by Aldus Marius on Fri Nov 22, 2002 1:47 am
I could never do it if I had only several days to take it all in. My Roman-go-home plan is more on the order of a sabbatical. I was going to do it on my first sabbatical as a teacher. Plans for a second career in teaching have fallen through due to my health, so I have now arbitrarily set myself a seven-year deadline to make it happen at my own expense.
It would take me an entire year...eight or nine months to savor everything, and the remaining three or four to recover from the experience. I shall need to recover; I expect my pilgrimage (beautiful way to put it, mi Urse!) is going to affect me on a very deep level, and I may not be quite coherent for awhile afterwards. There will be no tour groups--I must needs discover Mater Roma in my own way. If permitted, I should like to wander the gardens on the Palatine...sit on the remaining tier of benches in the Flavian Amphitheater (Colosseum)...make explorations in search of the Lupercal...and stand under the oculus of the Pantheon when it's raining, for starters. I will make mini-wanderings to places I consider sacred, like the spot where the Temple of Mars Ultor once stood--it contained the Legions' Eagles, you see, and I must pay my respects. I might ask a curator about purchasing a 'fixer-upper' in Pompeii, just to see the look on his face. And of course I'm game for a walk, in my Legionary gear, down the Via Appia!
If the Fates and Fortuna are extraordinarily kind to me, I might also do two more sabbaticals--one in Roman Britain, and one in Roman Spain, my homeland. I wouldn't mind some Romanish company in any of these places.
>({|:-)
In amicitia et fides,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.