Walking the (Aurelian) Wall (III): the Tame and the Wild Sides

A handsome portion of the wall, near the Pyramid, with a tropical look

This section of the Aurelian Wall, running from Porta San Paolo and the Pyramid to the Tevere (and Porta Portese), has two faces: one quite touristy and civilized, the other rather odd and possibly even a bit dangerous.  It is noted by some as one of the longer, intact stretches of this third century wall, once encircling all of Rome.  But the stretch has its limitations, as RST discovered. [Update: a Google map that includes this itinerary.]

To the left of the Pyramid, a short section
 of the wall, extending toward - but not to -
Porta San Paolo; here you also can see
where the wall  has been removed for traffic.

The tame, or civilized phase begins at the Pyramid (here, a part of the wall - another "existing structure" used to build the wall quickly in 271-75 AD).  Because this area is well known for armed resistance to Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943, the wall here is a resource for memories of that moment.

Remembering the dead

The pillar (photo right) remembers 471 people who died defending the city.  Just beyond, between the Pyramid and the wall proper, volunteers who care for the hundreds of cats that live in a special facility here, were closing up for the day.






And beyond that, the wall itself is impressive (see photo at the top of this post), even if the grounds on the outside of the wall are unkempt and full of evidence that a lot of drinking is done here: not only bottles but dozens of bottle caps embedded in a stump.  Though we're on the outside here, the inside of the wall is accessible in this area through two cemeteries: the well-known Non-Catholic Cemetery, which contains lots of important bodies, including that of the Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci, and the haunting (British) Commonwealth Cemetery just across via N. Zabaglia, just ahead (both, again, inside the wall).

Mailbox for wall "address"

Now things get a bit funky.  As we continued beyond the small turnabout/piazza, following the outside of the wall, we passed a man relaxing in the weeds, then came upon a locked gate to which was attached a mail box, as if someone had once (or still did) live inside. 

Street-cleaning/garbage truck facility restricts access to wall

At this point the wall continues as part of an Ama (trash-collecting, street cleaning) facility.  We decided we would not have been welcome inside.  So we tracked back, hoping to follow the wall from the inside, past the front of the Commonwealth Cemetery, then a bit downhill onto the road that curves (clockwise) around Monte Testaccio, with its cool collection of late-night bars.

The Aurelian wall is somewhere ahead.  To the right,
the wall of the ex-Mattatoio

Following the curving road, in a couple of minutes we ended up at the long, straight road that fronts the ex-Mattatoio (literally, Killing Center, what we call a slaughterhouse, once a stockyard).  Heading left, toward the Aurelian wall (not yet visible), graffiti covering a portion of the ex-Mattatoio, then right--there's just a glimpse of the wall here--along a row of houses occupied, we think, by new and poor immigrants, Romanians and others, perhaps Roma (Rom, "gypsies").

A glimpse of the wall, between the wall of the ex-Mattatoio (left) and housing (right)

NO TAV graffiti, inside the ex-Mattatoio

Dianne would go no further.  Bill took the first right, then a quick left, quickly observing a row of about ten home-made shacks and a big barking black dog (which was fortunately chained).  Bill, too, retreated--from danger and likely embarrassment--and our not-so-intrepid couple retraced their steps to one of several open entrances to the yards, heading to and beyond a heavily graffitied tower at the center of the complex (of the graffiti on the walls to the left, note the nice train with
the NO TAV sign: in northern Italy, especially, there's strong opposition to a proposed new high-speed train (Treno Alta Velocita) through the French and Italian Alps.

The wall ends--or appears to end.  Photo taken from train.
Despite the sign, we are still in Testaccio, not yet across
the Tevere in Trastevere.

At the far end of the large open area of the ex-Mattatoio there's another road, inside the complex, leading left.  Not useful, we decided, in locating the wall.  So we left the complex, ahead and just to the right, through an exit onto the Lungotevere Testaccio that wasn't open a year ago.  Walking left, the road ends abruptly after about 200 meters, at a railroad bridge over the Tevere.  We still can't see the wall, and-- from a train several days later--we saw why: the wall, too, ends abruptly before it reaches the river.

Along the Tevere.  If not part of the wall, what is it?

We're thinking that the wall planners didn't see any necessity for a wall along the river--a sort of natural barrier--but there is an existing wall-like section, including a tower, along the road that runs above the river here, and some - but not all - maps show the wall was indeed here.

Tent housing, along the bank of the Tevere

But (we're trying to think this through) if the Aurelian wall had been built along the expanse of river from the railroad bridge (to the south) to Ponte Sublicio/Porta Portese (to the north), then surely there would be visible remnants of the wall.  And there are none--except, possibly, that tower and related remains--or none to be seen from the road, anyway. Another theory - that the remnants of the wall became part of the now-high river embankments.  But, back to our trek: below the road, near a path that runs along the river bank, people are living amid weeds in tents and huts.  Not for tourists, not even us.

A favorite bar, at corner of via Galvani and via
N. Zabaglia.  Time for an aperitivo.  

Today's search for the wall at an end, we turned back into the ex-Mattatoio,  past the old stockyards and the giant Bambu' installation that is part of MACRO Testaccio, along the bars and clubs built into Monte Testaccio, to the next corner and one of our favorite bars.  We were lucky.  It was 6:05 p.m., and five minutes earlier happy hour had begun: an aperitivo and plenty to eat, a photo show of historic Testaccio, and all for Euro 4 per person.  What a city!


Bill   

Rome's Walls

We're living in San Paolo, a neighborhood that didn't exist until the 1920s. Even so, the wall-building systems used in the area demonstrate remarkable skill and complexity. Here's one example. The wall at right was once stuccoed, but with the stucco in decay, one can see what's inside: layers of rocks and irregular-sized chunks of tufo, separated by horizontal ribbons of brick, all held together with cement. Such walls are common not only in San Paolo, but throughout the city. Bill

Italy's Millennial Walls, Robert Frost and us

“Good fences make good neighbors.” Robert Frost’s line came to mind as I was preparing this post.

I was thinking of appropriating and corrupting the line so it reads: “Good walls make good neighbors.”

But in finding and re-reading Frost’s poem, in which this line appears twice, my college English class came back to me. The poem is really about a wall that is a fence. The title of the poem is “Mending Wall,” and the first sentence, which is in the poet’s voice is: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” The more famous line, “Good fences make good neighbors,” is actually said by his neighbor. So, Frost, the poet, does not like walls; it's his neighbor who does - and Frost is criticizing him in the poem.


The first 4 lines of the poem read:


Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The polygonal walls in central Italy seem to defy Frost’s notion that they will crumble and fall. There may be gaps, and spills in the upper boulders, but what’s astounding about these walls is how much of them still is standing, anywhere from 5,000 to 2,000 years later.

Some recent dating shows these walls – made of variously shaped (hence “polygonal”) stones and stacked with NO mortar – pre-date the Romans and even the Etruscans; they could be as old as the 3rd millennium before Christ, or 4,000-5,000 years-old.

We first noticed these walls in Segni, a small hill town about 1 hour outside of Rome where we (finally) had found a hotel after hiking all day (this story may sound familiar to some of you). Taking a walk through the town before dinner, we discovered these amazing walls surrounding a good portion of the city (photo above). We began reading a bit here and there and discovered for the first time the polygonal walls and how old they are.

Fortunately for us, at the same time in Rome there was a fascinating exhibit on the Lazio (Rome’s province) cities that have enormous stretches of these walls remaining. [Note the exhibit used "megalithic" - which refers to structures made of large stones and without mortar - tho' usually we see "polygonal" in references in English.]

We realized there are polygonal walls at the base of Circeo (which we’ve hiked), in Orbetello (where we’ve put our feet in the water), in Norba, and many other places. But, we were a little like the Stupids Go to Italy on this one… we had no idea what we were seeing. Sometimes we don’t read ahead, because we like to discover things for ourselves, but this time we were missing something because we were uneducated about these marvelous walls.

I’ve listed a few websites below that have a bit more information in English about the walls, as well as a link to all of Mending Wall and some analyses of the poem, one of which traces the poem’s activity of two neighbors mending their joining wall back to, guess who, the Romans! See also our earlier blog that includes Segni. Also, for you who need shelter and sustenance, we heartily recommend the hotel we found. Hotel La Pace, which caters to international business people from nearby towns and has a very good restaurant ("famous in the area," says scooter rental guy linked below).

Dianne

Websites:

Article by Giulio Magli, a mathematician in Milan, about the walls of four Italian cities. And lots of pictures in Rome Art Lover's website. And some nice photos and text from a scooter-rental guy whose home town is Segni.