Rachel's Adventures in Rome!: Buon Compleanno, Roma!

This last Sunday (April 21) was Rome's 2,766th birthday, and we headed down to the Circus Maximus (site of the ancient sports arena) to see the parade in honor of the day. We expected huge crowds, but the start of the parade was surprisingly uncrowded, and we were able to get excellent spots standing just 50 or so feet from the very start of the parade. As we stood there, hundreds of men, women, and children streamed by dressed in ancient Roman garb of all varieties. There were gladiators on horseback, barbarians, and goddesses. The costumes were fabulous and varied, filled with color and texture. The parade was generally cheesy, and you could tell that the actors were enjoying themselves and not taking it too seriously.

All of this got me thinking about exactly what we were seeing. We were seeing a city reenact its ancient past when it was a great empire. This led me to ask myself, at what point does it become okay for a country to reenact its imperial past? If Britain tried to hold a parade which celebrated its colonial past, complete with outfits from those colonies, people would throw a fit. It would not be considered okay. And yet, at this point in time, it seems to be okay for Rome to celebrate a similar thing, but from a more distant past. In fact, this seems to be a necessary part of the Roman narrative. Throughout the term we have seen that Roman consciousness is deeply connected to her great ancient past and her status as one of the mother's of the Western world. I'm not sure I've come up with any answers in particular, but I have come up with a lot of questions about what it means for a city or country to have a particular narrative, and how we shape national and regional identities.

The general scene pre-parade

The next day, Monday, I headed downtown again. When I passed by parliament square, there were hundreds of police, and they were busily blocking off the street. Italy finally picked her new president over the weekend, so I assumed that he would be making some sort of appearance. I hung around for a while, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of people gathering, and I finally lost patience and headed out. But, as I was walking around in a different part of the city, fighter jets flew overhead in formation with green, red, and white smoke coming out of their tails. It was awesome (see photo below!)! All-in-all, it was a fun couple days of Italian national pride, and it was interesting to see the way another country celebrates nationalism.