the lone and level sands

With the one exception of New York, I had never – until this day – visited a single entity of a city, isolated and removed from its country and surroundings, and known it to be – without question – great. I have been charmed by some cities, tickled by others; shocked and disturbed by more than I care to mention. But few and far between are those that exude a colossal and effortless greatness, as vast and immutable as a snow peaked Everest.

Rome is, in my opinion, one such city.

Imagine, if you will, the cluttered, dyspeptic bowels of a metro line buried deep beneath the surface of the skin. You pass your way through the system, stop by gurgling stop, moving only by the pressure of buildup behind, until you start to question the health and beauty of a thing with such a septic inner working. And then – in a sudden, jerky upheaval of passengers – you are spat onto the city street.

And what do you see there sprawled out before you, in every direction, occupying every imaginable point on the horizon until your eyes, not knowing where to focus, move seemingly independent of each other in a sensory overload? There… there is history. Condensed, and undiluted.

And you drink it all in, thickly. And it is all so wonderfully overwhelming that you feel, at times, like a kid in a candy store. Everywhere the things you’ve read in books, the things you’ve seen in films – everything packaged so nicely, shelved and within reach: all you have to do is point and say “there.”

There on those steps Caesar stood and there he died; there Nero, there Romulus and Remus quarreled. There the gladiators fought to their deaths. There the Palatine and the Roman Forum, and there the Trevi Fountain.

And here, standing beside the Colosseum in all its magnificent, wilting glory – here am I made aware of the eternity of Time, watering her seeds with sand, and how we each – to some degree – grow Ozymandian in her garden.

If greatness is measured by how much remains above the sand as time goes by and by, then what greater city is there than this.

Rome soundtrack: Born Ruffians – Red, Yellow & Blue