By Eva Hay
Photo by Sailko, April 4, 2015. Wikimedia Commons.
In high school, I lived in Rome, and while I had always been interested in ancient history and archaeology, this experience reinforced that interest of mine. Rome is one of the rare cities on Earth where the ancient world blends seamlessly with modern life. Everything you look at holds significance, and at some point, seeing ancient ruins and sculptures sticking out of the walls from your dorm becomes completely normal. While I could talk for days about some of my favorite moments I had in Rome, recently I have been thinking a lot about a school trip I took in twelfth grade that changed my perspective about ancient history.
For my “ancient architecture and epic poetry” class, we spent a weekend at Villa Vergiliana, a sort of study center on the bay of Naples. I remember one day specifically – we were reading the Aeneid at the time and we took our books with us on a walk. We had just started book six which follows Aeneas as he is guided to the underworld to visit his father. We all sat down on some ruins and began reading aloud. We got to the point where “Pious Aeneas made for great Apollo’s temple” (Bartsch, 2021) and then my teacher announced that we were sitting on the ruins of Apollo’s temple. I thought (and still do think) this was crazy. Sure, I knew that the ruins below my feet used to be some sort of structure, but knowing that the place where I was standing was a place so significant to be brought up in the Aeneid was such a surreal moment. This was only the beginning of a day full of moments like these.
Later that day, we stopped at Cumae’s cliff and we walked through Sibyl’s cave, again while reading about Aeneas wandering through these exact locations on his personal journey to the underworld. Walking through these places made my imagination run wild, thinking of everything that must have happened on the very ground I’m standing on to make it meaningful enough to be brought up in such a famous epic. During these moments I felt so connected to the history around me, almost like I was a part of it too. To me, this exemplifies my time in Italy. While I had amazing times with my friends and exploring the city, I think the reason I love Italy so much is because everytime I left my room, I felt surrounded by everyone who existed in this space before me. With such a constant integration of history in such a beautiful place, it’s hard to not be in a state of awe, thinking about everything that has happened to put you in the place you are in.
References
Sailko. (2015). Palazzo fava, storie dell’eneide. Wikimedia Commons. photograph. Retrieved March 4, 2025, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palazzo_fava,_storie_dell%27eneide,_bartolomeo_cesi_10.JPG
Virgil, & Bartsch, S. (2021). The Aeneid. Random House.