What has become of them?

"First I visited peoples who exist no more. I went and sat among the ruins of Rome and Greece, those countries of virile and brilliant memory, where palaces are buried in the dust and royal mausoleums hidden beneath the brambles."

It was amazing to me to read that in a short story and then be able to re-live my own traveling experiences.

There is something majestic and proud, and yet, deeply saddening about the ancient ruins of a great people. You wonder if they knew there would come a time when their mighty pillars would crack and crumble. Instead of their cities and citadels being the center of the Western world, it becomes a mere tourist center.

Even though I’ve only been once, I’ll never forget Rome; Rome with its massive columns, great ancient churches, and magnificent ruins.

Every time I remember Rome, I remember it with extreme diffusions of light. The morning sun shone directly in our faces as we mounted the steps to the Museo.


The same sun cast its illuminating rays on the ruins of the Roman forum directly behind the Museo. Proud ruins they were. Not beaten and bent over with age and wear, but tall and erect. Looking just as if nothing had been lost over two thousand years of standing there.

The forum was the very center of Rome. It was the place to go if you wanted food, company, or news; the market-place of the world where people, things, and ideas were bought and sold.


I always remember the Piazza Novanna at nightfall. The three fountains, the high buildings in the square that arose like walls with eyes out of the cobbled road, and the gypsies and artists lent an air of that which is modernly ancient. The nighttime sky was so very close though, to all of the slow activity in the Piazza.

(Ok and yes. If I get to pick, and if it’s possible, I’d love to spend two days of my honeymoon in Rome and the rest of my time in Siena, Italy.)

"O power of nature and weakness of man! A blade of grass will pierce through the hardest marble of these tombs, while their weight can never be lifted by all these mighty dead!"

How ironic it is that man can trample the grass so carelessly, but in the end, all that’s left behind is destroyed by yes, a single blade of grass. Despite all that the Romans worked for, achieved, and enjoyed, all that remains of them are what you see in these pictures. All things great and small, from the Forum and the Coloseum, to the fountains and small hill towns.

Ruins.

What has become of those figures whose fame was so widespread?

Time has taken a step and the face of the earth has been made over.


When you have a bit of time, I highly recommend "Rene", by Chateaubriand.


And no, it’s very far from just a good steak.