Rome wasn't built in a day
Oh Roma! Its Colosseum, its gelato, its colorful little streets, but above all its Romans! As soon as I arrived at Fiumicino airport for the return trip, I already regret not having tried my luck with this handsome carabinieri who was staring at me insistently yesterday.
Nah, I'm kidding, in real life, I was the only one watching it (Which one by the way? Since I watched them all without exception...) and then, I only fantasized, because the theme of my weekend was not sex tourism but tourism. Point.
Accompanied by my two great girlfriends, history buffs, I did nothing but visit, visit, and visit for three days. And, guess what, I'm not usually into History, for once I showed interest! Rome is much more than what we learned from our ninth grade classes.
I thought you would be happy for me to share with you some anecdotes, unusual facts and little historical reminders about Rome, which will do well during your social dinners!
Rome is said to have been founded by the adopted son of a wolf.
According to legend, the two brothers Remus and Romulus, abandoned at birth on the Tiber (the river that crosses the city) were collected and raised by a she-wolf. In 753 BC. J.-C. Romulus butte his brother and founded the city. In honor of her adoptive mother, the she-wolf became the emblem of the city.
The Romans invented the republic.
Before the creation of the first republic in the world, in Rome, therefore, there were 3 types of powers:
The monarchy
The Aristocracy
Democracy
If the monarch began to want to run everything alone, a monarchy easily became a tyranny.
If the aristo granted themselves all the powers an aristocracy easily became an oligarchy
And if the people took over, a democracy easily became an ochlocracy (well, oddly, we've never heard of that one, huh...)
At one point (around 509 BC), it was so fucked up in Rome that to keep everyone happy and avoid going to extremes, we decided to give everyone a little power. So they put all three together and called it a republic. These Romans are strong all the same.
Who was Spartacus really?
In 73 BC. BC, the wealthy conservative rulers of Rome began to despise the people a little too much and left them behind. Spartacus, gladiator and slave by profession (or identity rather) revolted and led a real rebellion with his 30,000 slave and gladiator buddies against the power in place. A true strategist, he participated in the decline of the Roman Republic.
So, I got yelled at during my stay because I didn't know the famous sentence pronounced by Julius Caesar during his assassination ordered by his son in 44 BC. AD.
How can I tell you that I didn't even know he had been murdered, let alone by his son. So the sentence...
Here it is: “Tu quoque mi fili” (which means “you too my son!”, in reference to the fact that everyone was plotting against him)
Learn it by heart, then.
The Romans admired Paris.
It is also the only city with which it is twinned.
"Only Paris is worthy of Rome" is the motto of the Italian capital.
#pride
They already had underfloor heating in antiquity
Basically they were heating large stoves under the foundations and through a system of underground corridors, it spread everywhere on the ground.
(But hey they stole it from the Greeks.)
As well as the double glazing and the toilets!
And we call ourselves civilized...