of the Aurelian Walls from, because they are a circuit of walls, you can spend, well, if you’re really energetic, you can walk those 20 kilometres in one day.

If you want to take it a bit more leisurely, maybe walk 10 kilometres in a day. But, it’s a fantastic thing to do. So, you start off at six in the morning and you end at about eight at night and you stop off the cop-pies and ice creams and you speak to some locals, because the Aurelian Walls pass through every conceivable type of Roman neighbourhood, from rich to poor, to fields, to flocks of sheep, which you will see shortly. I started my circumnavigation from Porta San Paolo. And as you can see there, the Pyramid of Caius Cestius. Let’s move on. Now you’ll get a lovely view of that porto, itself, and get an idea of the pyramid, itself. Look at the left of the pyramid in the picture, and you will see that the wall is built into the pyramid. The pyramid predates the wall by 1400, is that right, by 600 years, sorry, it predates the walls, so they just simply built the walls into the pyramid and used the pyramid as part of the fortifications. Clever old Romans. Let’s move on again, and we’ll now go to the next section of the wall. And this is the British Commonwealth War cemetery. The battle for Rome, March to June, 1944, and thousands of allied soldiers, British and Americans mainly, fell in the battle for Rome and they were buried in Rome, as is the British military tradition, that British soldiers are buried as close as possible to where they fall. And that’s why you have Commonwealth war cemeteries, dotted all over the globe. This is the Commonwealth war cemetery of Rome.

It is a very beautiful cemetery, almost always, never a soul there. It’s a very moving place. And look behind it, that is part of the Aurelian Wall. This is a British cemetery from the 1940s, built right up against the wall. It’s a very beautiful, peaceful, dignified, immaculately-kept spot, as are all Commonwealth war cemeteries around the globe. Moving on, you’ll see another picture, slightly closer up, of the graves in that cemetery and you’ll get the idea of how close it is to the wall. And the next picture please. And the next one. So, now we move out from the cemetery, and we’re between two walls here, parts of the Servian Wall on the left and the Aurelian Wall on the right. The Romans moved it slightly. They weren’t satisfied with the quality of the stone of the Servian Wall, so they’re just left as it was, and they built the Aurelian Wall. Here, there’s no roads, it’s just a pathway. Again, not a soul there. And let’s go through some of these other pictures. Now, as I followed this path round, as you can see, it just passes down beautiful walkways, through a little fortress over a bridge and another fortress and a closeup of some of the fortress. Look at that picture. And you can see there that that little fortress is turned into a Catholic shrine. The Madonna there, with flowers always put there, garlanded in flowers, always fresh flowers, locals bring them around. You see them all over Italian cities, more on Catholic Rome in a couple of lectures’ time. But I will be returning to scenes such as this, down the line. Let’s move on, and you can see that we follow the wall around, over bridges, as it passes rivers. Now this is a papal insignia, because the walls often fell into a state of disrepair. So various popes, this is Pope Sixtus, the 10th, repaired the walls. And if he repaired the walls, he would put his papal insignia on it. There you can see, he was connected to the Borgias. The Fleur-de-lis is within that. So he was from the Borgias particularly, just go backward, thank you. And you can see, slightly worn, but you can see the papal crown at the top.

But the stonework has been worned by the winds of time. But that’s the triple papal crown on top. Let’s move on. And you can see more fortifications. And here, the wall becomes a home. There is someone’s house, built into the wall. And if you walk up those steps of the house, let’s move on to the next picture, you would come into this courtyard. Now you see the other side of the wall. So, this is the back of the Aurelian Wall, that has become a small palace in the Renaissance period, buttress by mediaeval buttresses to just support the wall, which might have collapsed, and it became a mediaeval residence. You see this all over Rome and I’ll be showing you more of those residences, very shortly. Let’s move on. And we follow the wall to this. The grandest of all of all the gates, Porta San Sebastiano. Saint Sebastian was martyred around about 80 to 55. You might have seen in art galleries all over the world and so on, the pictures of the death of San Sebastian, although it’s slightly inaccurate, he’s always shown covered with arrows, he was pierced a thousand times with arrows. That is how Diocletian sentenced him to death. But in fact, the tradition is, he was in fact saved by a miracle and by St. Irene. And in fact the Romans who found that she had saved him, then finished him off by clubbing him to death. This is meant to be the site where San Sebastian was martyred. So, it’s the gate of San Sebastiano and it leads out straight away into the Appian Way, which I showed last week or last time we met. If you remember that glorious straight road that goes, the Via Appia, named after the Consul Appia, that goes all the way from Rome, all the way down to Brindisi, that absolute original of Roman roads. But it’s a wonderful, magnificent gate. Look at the bottom part, really fine limestone. Then a second set of stones on top and then these rounded towers.

This is a powerful structure. Now this also houses, if we go to the next picture, the Museum of the Wall, which is a free museum. There is the back of the wall. Look at the power of this structure. And if we go closer up, you will see in the next picture, to a banner for claiming, oh, sorry, back a picture, I’m sorry, Emily, you’ll see a banner on that picture, saying, the Museum of the Wall, the Museo delle Mura, and this is a fascinating museum, which explains the history of the walls of Rome and how the walls were built and what used they were put to. It’s open five days a week, in the mornings, strongly recommended. Once again, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I never see a soul there, just look at these scenes. I didn’t have to stand to wait for the roads to go quiet. There’s just nobody here. Yet, we are really quite close to the centre of Rome, but nobody seems to pay much attention to this miraculous survivor, the Aurelian Walls. Let’s move on. And now you get an idea of the isolation of these walls, but they are absolutely touching the centre of Rome. I mentioned to you, 383 towers, there are some of them, every 30 metres. So, you had a group of Romans, who would look out on all sides, looking for vandals and barbarians who were coming from the north. And you can therefore get an idea, how the Roman citizens, who’d come used to, for centuries, not having to have walls around them. You can now see how, politically, this actually weakened the Roman emperors by building walls. They were tantamount to admitting that Rome had to be protected.

The golden age of Rome had come to an end. Now they didn’t know that at the time. We now know that retrospectively, that the Aurelian Walls, although were built over a very short period of time, four years, 271 to 275, they, in effect, were the beginning of the very slow decline of the Imperial Rome. Because once Rome had to protect itself by such things, it meant that they were threatened. So, we now know what these walls meant. Let’s now have a look through at some of these remarkable pictures, because they show the isolation of these walls and the grandeur of the walls. There is one of the towers, close up. I took this in high summer, parched grass. Let’s carry on, please. We can go through them quite quickly. Now, I took that picture, sorry, I said quite quickly and now I’m saying, go back one. Sorry Emily. I took that picture, ‘cause I just wanted to give you a sense of the size of these walls. Just look at this, look at the length of them. I had to wait about three minutes for a car to pass, but there it did, I was patient, and that really gives you a sense of proportions as to what these walls look like. Now, let’s move on. And you can see, as I walked around, look at the power of these structures and the next one, and the next one, I wanted to get a cyclist, because I wanted you to see a human next to these walls. There again, the power of these structures. Just look at these things, really, really powerful things that served their purpose. And the walls bend round, look at the crenulations along the top. And again, please, Emily, thank you. Again, empty roads.

And again, papal insignias at the top, restoring the walls in the 16th century and our cyclist is soon to come. There he is, tremendous structures, these walls. And again, please, the next one and the next one. So, you really get a sense of how extensive these walls are and how alone you are when you circumnavigate these walls. And sometimes, if you go onto the next pictures, the walls will almost dip into countryside. So, there we see, the walls are, although they’re on the edge of the centre of Rome, let’s move on to the next picture. You’ll see, all of a sudden, a group of sheep will come wandering. Now, just to give you a sense of where I am, just go to the next picture. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of myself with these sheep, because it was so unexpected. And to the next one, if I walked from that spot, where I was with this sheep, on a blistering summers day in Rome, the walk from there to Termini railway station would’ve taken me half an hour. The cycle would’ve taken me 12 minutes. Yet, there you are, in almost open countryside, with a flock of sheep wandering around the outsides of a 1500-year-old wall. Such is Rome. It’s a city of such tremendous juxtapositions. Let’s move on around those walls. And we go through the Porta Latina, and that gate leads out to the old Via Latina, which leads out in the end and joins the Appian Way. Okay, carrying on around the walls, and around, we still go, gets a bit busier, because now we’re coming to the equivalent of an A-road and now into a neighbourhood. Look at the buildings on the right.

This is a pretty regular Roman neighbourhood, not poor, not rich, a middle class neighbourhood. And the residents there live opposite the walls. Absolutely remarkable. If we move on again, we go through another gate into now the centre of Rome. So now in a sense, that sense of isolation, that wonderful sense that you’ve been, although you are so close to centre Rome, you’ve had an adventure. You’ve walked around the most extensive surviving wall from the ancient world, that you can possibly see anywhere. And now, you come in from that silence of those kilometre after kilometre of walls, in through and into the bustling centre of Rome. Let’s go in through the gates and let’s have a look at what greets you through these gates because you go through these triple gates as you can see, again, simple, quite powerful stuff as you can see. And let’s keep moving in and you will see that you come to this. Now, I showed you this at the very beginning. Now, I’m going to show you it much closer up. This is really remarkable, because this is Porta Maggiore, meaning the major gate. And what you have here, is a piece of Servian Wall. Look at the left-hand arch on the picture. That is Servian Wall, sixth century B.C., and built upon that, you have the Aurelian Wall. But then you have this beautiful triple-decker aqueduct, built on top of those walls. So important was the flow of water to ancient Rome, that they actually built some of the aqueducts on top of the walls, to give them extra protection from attack. Because, of course in Rome, if the water source was stopped by invading armies, that was the end of the city.

It is estimated, and I’ll come and explain this a little bit more later, that the amount of water that the Romans used, was around about the same, the one million Romans used at the height of the empire, was more or less the same as 2.8 million Romans use to this day. That was the use of water in ancient Rome. I’m going to come back to that shortly. But there is this wonderful surviving example of the triple aqueduct. Let’s move on. And we now have a look through, straight on at that aqueduct. Look at that strange structure, to the right, with nine holes in it. That was the tomb of an extremely wealthy, a slave who got his freedom, became a baker, set up what we would now call, a chain of bakeries across Rome, And then all the way down to Brindisi, made his fortune and then commissioned a grave for himself in the shape of a baker’s oven. Isn’t it fantastic? So, he was buried within a structure that looked like a baker’s oven from that time. You might recall those people that tuned in to one of my fun lectures over last summer. I did quirky graves in London. If you didn’t see it, just ask and maybe the link for that lecture, it been recorded, can be sent to you. But it reminds me of some of the quirky graves in London that were built by the Georgians and the Victorians. They liked themed graves.

And here we have a Roman from 2000 years ago, who wanted to theme a grave, after what had made his fortune, baking. Fantastic. So, that is the triple aqueduct above Porta Maggiore. But Porta Maggiore is a very, very busy area. Let’s look at the next pictures. There’s trams and there’s markets. The trams are almost out of the art. This is a poor neighbourhood of Rome. Just look at that public transportation, very packed, very busy. Moving on to the next picture. You can see again, tram , very packed tram and to the next one, shows people selling their wares, I believe underneath, well, not yet, a further tram. The next one is selling their wares underneath the arches. And to the next one, please. And you can see, sitting on the tracks. And to the next one, there they are, just selling near the entrance. Quite a poor local Roman neighbourhood. And as I said, I was doing a circumnavigation of the walls. This is one of the many neighbourhoods I walked through. Let’s keep on going and let’s see where the walls then took me. It took me to this, the lowest part of the walls where it is in the worst possible shape. There is a Roman fountain. I pointed out some of those too, last time. But here you see another part of Rome, very, very different from the Rome that so many people get to see. Let’s go to the next picture, closer up of that view. Ancient Roman walls, a dumping ground for modern-day refugees, who wash their clothes and hang their clothes on the railings. And by the way, there’s a lot of homeless Romans, living around there as well. Quite a poor area of Rome. And the walls serve a purpose. They are using the walls for shelter, for washing.

I’ve seen them rub their washing against the walls, the bricks of the walls. Remarkable really, that these walls are still used by the poorest in Rome for practical purposes. Let’s move on. And the walls took me through another part. Let’s follow this round. And we come to this, the Praetorian forces. Now, who were the Praetorian Guard? Well, the Praetorian Guard, most people have heard the name, Praetorian Guard., but where does that word come from? Well, it comes from the word, the praetors. The praetors were a key rank of ancient Rome. They were part of the group of elected magistrates that ran ancient Rome on behalf of the republic, and on behalf of the consoles, two consoles ruling over Rome. The Praetorian Guard were named after them. And they became, in effect, the elite unit, guarding the Roman emperor. They were really important, and they became more and more important, as we moved from Republican Rome into Imperial Rome. Remember, Republican Rome was remarkably democratic, in many of the ways it ran itself. I talked about the Senate last time, but once we move into Imperial Rome, Rome revolved around a single person or group of people or family or dynasty, the Roman emperor. And then the Praetorian Guard became extremely important, because many Romans hated their emperors, because they felt that the emperors had corrupted the noble ideas of a republic. And many emperors were extremely nervous.

So, they had a Praetorian Guard that would protect them at all costs. But of course, the Praetorian Guards became so powerful that in the end, we have people like the satires juveniles who said, and I’ll read the words he said, but you’ll know what it means when I say it in English, who will guard against the guards themselves, because the Praetorian Guards became so powerful that they, themselves, became the threat to the citizens of Rome and therefore, they became disbanded in the end. But the really amazing thing about the Praetorian Guards, is this. Let’s go onto the next picture, because the fortress of the Praetorian Guard is still there. This is what they would’ve looked like. Let’s move on again, please. The fortress is still there. And even more remarkable, the fortress of the Praetorian Guard is still used by the Italian army today. This is the headquarters of the Italian Air Force within Rome. It’s a military zone. You can’t take photos inside, but you can take photos on the outside. Isn’t that just the embodiment of the idea that I was trying to convey last week or last time? And I hope that I conveyed, that SPQR, the whole idea of the Senate and the people of Rome and it continues on the drains and it continues on the actual municipal notices around Rome, that that conscious line of ancient Rome, Republican Rome, Imperial Rome, Byzantine Rome, all the way through to Rome of today, that continues, not only does it continue in the consciousness of Romans, it continues in the buildings. There were so many buildings of ancient Rome that are still used by the government today.

This being an absolute perfect example, I love this idea that you have the Praetorian Guard who were the upholders of that imperial period, still playing a part in the military of Italy today. Let’s move on. And you see another picture of the Praetorian fortress and moving on again, this is all part of the Aurelian Walls. And then you see trains trundling along the tops of walls. And the next pictures please, we can go through these now quite quickly. Trains are along the walls in a quiet neighbourhood. Houses next to the walls, more houses next to the walls. And then we’re going to see modern-day residences built within the walls. Look at the next picture coming up, which shows, hold it there, Emily. It shows a fan hanging outside of a window. Let’s go close up to the next picture, and you can see residences literally built into the walls of ancient Rome, modern-day residences, people living within those walls. And let’s move to the next one. Fantastic. I actually spoke to the owner of that flat, and they hang lots of things out of their windows, because they have a very small flat. So, they literally hang things out, so that they can use the room inside for living and the things they don’t need, they hang from outside. Look how many people live in that wall. These are not, by the way, poor people. This is now quite a wealthy neighbourhood. And these are, some of the residences within the walls are small, some are very large. The ones on the top are very large. Look at the shutters on the windows. 2000-year-old walls, 13 metres deep. Let’s move along. And we come almost to the end. There’s some more residences. Let’s keep moving through the pictures.

And we come now in through the gate, into Piazza del Popolo, one of the great piazzas of Rome. I ended off the lecture last week, looking at obelisks and one of them, to the next picture, please, was the obelisk in Piazza del Popolo. And there it is, going into Popolo. Look at that magnificent gate within the walls, a Renaissance gate within a Roman-period wall. And in, to the next picture, please. And here you see that wonderful juxtaposition that you see all over Rome, a, I dunno when the building was built, I would’ve thought, looking at it, very early to mid nineties, right next to a Roma wall, the next picture shows it even stronger, to the next one, please. Going through that and now up to almost finishing my circuit near the pyramid, carrying on round again and again, please, I was very proud of myself. I’d cycled 20 kilometres in a day and to the next one, because these walls, of course, served a purpose to protect Rome. There was the end of my circuit where I started, and now to the final two brief sections that I wanted to take you to, because these walls served a purpose and they served the purpose of protecting the water supply and the people of Rome. And the aqueducts formed four main purposes for Romans. Number one, they supplied the water for the baths of Rome, the public baths. Number two, for the latrines. Number three, for the fountains of Roman, and number four, for the private households. These aqueducts were 11 in total, 11 aqueducts that supplied water to one million Romans at the height of empire. And they were constructed between the third century B.C. and the second century A.D.

When you think about it, 11 aqueducts, all built over many tens of miles and all built at a very, very gradual gradient, so that the water could go floating down effortlessly. It was an incredible feat of engineering. The key to it was concrete. Let’s have a look at what an aqueduct is. We’ve seen pictures of 'em before, the Servian aqueduct in Spain. Let’s move on and look at some other Roman aqueducts, through the empire. Wonderful one in southern France. And then there’s a couple in Istanbul. Fantastic. Look at this one. And the Aqueduct of Valens in Istanbul. Look at the size of that. Now let’s go onto the next pictures of aqueducts. That picture was taken in the 1930s. It was a whole confluence of aqueducts. It was demolished by Mussolini, because remember, Mussolini, whom I’ll get to in lecture four or five, Mussolini wanted to stress, for obvious reasons, the imperial period of Rome, not the republican period. And he literally levelled huge parts of Republican Rome. So, he destroyed most of these aqueducts. They survived 2000 years and Mussolini levelled many of them. These are, as you can see there, two of the 11 aqueducts that crisscross Rome. Remarkable things. Let’s have a look at the ruins of the aqueducts today, which are very beautiful. This is the park of the aqueducts, as you can see. And moving on again, gorgeous. Places you can wander around. Normally, there’s very few people there and keep on moving through them. And the key to these aqueducts, as I’ve mentioned before, was concrete, made out of, one, cement round about 10 to 15%, two, water, 15 to 20%. And number three, the actual aggregate thrown in, whatever it will be, the rocks.

Now, the key Roman ingredient was Pozzolanas, volcanic rock that the Romans would get, all the way from Naples and send all over the Roman empire. It was extremely, extremely waterproof. And that’s what the Romans discovered. So, unlike other rocks that they experimented with, the Pozzolanas rock was very highly waterproof. And in fact, there are some parts of Roman sewage and aqueduct systems to this day, that are still using the Pozzolanas rock that they lined the aqueducts with 2000 years ago. So waterproof is it, that it’s still effective 2000 years since being installed. That was the key to the success of these aqueducts, not just the use of concrete, but the particular Roman type of concrete, using that type of rock. Okay, let’s move on, because of course these aqueducts, they have a lovely picture I found from the net there, that’s showing the gradients and showing how the water flowed. And let’s move on, the triple aqueduct as shown before. And to the next one and to the next one, and lovely little cross section, showing how the water would pass, serving different parts of Rome, the water would blanche off later on, and to the next, because these aqueducts, now to our final section, of course, supplied what Rome is perhaps most famous for, from the point of view of public services. And that is the fountains of ancient Rome, or the fountains of Rome as we know it. But they are the fountains of ancient Rome, because, although most of the fountains in Rome that we now see, were built in the Renaissance period and the mediaeval period, and even a little bit further, the place of those fountains have been there for 2000 years.

Those fountains such as Trevi, there has been a fountain at that site for 2000 years. Let’s have a look at some of these fountains and we will start off, indeed, with the most famous of them all, the Trevi fountain. Now, this was restored in 2013. The current structure was built, yep, once again by Pope Sixtus, who funded this. And it was designed by Nicola, the architect, 1762. But the actual fountain itself, comes from springs that have been there for 2000 years. The very word Trevi, itself, comes from the idea of tri-vi-ri-um, the junction of three roads, because you had three roads, carrying three springs and three aqueducts, the aqueduct of Virgine, the aqueduct of Virgo, and the aqueduct of Agrippa. These three aqueducts came together, because there was a huge Roman camp on this site, and the Roman soldiers needed water. So, therefore, they had this triple aqueduct, bringing water in, where the Romans could bathe and drink and sustain themselves. That’s where we get the word, the Trevi fountain from. Let’s move on and we’ll look at some of these other fantastic fountains. Here we have, the next one is Piazza Farnese, which is where the French embassy is based, Now, the reason I took this picture, is, look at that wonderful, the fountain is coming up from a spring and the fountain is falling into this huge bronze bowl, which was used 2000 years ago in the Baths of Caracalla. Only in Rome would you walk into a square, you’d see the fountain delivering water into a 2000-year old bathtub. There it is, in glorious blondes, brought from Caracalla, first to the Vatican, and then moved from the Vatican to here, around about 400 years ago. You’ll see another view of this to follow now, and you can see, you can really get a sense of the size of it. That was my bike. I was cycling around that day.

There’s a dust bin next to it. Look at the size of this. So, you would’ve had about a dozen Romans bathing in that huge tub, 2000 years ago. And there you can just see, ah, I mentioned it was the home of the French Embassy. There is the French flag on the right hand side, a very, very beautiful square, Piazza Farnese. The next Piazza. Let’s just go to this fantastic fountain. There it is. The fountain of Moses, the terminus of the Acqua Felice, one of the great aqueducts of ancient Rome. And this was designed by, again, a variety of architects. Let’s get a closeup of that. Piazza San Bernardo, one of my favourite piazzas in Rome. And look at the size of this. Once again, a 16th, 17th century Renaissance-period fountain, but built upon a fountain that had been there before. There has, for 2000 years, been a fountain on that site. Moving on very quickly to the last few pictures of other fountains in Rome, a fountain with no name, to my knowledge, but very beautiful. And look at it again, another little Roman, a bathtub brought in from a Roman bath, unnamed, under a fountain. The water is as fresh as anything, you can just fill up. The only money I ever spend in Rome on drink, is when I arrive there, I buy one bottle of water and then I just drink that bottle. And then I just use the empty bottle and use the fountains in Rome. The water is as fresh and as fragrant as ever. So, I only ever buy one bottle of water at the beginning and then keep refilling it from natural water. Look at these beautiful fountains. Now, the reason I took these, is that these are Roman sarcophagi, that once contained a body. They’re now used as the containers for fountains, working fountains around Rome. Carrying on through the pictures. Beautiful fountains. This is quite a famous one.

This is a little fountain of the water cellars. It’s a mediaeval fountain. There he is. There’s this natural spring coming up. You could spend the whole of your summer, just taking photographs of fountains in Rome. And just carrying on through the last few pictures. The fountain of the turtles, Fontana dell'Acqua Paola. It’s a wonderful thing, a closeup of these turtles. You’ll show, it’s again, a mediaeval, late Renaissance period, the humour. Here we have a hand, the hand of one of the nymphs, saving the turtle from drowning in its own water and throwing the turtle up into the fountain. There’s eight of these turtles, if memory serve me correctly, it’s right close to the Jewish ghetto. It’s a beautiful, beautiful fountain. So delicate and refined in its bronze sculpturing. And just moving on, again, a little garden with a little fountain. And again, please, and again, please, and we’ll end up on this one, because this is where we’re going to start, not in the next lecture, but in two lectures’ time. This is the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, known as the Big Fountain. It’s on top of the Janiculum Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, and it was built in 1585 to 1588. It was built out of stones from the temple of Minerva, just behind where those trees are. So, it was reconstituted stone, put to secondary use. It was built from the temple of wisdom. It has a wonderful story attached, which I’ll come to, when I deliver that lecture, but for now, I thank you. I’ll take questions. What we’ve looked at today are the walls and the aqueducts of the fountains of Rome, all utterly essential to the functioning of Rome as a great republican and imperial city. So, going on to questions, I will now move on to those. I can see them there.

Q&A and Comments:

Yes, indeed, Sandy, “their concrete lasted "and poor Turkey in this day and age, don’t.” Indeed, what more to be said than that. I mean, Roman concrete was a remarkable discovery. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. In my opinion, if one was forced to select the most important single thing that explains the success of the Roman Empire, it was the invention of the particular Roman type of concrete, which was so effective. Indeed, “Roma Urbs as in urban,” yes.

Q: “Do the walls need maintenance?”

A: They do need maintenance, of course, and the municipality spends quite a lot on them. But they are powerful structures that sort of, I mean, I don’t want to downplay the fact that they do need maintenance, but they do look after themselves as well. That said, remember that Rome is built upon masses and masses of catacombs, because those million Romans were buried in catacombs. Rome must be the only municipality in the world that has a full-blown, fully-manned, 100% fully-funded department of sinkholes. Because sinkholes occur quite frequently in Rome. Most of them aren’t vast. Most of ‘em don’t kill anyone, but they happen, because Rome is this massive honeycomb of catacombs and temples and so on. All the time, new catacombs are being found. And all the time, when new constructions are made, they find catacombs, they rediscover them. So walls do need maintenance. Rome needs maintenance. The whole of Rome is a honeycomb of sinkholes and many of them are underneath the walls. So, yes indeed.

Q: “Why do we not see graffiti anywhere on the walls "as we would do in the USA?”

A: Well, Mark, now how can I put it? I wouldn’t be too romantic about the absence of graffiti, 'cause Rome has a massive graffiti problem. But think of the word graffiti. Graffiti is a Latin word. Graffiti is an ancient Roman tradition. There was a tradition in ancient Rome, that the citizens of Rome would voice their concern and would voice their angst and would voice their anger, particularly during the imperial period, at how they were being governed. And graffiti was a one of those apparatuses that the locals use. So, Rome actually does have a huge graffiti problem. But most graffiti artists, not want to put words in their mouth, but most graffiti artists put graffiti up because they want to publicise something. The walls, as you saw, are hardly visited by anyone. I circumnavigated those 20 kilometres of walls, seeing not many people. So, what self-respecting graffiti artist is going to go to all the trouble of putting graffiti on those walls, when hardly anybody’s going to see it? But, if you go to inner-city Rome, it is covered in graffiti, as is every Italian town. Now, I said Rome has a graffiti problem. Of course, many Romans see graffiti as part of an ancient Roman tradition. So, it depends which way you look at it. I hope that part answers your question, Mark.

Q: “What is the purpose of the metal gates outside the walls "in the poor immigrant area? "Why were they built?”

A: They were built to try to protect the walls from immigrants, building encampments upon those walls or next to the walls. That is why they were put there.

Q: “What does the word Praetoria means?

A: It comes on praetor. And praetor was a particular rank of magistrates. There were many ranks of magistrates. So praetors were one of the types of magistrates at that time, and that’s where it comes from. So, it was from a small group of people who were called the praetors, who eventually became a self-perpetuating group of people, who eventually were then selected by later Roman emperors, I’m talking centuries later, to be their elite guards. I hope that clarifies.

Q: "Did people hollow out the ancient walls, "in order to make modern flats inside?”

A: Indeed, they did. But remember, many of the ancient walls were hollow, anyway, because you had Roman soldiers garrisoned within the walls, not just upon the walls. So, within those walls, there were many corridors and fortresses, where the Roman soldiers lived themselves. Roman soldiers will be stationed on those walls for two years at a time. A Roman soldier would leave his family for two years, be stationed on the wall. See, he would live in that wall for two-years time, spending some time above, some time below, within it. And we’re moving on to the questions.

Q: “Were the walls solid initially, "then in modern times, hollowed out?”

A: I think I gave the answer to that. Yes, some of them were solid, but most of them were not. Most of them were absolutely honeycombs. I’ll use that word again. Honeycomb with corridors, rooms, store rooms, fortresses, prisons, astronomical equipment, zoos, museums at the time, writing places, libraries, the walls were used for all types of purposes.

Calan, “Rome has to be the place to study architecture.” Well, it’s one of the places, but did you watch my series on Cairo? Because I would say, Cairo has the most amazing architectural heritage, Fe-ro-nic, Coptic, Ottoman, Crusader, Fatimid, U-ba-jad, Ab-ba-sit, Mamluk. So, I would say Cairo is one of the places to study architecture, too. So, there’s lots of other claims to that, as well. But Calan, I do agree with you, Rome is pretty darn good for studying architecture, yes.

Q: “Have the various earthquakes in Turkey "damaged the aqueducts?”

A: I am not aware that they have, but I’m not sure.

Nanette, “amazing how, without modern technology, "those buildings, bridges, lasted such a long time.” Indeed.

Q: “Who did the actual labour on these walls?”

A: Brenda, depends, the walls are built over a long period of time and sometimes slaves, sometimes professionals, sometimes hard labour, mercenary labour for other parts of the empire. It depends. Remember, we’re talking about an empire that spanned from approximately 500 B.C. to 500 A.D. So, a thousand-year empire, there were different principles of building, as the empire progressed.

Q: “What was the source of the water for the aqueducts?”

A: The hills, the al-ban hills, and the many other hills around Rome. If you stand in any high point in Rome, you will see the hills. These were the ancient tribes of Rome before ancient Rome. So, it was hills and all the springs that come from the hills.

Yoland, no, I haven’t covered the Jewish ghetto already. Not forthcoming, actually, because I do believe there’s something else in Lockdown on the Jewish ghetto, the ghettos of Venice and other places.

Q: Shelly, “what was the Aurelian Walls made of? "What kind of centre was it?”

A: Concrete mixture, it was mainly stone, but with concrete interiors. The stone was limestone and also some volcanic stone, as well.

Q: “Where does the water go from these fountains?”

A: Back into the systems, from the fountains, back into the draining systems and is, in effect, recirculated.

Q: “Where did the water of the aqueducts originate?”

A: Think I’ve just answered that.

Q: “Do the Roman walls have anything in common "with the Great Wall of China?”

A: There’s a question. In the sense that they were built to protect, yes. In the sense that they were garrisoned, yes, but I’d have to think further about other things that they have in common. They’re much, much older than the Great Wall of China.

Q: Judy, “the large arches in the walls, "were they originally filled with wooden gates "to keep out foreigners, or were they always empty, "the way they are now?”

A: Oh, absolutely filled, sometimes with wooden gates, later with bronze gates. And we know that those bronze gates weighed many tens of tonnes. But we know that such was the brilliance of Roman engineering, that you could push those bronze gates open, with a single finger on a single hand, because they were hung perfect. Was it hanged or hung? I can never remember the grammar. They were hung or hanged, perfectly, on massive ball bearings, that allowed them to be opened and closed with huge ease.

Q: “Is there a lot of difference” Yoland asked, “between the walls of the various cities?”

A: My words, yes, that could be lecture in itself. The walls of Jerusalem, Istanbul, the walls of Jerusalem were built from 1552 to 1558. The walls of Istanbul are Ottoman period, so they’re much more modern, although they do have some Roman parts, from the time of Theodosius, the walls of Cairo, many, Fatimid period from 10th, 11th period. So, these Roman war I’ve shown you, are the most ancient walls that I have discussed in my various tours, so far, on Lockdown University.

Q: “Are the Vatican Walls modelled on the on the Aurelian Walls?

A: Well, they’re not only modelled on them, the Aurelian Walls envelop the Vatican walls, in fact, so, the Vatican walls are taken in by the Aurelian Walls.

Q: "Were the fountains intended "to be a source of drinking water for aesthetics?”

A: No, absolutely, drinking for drinking purposes. But Rome has a wonderful tradition of aesthetics. So therefore, if you’re going to give people water, do it in a beautiful way. And that continues to this day.

Gerald, thank you so much. You say here, “I understand the "concrete got lost, only came back into use "in the late 19th century.” Correct, although there is some debate about the different types of concretes that the Romans use.

Q: “Do current apartment residents "actually have ownership of these historic edifices? "Do they simply rent and the state owns?”

A: Mixture of the two. In answer to your question, Mark.

And I think I’ve successfully answered all the questions. Emily, as always, thank you for turning the pictures. I’m going to see you all, next Tuesday evening, when we are looking into a very, very different Rome, the Rome of the period of the Byzantines. Thank you all very much and have a good few days between now and then. Bye.