The key is to research thoroughly and be prepared then just do it! Yes, Rome , like many popular destinations can be very crowded and busy, especially during the summer months. This is why for some number of years now we have preferred to make our visits during the winder off peak season.
Also, the streets are not the cleanest in the world but its not that bad. You can visit places anywhere in the world and find some rather dirty that need to be cleaned. We have some real stinkers here in Asia that actually make Rome and most other Italian streets seem rather clean. Further, there are gypsies, homeless and pick-pockets on the streets.
But its not like they are in massive gangs chasing down tourists or anything like that. In fact, we've only been slightly bothered probably two or three times in our dozen or so trips to Rome over the years.
In all cases, simply walking past and not acknowledging them, showing that we are on our guard has resulted in our having zero trouble. In fact, I don't believe we have ever felt like we were in danger or in an unsafe situation while in Rome. Which is not something I can honestly say about other western cities, particularly in North America. Basically, if you travel prudently and act wisely just like you would back home you shouldn't have any trouble in Rome.
In the end, Rome is a marvelous city to visit and I do hope you are able to put your travel fears aside so that you can enjoy a visit here.
It really is one of those classic destinations to visit. I am not a city lover and prefer the country but I have been in Rome twice. Yes there are beggars, people hawking all sorts of goods, pickpockets, graffiti, old buidlings, uneven pavement, but also there is a picture at every turn, history, history, history. Honking horns, road rage, people walking against the red lights at crossings, drivers not giving the pedestrian the right to cross the crossing, heaps of tourists that inundate this city daily If you stand your ground, be alert and aware of your surroundings, say no when you want to and mean it, you will end up really enjoying this wonderful city.
Having just got back from a wonderful trip to Rome I can say that everything you have read is true but the charm and beauty of the place far outweighs the negative points. We felt perfectly safe all of the time and, although it may have been the time of year October the crowds, beggars and street hawkers were nowhere near as annoying as those in other places we have visited. In fact I joked to my wife that I thought I could give them a few lessons!
A couple of other points; all of the prices have gone up compared to the guidebooks we have. Standard entry to sites is now a lot more than our recent guidebooks suggested, almost double in some cases :o. Same goes for food prices; they vary hugely so if you're on a budget do your research, seek out supermarkets and bakers where the locals go for cheap meals and snacks.
Makes a lot of difference and is much more fun! You will save hours of waiting in line. For the Colosseum book the 3rd tier and underground tour - it's superb! I liked Italian culture and was open to opportunities in various cities. Rome just happened. Italians always say that to visit and to live in Italy are two different things.
They are right. I prefer to live here versus making random trips. All the arguments about the collapsing economy and low salaries are relevant, but not the critical aspect of my happiness. It is perfect.
Maybe a bit rainy in March and too hot in July — August, but overall, excellent. In March it rains for a few hours per day, and then the sun pops out again. One thing which I have learnt in Rome — at weekends instead of a long sleep until late morning, it makes much more sense to wake up early and take a nap at midday.
The siesta is a smart tradition in hot climate zones. For me, Rome and Venice are the most beautiful cities in the world. If nothing else, those narrow old streets with boutique shops on the ground floor, colourful flowers tumbling down from the balconies, and another Michelangelo sculpture waving from a distance, inspire me every day.
Just yesterday, people were chilling out leaning against the ancient statues, and nobody bothered if a dog drank from a fountain.
Adriano has shown me videos on YouTube, of how all the football fans jumped into the Trevi fountain when their team became the World champions. As people say, it is like living in an open-air museum.
After three years I am still overwhelmed by it. I am surprised in a very positive way how free, expressive and emotional people allow themselves to be. One minute they fight, the next, they shake hands and go for a coffee together.
People laugh and cry on the streets. Nobody harbours bad feelings for more than a few minutes. They come, and they go with fireworks. Sometimes service staff in restaurants or shops may appear rude. But I see them simply as sincere and emotionally honest. They do not smile just because a marketing manager has told them to do so.
One of the cultural differences I find in Rome, compared to many other Western countries, is that people complain a lot. Sometimes to complete strangers. Complaining in Rome is just a way to start a discussion, nobody really asks you to solve a problem, and in many cases they have zero willingness to act on it.
Just show sympathy and complain together. Ha, ha! Dean of Academic Affairs. Sign in. Log into your account. Forgot your password? Get help. Register your account. Forget Password. Friday, 12 November Italy's news in English. Wanted in Rome. All Images of the day Video of the day. Classifieds categories. Main sections. See top classifieds categories. See all top Yellow Pages categories. See all news categories. The most common attraction was the fight of man versus beast.
Often large cats did the trick. But the elite who threw these games — those who produced the games were called the editor — needed to be careful as to what they chose. The great general Pompey notoriously botched one such event by bringing 17 or 20 elephants into the arena for one of his shows.
The elephants were brought out one by one while men hurled spears into the beast. But the elephant put up a tremendous fight, using its trunk to smash their shields in the air even while it was crawling on its knees. The other elephants, watching behind iron gates to wait their turn, roared and butted their heads against their cage, then wailed in despair when they couldn't break through.
The crowd turned on Pompey, jeering and cursing him. These games could sway public opinion of an editor, so creating the best possible spectacle was important. The games were one of the main places that the true voice of the people could be heard en masse. The gladiator games were structured with animal fights during the morning this could be animal vs. The games included a good deal of theatrics, one of the coolest being huge underground lifts and trap doors, which would carry up exotic beasts.
Alison Futrell in "The Roman Games" theorizes that the editor would make some kind of distraction, causing the crowd to look another way while an animal was being produced from below. When the audience looked back to the arena floor, it would seem like the beast came from nowhere. There were about two dozen types of gladiators, with each one wearing specific armor and wielding certain weapons. The most iconic gladiator is the murmillo, who wore a nautical-style helmet, a gladius and a tall shield.
But if you think about it, wearing that helmet its official name is the cassis crista is completely nonsensical. It was never used in actual military combat, anywhere. This armor wasn't entirely for show. The leather and bronze did offer protection, but the armor was not primarily designed to keep the wearer safe, as it was in the Roman army. People have long speculated whether or not the games were fixed.
We're not entirely sure, but it seems that they usually weren't. If any Roman thought the games were fixed, they would do well to keep that to themselves. The emperor Domintan, upon hearing someone in the crowd claim the games were rigged, had the man thrown into the arena and torn apart by wild dogs. We do know that gladiators were trained in a way to deal and parry specific blows in what was essentially gladiator school. This could, in effect, produce a series of strikes and counter-strikes that would look awesome to the crowd, but were not done just to harm the opponent.
We do know for sure that gladiators fought and died on the Colosseum floor. During gladiator school, the fighters were trained to properly deal a lethal blow and how to properly take one. After a bloody battle, if a gladiator were too injured to continue and the editor called for the final blow, he would steel his face and not flinch, waiting for the blade or spear to enter his heart.
However, gladiators were an investment. They weren't always killed in combat, but it certainly happened. One historian, George Villes, estimated that out of bouts, there would be 19 fatalities.
Villes also believes that these odds became even worse for gladiator mortality in the second and third centuries, with gladiator death rates climbing to 25 percent. The film "Gladiator" made famous the thumbs-down gesture which would seal a gladiator's fate. In the movie, when combat was finished, with one man on the ground, the gladiators dramatically turn to the game's sponsor in the movie's case, the emperor Commodus , waiting for a thumbs down or thumbs up, with a thumbs up meaning the man was spared.
In real life, the fallen gladiator would "raise a finger as a sign of submission," according to Ryan. The referee — yes, there were referees — would stop the fight. The crowd would cheer for what fate they wanted to see, so you'd be either actively calling for the death of someone or for their life to be spared.
The editor which in Rome was often the emperor, notes Ryan would then either give the thumbs-down signal or extend two fingers for mercy. Today, some movies are given enormous advertising budgets, with some production companies shelling out millions for billboards and life-sized cardboard cutouts to hock their latest flick. The gladiator games did the same kind of thing 2, years ago. When an emperor or editor really wanted to make a splash, they would have full-sized murals of famous gladiators painted on walls and pass written advertisements out to the populace.
And these advertisements might also mention some amenities, like sun-shielding awnings, to attract more visitors, according to Ryan. But that's not all. The emperor Augustus once "displayed crocodiles and their handlers in a specially designed enclosure to advertise his games," says Ryan. The night before the games, the editor would host a feast for the gladiators for the public, and the fighters would gorge on what may be their last meal. Like a blockbuster film, the games were insanely expensive.
Caesar spent lavishly on games to finance his political career. In that respect, they could be seen as massive rallies. Here's what Plutarch had to say in "Caesar":. Caesar's games were monumental spectacles. During one spectacle, Caesar outfitted gladiators with silver armor and had them "fighting in a single combat," according to Plutarch. And of course, importing all those animals from Africa — including poor giraffes, which nearly always died before boats reached Rome's shore — was incredibly expensive.
There were other reasons to throw games as well. The games were often thrown by the elite not just for a reputation boost, but also to honor a dead relative. While there was no official obligation to do so, many plutocrats went deep into debt financing these games. But if you were a pleb, at least you had some entertainment at their expense. From this instance, we can infer that Caesar was millions of dollars in debt by the time he ascended to emperor. Those midday executions needed a steady supply of warm bodies, but luckily Rome was full of terrible people.
Ryan says the people found sentenced to death in the arena would be "the lowest of the low — slaves, barbarians and dregs of the criminal underworld. There were several ways to kill a man in the arena. Damnatio ad bestias , or death by wild beasts, was one method, although it probably wasn't too common, says Ryan. Exotic animals "were expensive and didn't always cooperate," he says, which could make for a poor show.
Some men were thrown unarmed or poorly armed into the arena to "fight" gladiators to the death. Others may find themselves condemned to gladiator school, where they would meet their fate in the arena longer down the road, or leave mutilated and scarred after earning their freedom. While gladiators could become famous, they were social outcasts.
Being a gladiator meant giving up freedom. You were enslaved to the lanista, the person who purchased and managed gladiators. You gave an oath and surrendered your body to the lanista, allowing them to subject you to grueling and painful training.
The lanista told you where to go, what to do, where to eat and when to do so. Most gladiators were criminals or slaves, but some entered the schools as free men.
It's not impossible to see why some men would take this path, especially if they were already wholly destitute. The most successful gladiators became living legends and had murals painted of them, poems written about them, and a much wider selection of women or men to choose from.
While gladiators earned money for their fights, some free men actually declined pay, which helped preserve their dignity and some of their social status. While the idea of gladiators is romantic, in reality, it was absolutely terrifying. Some chose suicide rather than give their lives to pleasure a bloodthirsty crowd.
Because of this, and also because gladiators would try to escape, guards watched gladiators at all times — except when they went to the bathroom.
There is one recorded case of a gladiator going to the toilets, grabbing the communal toilet sponge, and stuffing it down his throat until he choked to death.
Cut off from resources on every hand, he yet found a way to furnish himself with death, and with a weapon for death. Hence you can understand that nothing but the will need postpone death.
Let each man judge the deed of this most zealous fellow as he likes, provided we agree on this point — that the foulest death is preferable to the fairest slavery. While it was uncommon for women to enter into the Roman games, there is evidence of it happening.
Martial appears to write about a female fighter killing a lion during one of Caesar's games, while the emperor Domitian had women fight under torchlight in one of his spectacles. However, the Roman emperor Septimus Severus, who ruled from to A. While great gladiators became rich and famous, so too did great chariot drivers. Chariot racing was the most popular sport of the Romans. There were four chariot-racing teams: green, white, blue and red. Each team had their own fanatical fans who gathered together in the stands to cheer on their team, just like modern-day sports.
A typical race consisted of 12 chariots with three chariots to a team. These chariots were typically pulled by four horses and had one driver, although some chariots had two drivers, and sometimes a spectacular chariot with 10 horses would make an appearance. The most popular seats were near the sharpest turn, a place where chariot racers had the highest likelihood of spills and crashes, which the Romans called "shipwrecks.
In Rome, all of this took place in the great Circus Maximus, which was greatly expanded by Julius Caesar during his reign and could hold , to , spectators. Good chariot racers would be rewarded with a share of the purse from their respective team. Like gladiators, most chariot drivers were slaves.
But the money was much better, which is why some manumitted slaves kept racing. More people bet on chariot racing, allowing chariot racers to also gamble on the winnings.
One chariot racer, Scorpus, made "15 heavy bags of gold" in one hour, according to Martial in his "Epigrams. The best chariot racers wouldn't just stick around on one team.
They would move between teams, racking up victories for each color. The red and white teams eventually emerged as the most prestigious racing companies and could afford the best chariot drivers. Caesar, always looking to keep the Roman public impressed with his games, created the first "mock' naval battle, the naumachia, in 46 B.
But it wasn't really a mock battle. The encapsulated war was very real. The first naumachia was an enormous event and heavily advertised, with people coming from all over Italy to attend.
An artificial lake was excavated for this battle, requiring enormous amounts of manpower and water. When game day finally came, so many people showed up to the artificial lake in the Campus Martius that two senators were crushed by the crowd. This battle was fought with fleets of ships powered by 4, oarsmen with 1, men fighting on each side. The men sent to fight in these battles were prisoners of war and men condemned to death. Here, though, they may have had a fighting chance, as the convicted were likely released from their death sentence.
Over a century later, emperor Claudius staged a sea battle with 19, fighters and hundreds of ships. He granted the surviving men their freedom. Romans loved their dogs, and even had "beware of dog" signs, just like we do.
Common pets included the Melitan, a lapdog imported from Carthage. The Romans also favored the Molossus, a large dog breed that is believed to be the ascendants of Mastiffs. Their "beware of dog" signs were mainly paintings or mosaics of the animal and are preserved in Pompeii.
Dogs were leashed and had collars. The Zoninus collar is perhaps the most famous of all ancient collars as it still had a tag, with the inscription , "I have run away; hold me.
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