The Roman Ruins 5/21/1996 Easy to Find

Some Of Infrastructure Still In Use
By Bob Van Leer

(ROME, Italy, May 21, 1996) - A Roman ruin is never very far away in Rome, and some of the infrastructure the Romans built is still in use more than 1500 years later. Rome is an old city, we were told 2760 years old. It has a population of about 4 million. Myself, Betty, daughter Sally Shuey and husband Dave, and their three-year-old son, Jordan, are in Italy to take a cruise. We did a little shopping and generally wandered around downtown Rome this morning. Yesterday's rain was long gone and the day was beautiful.

Prices are high in Italy, a Coke served at a sidewalk cafe was 7000 lira, about $4.66. All our TV channels are in Italian. A lot of overseas places now have CNN International in English, but not here. The International Herald Tribune newspaper is available in English, but at $1.87 per copy. We took a packaged tour in the afternoon. We visited several churches including St. Mary Maggiore and St. John in Lateran. These are two of the four patriarchal basilicas of Rome. (The other two are St. Peter's and San Paolo Fuori le Mura). According to our guidebook, St. Mary Maggiore was built by Sixtus III after the council of Ephesus in 431 and has officially ruled on the divine origin of the birth of Christ. St. John is the Cathedral of Rome. Emperor Constantine donated the land for the basilica. It has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once. A nearby building houses the Scala Santa, a 28 step staircase said to be the staircase climbed by Christ to present himself to Pilate on the day of his condemnation. It is said to have been brought to Rome by St. Helena. Worshippers climb the 28 stairs on their knees for indulgences.

  We finished the tour with a visit to the Catacombs. Our guide said these were burial places and never used to hide Christians, no matter what we have seen in Hollywood movies. To get there, our bus drove on part of the Appian Way, the first Roman consular road. Our guide said the original stone surface is still there, but now covered with cobble-stones. The Catacombs, of which there are 14, were outside the original city wall. Romans were not keen on burial, using cremation instead. Christians wanted burial.

  Our guide said the Catacombs were known to the Romans and were mostly tolerated, but the Romans took them over in 258 and 303. Persecution stopped under Constantine in the fourth century. The Catacombs were carved out of relatively soft volcanic material. They date to the second century. The one we toured had three levels and a maximum depth of 65 feet. We were on the first level with a depth of 33 feet. The aisle height was about 33 feet. There were burial slots on each side and smaller ones for children. Our guide said there are 16 miles of corridors. Slots on walls were sometimes nine high. Our guide said an estimated half-million were buried in the catacombs, sadly, 40% were children. Tomorrow we are to fly from Rome to Milan to board our cruise ship, Eugenio Costa, for a 10 day cruise.