Final Story- Expansion of Catastrophic Event

The tides are his breath
Falling, rising,
The old man of the sea

For ages he sleeps,
Calmly,
As the young say to themselves,
Look, we have tamed the sea.

Then one day
His breath is disturbed,
He shakes his old crusty head
Rises with a roar,
Reaching out
to crush
those who once laughed.

They look up, and see death
glinting in his eyes.

I stretched lazily, watching as the sun sent golden bars through the cracks in the shutter of the ornately decorated windows of the bedroom. A light breeze fluttered the gauze curtains, bringing in the calls of strange birds and a slight tang of salt. I glanced lovingly at the head of ruffled brown hair that was lying on the pillow besides me and smiled to myself. I shook him slightly, marveling as my new ring caught the light and sent small brightly colored flecks of light dancing across the room.
“Time to get up, Jake,” I whispered into is ear. I rolled out of bed slipped my feet into the little house slippers that my cousin had left for us as he wiggled half heartedly. I walked around the bed and gave Jake an extra shake before yanking off his covers.
“Come on, sleepyhead, I think its almost noon.” I laughed as he curled up in protest before leaning over to kiss his head. “I hope you slept well. I love you.”
I wandered out of the bedroom and set out to explore the rest of the villa. We had arrived last night and hadn’t worried about much other than finding the bed, so I was surprised at just how lovely the villa we were in was. The floors and furniture were all a polished, matching dark wood and the walls were simple and whitewashed, but were hung with colorful draperies and small oriental pictures.
I opened the rooms tall windows and took a moment to admire the view. Through the windows there was a clear view of a white beach and strands of palm trees. I watched in amazement as brightly colored birds darted by, sending out bird calls that sounded strange and exotic to my ears. I was watching the waves crash over the sand when my husband, my husband! finally got out of bed. I heard him walk across the room and leaned into his embrace when he stood behind me, his head resting on mine as he gazed out at the water.
“Don’t you think this place is amazing?” He asked me after a few moments of reflective silence.
“It really is. We are so lucky that Matt said we could housesit for him, I never would have dreamed of having my honeymoon in Thailand! This is so exciting, there is so much to do and to see, I just can’t believe it!”
“Mhmmm. We are lucky. Especially to be together.” He spun me around and rested his hands on my shoulders before his face wrinkled in thought. “Now, how is Matt related to yo- us again?”
I giggled at his confusion about his newly acquired relations. “He is my dad’s cousin. Aunt Lisa’s son, Nate’s brother, remember?” He nodded, even though the look in his eyes told me that he really had no idea who I was talking about. “But that isn’t really important, is it?” I whispered as he pulled me closer and closed the window.
Later that afternoon we walked along the beach, watching the playful waves wash seashells across the white sand. Jake and I held hands and talked about my graduate school prospects and his new job, and where we wanted to live and how we would spend our time once we got home. I was so excited to finally have someone to share my life with, and I knew that this man walking beside me was my perfect fit. I felt a warm glow filling me every time I glanced over at my husband! I was sure the novelty of that thought would wear off soon, but for now every time I thought the words “my husband” a silly grin split my face in two.
That night we watched the stars swirl overhead and talked about what we wanted to do for the rest of our honeymoon, like scuba diving and exploring the nearby village and bird watching. We decided to start our adventure off the next morning with a picnic breakfast at sunrise.
So we got up early and set out for a small cove that we saw on the map. We got there in plenty of time, and sunrise saw us leaning against the trunks of palm trees eating food out of a wicker hamper. Leaning against the smooth trunk of the palm tree I sleepily watched my ring glint in the early sunlight. I was only broken out of my reverie by an excited shout from Jake, who had gotten up and wandered a bit further down the beach.
“Look, Lisa! The water’s receding! Oh, would you look at that shell! Oh, and there is a sea star, that’s amazing!” I stood up, staring in confusion. The water, which had been lapping against the sand several feet away from where we were sitting had indeed disappeared to a distant blue sparkle several hundred yards away. A small warning was sounding in the back of my mind, but for what? Water receding, water receding, what did that mean? I mulled over it as Jake rushed from one wonder to another, further and further down the beach. Then it all snapped into place and I glanced up in horror.
“Jake!” I yelled, scrambling down the shore towards my husband, who was several hundred feet away down the shore. “Jake! Come back, we need to get out of here!” I stumbled on a slippery stone and hit my knee. “Jake! Water receding is a sign of a…” I lost my voice as I saw the water seem to take on a life of its own and rise up out of its normal place, towering over the small figure of my husband. “…tsunami,” I managed to choke out.
“Jake!”
It took a lifetime for him to turn and start running toward me. I was still frozen in shock when he caught my arm, pulling me roughly around as he sprinted up towards the trees. We hit the line of palms and kept running, but now we could hear the roar of the water behind us. I glanced back and yelled as Jake shoved me between a large rock and some palm trees just as the wall of water hit.
The water shook the trees and tore at my skin and my nose and throat. I was plastered against the tree in front of me, pushed by a crushing force so I could not move off of the tree in front of me. I was deafened by a thunderous roar accentuated by the sound of trees snapping and of someone screaming. I could not breathe, I could not think, the water was everywhere. Then the pounding crushing force was gone, but the water swept back towards the ocean, capturing anything that the first wave had broken and sweeping it back with it, plastering me against the rocks behind me. Desperately I felt it pulling me over the rock, towards the swallowing sea. Then with a jerk my leg was stuck and I felt it twisting, the water snapping my ankle like a child snaps a twig. The water’s pressure left me without the ability to move, so I could not double up, all I could do was endure. My head reeled from lack of oxygen as the world turned into the muddy brown current sweeping me away.
Eventually the pressure did lessen, and I crumpled as I gasped for breath. I was covered in brown muck and felt like every inch of me was bruised. Shakily I reached out, blindly, reeling from the shock of what had just happened. As I stretched out my hand it was caught by an equally shaky one of Jake’s. I looked over, relief filling my eyes as I saw his mud covered figure. He was moving as carefully as I was, which probably mean he was just as battered and bruised.
“W-we made it,” I gasped as I took a shaky step towards him, placing my feet carefully through the piles of debris that covered the ground. “You’re alive.” Somehow this felt like a miracle to me, that we had both managed to live through something this destructive. He put his arm protectively around my shoulder as I tried to put weight on my shattered ankle. I looked down and immediately wished I hadn’t, it was a torn and bloody mess.
“Yes, we are both fine. We are alright.” Jake gasped. He sounded short of breath, and he winced as I pressed against his chest. There were cuts across his face and his arms had been scraped raw against the rocks behind me.
After a short pause while we both reeled from the pain that momentarily blurred our vision we slowly started to pick our way back towards the house. I walked in a slow half limp while avoiding the piles of rubbish that were everywhere. Together, we crawled over piles of beach toys and rubber tires mixed with flopping fish and ruined nests. The beach behind us was brown and covered with window frame, broken branches and several bodies of unfortunate creatures who had not escaped the tsunami’s wrath. After what felt like an eternity we rounded the rocks close to the villa and stopped in shock. The house was gone. I had heard that expression before, when people said that buildings were just gone, but it never does the situation justice. The place that we were looking for to find sanctuary, a phone, food, our clothes, a bed, our very lives, had vanished. All that was left was the cement foundation and a couple of support beams standing into the sky like jagged teeth mocking us in a broken smile. We stood and stared for several minutes before turning to each other with the same question in our eyes, what do we do now? It was then that I learned something very important about tsunamis. There are always second waves.
This time I was only warned by the roar, and had time to turn around and stare at the monstrous wave towering above my head before I was swept away. I don’t remember much. There was nothing but the roar and the sickening pain as my body was flung against tree trunks and rocks. Eventually I hit something and stuck, plastered against some hard surface. I might have been swept back again when the tide turned, or I might have stayed there, hanging on for dear life, I don’t know. I do know that after an eternity the water was gone, but in its place fear drowned me. Without looking around I stumbled away from the beach. I fell, my twisted ankle was bleeding, swollen and purple and could not hold my weight. I couldn’t walk, so I crawled away, desperately, pulling myself over anything in my path, ripping my hands and knees on the debris that littered the ground. I kept going until the pain filled my mind and my vision and the entire world collapsed.
I remember hearing the wailing before I could open my eyes, and felt that that sound was echoing the madness in my soul. When I finally opened my eyes I was laying in the remains of the village. I don’t remember how I got there or how long I had been unconscious. I tried to sit up and ended up propped up on my elbow as dizziness threatened to send me back into oblivion. I looked around and was shocked. To my right and to my left was a line of bodies, hundreds of them. Some were moving feebly, trying to attract attention. Some had horribly mangled limbs and others were bleeding from cuts and battered wounds. They were all screaming. Slowly I felt my head reeling and this time I gave into the darkness and fell back to the ground.
I was awoken by a girl with water; I spit it out, it was muddy and tasted of salt. Later I felt a fire inside me, a fever that washed away everything, and I screamed for that water along with all the other bodies in the line. I screamed for help, screamed in pain, screamed out of thirst. But everyone I saw shook their heads. There was no one to help.
I didn’t know how long I lay in that line. Hours, days, they all seemed the same. Later I learned that it was two days. The fever made me hallucinate and I saw the people around me screaming with thirst and pain, saw them fall silent one by one, saw their feeble arms stop twitching and finally lie still. I saw the remains of the houses standing against the air like skeletons, drinking in the decay caused by the unattended dead. But maybe that wasn’t a dream.
I don’t know why I didn’t join the dead, slowly giving in to the thirst, why I didn’t stop moving and lie still. But I was alive, and the fever finally loosened its hold on me enough to let me crawl away. The woman next to me was rocking her baby, wailing miserably. The baby was thin and its head hung limp. I turned away and was sick in the spot I had been sitting.
I crawled away from the line of the dead and looked for the living. There were few frightened faces sitting in the remains of houses. Slowly I approached them, but they ran away. I looked down and didn’t blame them. I was covered in mud and, judging by the smell, sewage. My hands were barely starting to heal, they were still raw and bloody, as were my knees. But then my hunger hit. I had had nothing to eat since, since, since that breakfast on the beach. As I crawled I called out for food. But I saw more faces staring at me and shaking their heads. There is no food. The water has washed it all away.
As night fell I collapsed against the trunk of a palm tree. I stared through the spindly branches that were left, wondering how I had marveled at the trunks a few days ago, when the whole world looked so new. That was the first time I thought of Jake since the second wave. Jake! Where was he? Was he still alive? I thought of the long line of the dead in the village. No, he could not be alive. There were so many dead. I would be dead soon. I was too tired to even cry at the thought. Without food I could not live, the hunger inside me was eating me away.
The next day passed in a haze. I found a coconut and desperately tried to shell it with a rock. I managed to take three delicious bites out of the small chunk I pried out of the shell before another woman darted out from a building nearby. Yelling wildly she grabbed the precious food out of my hands, then gave me a sharp kick to my wounded ankle as I rose to challenge her. As I crumpled in pain she ran off, carrying the nourishing food with her.
Five days I lived in that hell, alternately searching desperately for food and lying in a feverish haze in the sewage and mud that covered everything. I knew the locals only from the occasional curse or cuff as I got to close to their huddled conferences. Soon enough I learned to stay away.
It was a week after the tsunami before any help came to that small village. It came in the form of a single truck, picking its way carefully through the jungle. In its bed were sacks of rice and first aid kits that the Thai aid workers threw to the dirty and hunger crazed people who swarmed the truck. I watched from the back of the crowd as they threw out bags of food before I clawed my way through the mob of locals, yelling desperately at the workers in the truck, “Help me, please help me!” They did not hear me, they did not look up, they finished throwing sacks and climbed back into the cab.
“Wait! I’m an American, help me, take me home, please!” I broke through the crowd and was pushed up against the window by those behind me still trying to find the food. I banged on the window, still yelling “American, American! Please take me home, please!”
The man in the truck looked at me and started gesturing and talking excitedly to his comrade, who peered intently out at me before rolling the window down the tiniest bit.
“American?” He asked in a heavy accent.
“Yes, yes,” I gasped. There was nothing else I could say. They conferred hurriedly for a few moments and then pulled the door open, letting me collapse onto the seat next to them. I huddled there as we drove over bumpy and nearly impassable roads, vaguely wondering where we were going. I was weaving in and out of conscious when the car finally stopped and the door opened, sending me sprawling out of the car. I tumbled into a pair of strong arms that led me inside, handing me a mug of broth and wiping my face with a damp cloth. I gazed up into a pair of clear blue eyes that were clouded with worry.
“I, I thought you were dead.” I whispered hoarsely to my husband. He shook his head, hugging me tightly and pressing my head to his bandaged chest.
“I was so worried when I couldn’t find you, sweetheart. I was so worried.” His voice broke and he stopped talking and simply held me close. When he eventually let me go I sat and sipped my broth in the aid station, safe again in my husband’s arms.

Afterward:

After spending three more days in the aid station during which my ankle was braced and Jake’s ribs were tended to we were on a plane back to the United States. After we were separated by the second tsunami Jake had made his way to an international aid station and had been frantic that I didn’t turn up. Even as they were tending to his broken ribs and battered body he was demanding that searches be made into the area we had been in. But due to lack of resources there was no such search made. Yet because he had been making such a fuss about the lost American woman in the area the men who found me had known to bring me back with them. I was a lucky one who managed to get out. After the tsunami the death toll skyrocketed as diseases caused by the unattended corpses and lack of sanitation resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. That is the true meaning of natural disaster.

Reading Journal # 10

I thought that Averno was set in the modern time period. This book is regretful, as if someone is trying to makes sense of a change or loss that they do not fully understand.
The narrator remains unnamed, but I think that she is a she. She seems to I think that she values understanding, but she cannot find it. She believes that the earth is unkind and jealous. At one point she points out that the way that Ceres only had one daughter when, as a goddess, she could have had thousands is analogous with the way that the earth could produce but doesn’t, as if it does not want to be fruitful but is unkind and jealously guards what is its. To two things, the way that Persephone ate the pomegranates of hell, sealing her fate as having to return to the underworld, yet at the same time it could refer to her rape. The author reconsiders something in the passage when she says “”You grew up, you were struck by lightning. When oyu opened your eyes you were wired forever to your true love… Unless the shock wasn’t deep enough. Then you weren’t vaccinated, you were addicted.” (24-25)It makes her book more real, as if a real person who is trying to understand the events in their life is thinking the thoughts expressed in the poem. After all, real people second guess themselves, especially when they are dealing with a deep emotional issue. Persephone is pictured as a child who has suffered and lost something and who is growing up to face the doubts and uncertainties of her past. In the second part she is pictured as an adult who has made choices and has to deal with understanding the ways that those choices have both effected her life and been perceived by others. She gave herself to her lover and has since discovered that that occurrence has been described as an abduction and a rape and she has to deal with this metamorphosis that she doesn’t fully understand. I was introduced to the idea of Persephone having feelings, possibly being regretful or possibly loving her husbands, but for the first time she was not mearly the object of the story, she was a player in it.

Writing Journal #8

Writing an imaginary piece about a real historical event has some strong problems. First, you have to know enough about the event to be able to portray the events realistically. It also makes it hard having the event be a recent one because people can actually remember the event and will know that you don’t know what you are talking about if you don’t. I have read historical fiction books before, but most of them were not about any events more current that 1912, and I don’t remember any of the author’s names. I think that books that are called autobiographical contain a lot of useful information about both current events and the cultural impacts of the events and the way that people react to such events. I think that all such depictions are merely descriptions of what people remember and must be read that way, but they are usually written fairly close to the events (in a historical perspective, within thirty years is very contemporary) and therefore they often have the best and most accurate information that we can find. Modern autobiographies can be seen in the same way, you see a side of what happened in a particular situation. You have to remember that there may be more sides to the situation because everyone remembers what makes them out to be the most involved and which puts them in the best light, so the more accounts of an event you read the better picture of it you will have if you are looking for a historical account. The writings on the walls were moving and it was interesting to be able to see the words of someone who had undergone awful things recorded on the walls. I chose to write about the event I did because I tried to write about three other events and couldn’t.

Catastrophic Event

The old man snoozes day and night,

His breath falling evenly, predictably.

Young people stand

And watch

And play games of the young near his shores,

Laughing,

As they say to themselves,

Look, we have tamed the old man of the sea.

Then one day he stirs,

His breath is disturbed.

He shakes his old crusty head

And rises with a roar,

Reaching out to crush the games of the young

And those who once laughed

See death glinting in his eyes.

I stretched lazily, watching the sun send golden bars through the cracks in the shutter on the ornately decorated windows of our beach front villa. The breeze that flowed in was warm and smelled of salt. I looked lovingly at the head of ruffled brown hair that was lying on the pillow besides me and smiled. I shook him slightly, marveling as my new ring caught the light and sent small brightly colored flecks of light dancing across the room.

“Time to get up, Jake,” I whispered into is ear. “Come on, sleepyhead, I think its almost noon.”

I kissed the top of his head and climbed out of bed as he wiggled half heartedly. I had not gotten to see the place properly last night, and I was amazed at the gorgeous little house. The floors and furniture were all polished teak and the walls were simple and whitewashed and hung with tasteful accents. I threw open a window in the living room and was standing watching the waves crash over a white, sandy beach that I could see past the palm trees that shaded the villa when my husband, my husband! finally got out of bed. I heard him walk across the room and leaned into his embrace when he stood behind me, his head resting on mine as he gazed out at the beach.

“Don’t you think this place is amazing?” He asked me after a few moments of reflective silence.

“It really is. We are so lucky that Matt said we could housesit for him, I never would have dreamed of having my honeymoon in Thailand!”

“Mhmmm. We are lucky.” He spun me around and rested his hands on my shoulders before his face wrinkled in thought. “Now, how is Matt related to yo- us again?”

I giggled at his confusion about his newly acquired relations. “He is my dad’s cousin. Aunt Lisa’s son, Nate’s brother, remember?” He nodded, even though the look in his eyes told me that he really had no idea who I was talking about. “But that isn’t really important, is it?” I whispered as he pulled me closer and closed the window.

Later that afternoon we walked along the beach, watching the bright blue waves washing delicate seashells across the white sand. The sunlight was dancing across the wave tops, leaving beautiful sun dazzled prints behind my eyelids. We held hands and talked about all the things we were going to do in our new life together. I felt a warm glow filling me every time I glanced over at, my husband! I was sure the novelty of that thought would wear off soon, but for now every time I thought the words “my husband” a silly grin split my face in two. That night we watched the stars swirl overhead and decided to get up the next morning for a picnic breakfast at sunrise.

So we got up early and set out for a small cove that we had seen in our previous explorations. We go there in plenty of time, and sunrise saw us leaning against the trunks of palm trees eating food out of a wicker hamper. Leaning against the smooth trunk of the palm tree I sleepily watched my ring glint in the early sunlight. I was only broken out of my reverie by an excited shout from Jake, who had gotten up and wandered a bit further down the beach.

“Look, Lisa! The water’s receding! Oh, would you look at that shell! Oh, and there is a sea star, that’s amazing!” I stood up, staring in confusion. The water, which had been lapping against the sand several feet away from where we were sitting had indeed disappeared to a distant blue sparkle several hundred yards away. A small warning was sounding in the back of my mind, but for what? Water receding, water receding, what did that mean? I mulled over it as Jake rushed from one wonder to another, further and further down the beach. Then it all snapped into place and I glanced up in horror.

“Jake!” I yelled, scrambling down the shore towards my husband, who was several hundred feet away down the shore. “Jake! Come back, we need to get out of here!” I stumbled on a slippery stone and hit my knee. “Jake! Water receding is a sign of a…” I lost my voice as I saw the water seem to take on a life of its own and rise up out of its normal place, towering over the small figure of my husband. “…tsunami,” I managed to choke out. “Jake!”

I saw him turn and start running toward me as the water rose higher and higher above us. I was still standing there, staring in shock when he caught my arm, pulling me roughly around as he sprinted up towards the trees. We hit the line of palms and kept running, but now we could hear the roar of the water behind us. I glanced back and threw myself behind a small knot of palm trees next to Jake, hugging one tightly just as the wave hit.

The water shook the trees and tore at my skin and my nose and throat. My arms strained to keep the water from ripping me away from the palm tree, my nails biting into my hands. The noise deafened me, a thunderous roar accentuated by the sound of trees snapping and of someone screaming. I could not breathe, I could not think, the water was everywhere. It wrapped itself around me and pulled me off the tree, bruising me with its smashing caress. Then the pounding crushing force was gone, but the water swept back towards the ocean, capturing anything that the first wave had broken and sweeping it back with it, plastering me against the palm trunks. As the debris swept by it felt like every piece of it had to hit me before it was allowed past. I was battered by branches and planks and small beach toys. Then something, a rock maybe, collided sharply with my ankle, sending excruciating pain through my leg. The water’s pressure left me without the ability to move, so I could not double up, all I could do was endure. My head reeled from lack of oxygen as the world turned into the muddy brown current sweeping me away.

Eventually the pressure did lessen, and I could stand up and take a breath. I was covered in brown muck and felt like every inch of me was bruised. Shakily I reached out, blindly, reeling from the shock of what had just happened. As I stretched out my hand it was caught by an equally shaky one of Jake’s. I looked over, relief filling my eyes as I saw his mud covered figure. He was moving as carefully as I was, which probably mean he was just as battered and bruised.

“W-we made it,” I gasped as I took a shaky step towards him, placing my feet carefully through the piles of debris that covered the ground. “You’re alive.” Somehow this felt like a miracle to me, that we had both managed to live through something this powerful. He put his arm protectively around my shoulder as I discovered that I couldn’t put weight on my ankle.

“Yes, we are both fine. We are alright.”

We slowly started to pick our way back towards the house. Jake moved carefully, he had been hit by a branch and he thought he might have a couple broken ribs, and I walked in a slow half limp while avoiding the piles of rubbish that were everywhere. After what felt like an eternity we rounded the rocks close to the villa and stopped in shock. The house was gone. I had heard that expression before, when people said that buildings were just gone, but it never does the situation justice. The place that we were looking for to find sanctuary, a phone, food, our clothes and a bed had vanished. All that was left was the cement foundation and a couple of support beams standing into the sky like jagged teeth mocking us in a broken smile. We stood and stared for several minutes before turning to each other with the same question in our eyes, what do we do now?

It was then that I learned something very important about tsunamis. There are always second waves.

Reading Journal #8

This poem made me sad, and prepared me for another story of the Holocaust. The request for meditation struck a cord in me, and it made me stop and consider what I was reading a bit more carefully. The poem says, in a sentence, remember we are still humans despite what has been done to us. The narrator seems to be someone who is looking back on something as someone who now knows better. He mentions things like “I thought this, but now I know better, or I soon learned better.” It is as if he is writing about something that he has separated from the rest of himself and is yet an integral part of who he is. I think that this makes the narrator more real to me, for who can undergo what he has gone through and not be changed? Yet at the same time it makes him inaccessible to me, for he has gone through so much and so many times he mentions moments where he has lost all semblance of civilization and he has become hardened or cynical or has completely lost touch with both the future and the past. These moments set him apart as someone that I would never be able to fully relate to because I have never been pushed to that extreme. The moment that stands out the most to me in this text was when the narrator was talking with Schlome, the boy who has been in the camps for three years. He narrator tells the boy that his mother is in Italy, and the boy is amazed that there is a Jew in Italy. He is so deeply moved by this, and that stuck out in my mind. It seemed to me that the thought that somewhere in the world the narrator’s mother might be safe, even though she is a Jew, brought hope to that boy. The thought that something that simple could have that much of an effect on someone is mind boggling to me.

Writing Journal #7

I chose option d, which was offered in the museum since the Judith was not on display. I chose to write about Caravaggio’s Flagellation of Christ because when we were looking at it I was wondering why the men were beating Jesus with a bundle of sticks instead of proper whips, and from there I had fun creating characters who would embody my irritation with such a historical incongruity. I think that something that is difficult in writing dialogue is capturing the way people really speak and what that implies about your characters. The visual works gave me an easy starting point for my story but made it more challenging to bring the ending to where it needed to be, and since the painting is a moment frozen in time the story seems to just end. I think Naples was just a bit sketchier than Rome was and the motorini were meaner, but I don’t feel that had an effect on my writing. I think it was irrelevant because I was not in Naples long enough for it to seep in and have an effect on something as intrinsic to myself as my writing.

Caravaggio's Flagellation of Christ

Maxentius Flavius Vespasian clumped wearily into work. He stared wearily at the low wooden benches and cabinets as they swam blearily in and out of focus.
“Mornin’ Max.” Maxentius blinked surprisedly as his colleague, Lucius Casius Maximus pulled himself out of the dirty background and struggled into focus. Lucius was a wiry man who could not be described, especially by Maxentius’ limited vocabulary, as anything but brown. Maxentius occasionally wondered, when he took the time to wonder anything, how he had managed to accumulate the layers of grime that seemed to be permanently stuck to his skin.
“Mornin’ Lushus.” The room swam even more as Maxentius swung his bag off his shoulder. He stared at his lunch for a moment, wondering why it was sprawled over the floor instead of in his cabinet as it was supposed to be before he collapsed on his bench.
“Bad night las’ night?” Lucius was also staring at the lunch on the floor, wondering how a man who always seemed to be so well fed managed to walk around in such a dazed stupor.
Maxentius strung his words together with care.
“Me wife set into me again.”
Didn’t seem to affect her baking, Lucius considered as he eyed the rolls and sliced cheese that was still sprawled under Maxentius’ bench. “Fer what now?”
“Seems she is havin trouble findin pork. Hell woman, I asks her, since when does we eat pork? But that don’t matter, she wants pork, an’ couldn find pork, an’ so here we are.” Maxentius nodded and instantly regretted it. He squinted as he focused on Lucius. “ ‘ey now, give tha’ here.”
Lucius resignedly handed the roll back to his inebriated colleague.
Maxentius brushed the roll off on his sleeve before letting it roll out of his hands back to the floor. “But so she tells me as she thinks we need pork and this hole’s too backwards to have pork so I needs to do somfin about it. An’ she don’t understand tha’ there aint pork to be found in t’middle of t’night, so she set me out of t’house till I finds her some.”
Lucius nodded in understanding. “It’s a good thing you have an understanding with the keeper of the Kosher Hog then, aint it?”
“Yea’t is. Didn’ even hev much trouble findin’ me way t’work this morning’.” He smiled blearily and pulled open his cupboard. He glared disgustedly at the cloth loincloth that served as their uniform. “When I lived in Rome…”
“People had decent uniforms, I know, jest get changed and stop yer moaning bout it.”
Maxentius gave the cloth another black look before pulling his leather tunic off and wrapping the hated garment around his middle. “N’wonder me wife is fre, frusrt.” He paused, staring at the knot he was tying. “What’s t’word?”
“Frustrated?”
“Frustrated! Yea, frustrated. Shes frustrated. Cause this whole place is backwards. No decent uniforms. No pork. When we lived in Rome I had a decent uniform, an’ she could find pork. In t’middle of t’night too! An’ people respected me. They didn’t spit at me in the streets fer bein’ Roman. Hell, we were all Roman!”
“Get movin’ and stop gripping. We’re gonna get behind. Lots to do today.”
“Lots t’do! I bet. Troublemakers, this whole town. Th’lot o’them. Especially this here week. I don’ know how, but they all invited their troublmaking relitives t’town fer a party, and big troublemakin’ party. Rabble, th’lot o’them.” Maxentius stumbled against a stool that hadn’t been there a moment before. “This is th’armpit of the Empire, le’ me tell you. An’ these pigs aint satisfied t’make trouble jest fer us, no, they make it amon themselves. Like tha’ one, th’other day, ruined their temple, didn’ he? I wonder when he will be payin’ us a visit, aye Lucius?”
“He’s our ferst on our list, lad. Bruno’s already softening ‘im up, so stop philosophizing and move your ass!”
Maxentius heaved himself towards the end of the room. “Our first customer, aye? I bet I’ll get me some respect, once I be through with’im. N’like the rest of these pigs. Ha! Won’ eat pigs th’dirty louts, theys better than the Roman’s aint they? Well we’ll see whose better than who when I’m holding the whip!”
Lucius shook his head. He didn’t mind his job, it kept him housed and fed. But Maxentius actually enjoyed his work. When he took a hold of his whip he was in control of the world, and the screaming criminal who had fallen afoul of Pontius Pilate’s good graces was the perfect vent for his frustrations. Even at the end of days when Lucius longed to wash the blood off his body and fall into a tankard of beer Maxentius was surprised by the setting of the sun, and would probably continue his work by candle light if he were allowed to.
“Jest get your tools, Max, and lets go. Pontius Pilate wants this one out there right away.”
“What in the name of bloody hell is this!? First they move me out of Rome to this armpit of th’world full of dirty I’m holier than thou bloody wont eat pork cause our bleeding god told us it was dirty and you are a slime dwelling pagan and now they give me this! They call this a whip? This aint a whip, it’s a bloody bundle of bleeding twigs!”
Lucius had prudently hidden inside a nearby cabinet when Maxentius started to yell. Anyone who knew Maxentius would hide when he exploded, except perhaps his wife. But at the mention of the whip Lucius stuck his head out to evaluate the situation. Maxentius was towering in front of the cabinet where his beloved whip was usually kept. But instead of holding his beloved contraption of knotted rope, bits of broken stone and pottery stained black with the blood of thousands of men, he was brandishing a bundle of sticks in his angry fist.
“What‘n the name of hell is that thing?”
“A bleeding bundle of twigs, thats what! How am I t’do my job if they don’t e’en give me a whip? Forty lashes used t’kill a man, an’ now t’will barely tickle!”
“I do remember something about budget cuts…”
“I used t’be a soldier of Augustus himself! I was a member of th’emperor’s elite torturers! And now look at me!”
“Well we need to go, e’en if it is only a bundle of sticks, com’on Maxentius, Bruno’ll be waiting…”
Still fuming, Maxentius followed Lucius as he grabbed his own bundle of sticks out of the brown changing room. The desert sun had not yet risen above the palace battlements and the whipping yard was still wrapped in a forgiving gloom which momentarily hid the man Bruno was tying to the post in the middle of the courtyard. Maxentius fumed towards him, raised his arm and caught the man’s eye. It was the most piercing gaze he had ever been caught in. It made him forgot his rage, his bitterness, his pride. Slowly he felt this man tied to the whipping post in front of him look through him, see all of him and all he had ever done and, strangely, love him. He felt an invitation in that moment, an invitation to he didn’t know what. The bundle of sticks slipped from his fingers and landed on the stone as Max stood there, lost in the intensity of the man’s eyes. But then Lucius struck the man in the middle of the chest and blood dripped into his eyes from, are those thorns wrapped around his head? Shaking with emotion, Maxentius leaned over to pick up his bundle of sticks.

Reading Journal #7

Juvenal develops wealth as a factor that is leading to the deterioration of the very fabric of society that Juvenal is a part of. He introduces it as a contrast to the honor and glory of the past heroes of Rome. He never goes out and says that the rich are ridiculous or greedy or hypocritical, but he ridicules the way they interact with other people and the fact that they have “degenerated” from their glorious ancestors. This is similar to Twain, because he never goes out to say that the rich are anything in particular, but he ridicules them through their interactions on a societal level. However, he never addresses them as directly as Juvenal does. Juvenal’s attacks are quite obviously addressed at the rich while Twain disguises his more as a story about a traveler, who happens to make certain remarks tat criticize people in an unnoticeable way. In Juvenal’s works hypocrisy does not play nearly as large of a role as it does in Twain’s works. In Twain that seems to be the author’s primary complaint- the Church s wealth and hypocritical about its wealth. This is demonstrated in all of his snide remarks about the ranks of fat friars and priests and the starving masses outside the church doors. Juvenal, on the other hand, seems to attack the rich more for their lack of honor and virtue and their attempts to cover their disgusting habits behind their quickly tarnishing family names. However in his rant about the rich man and the poor man at the table I see him angry, at least in part, at the hypocrisy in the fact that the rich man says he is feeding the poor man but really he is giving him scraps. Yet even in that rant it seemed that the author was more upset by the fact that the poor man puts up with the treatment and that the rich man is so greedy, not hypocritical but merely without and redeeming virtue at all. Twain criticized the Italian’s lack of free speech by comparing it to the American’s use of such, but Juvenal merely states that if the people did have free speech they would dethrone those in power. Twain seems to think that free speech is a beneficial right that will eventually improve the lot of the people, but Juvenal sees it merely as a way to warn the rich. He does not seem concerned at all with the quality of life of the plebs, but he does worry about the moral honor of the rich and only uses the threat of the power of the people as that- a threat. Juvenal portrays artists and poets as occasionally honorable, but more often full of themselves and indebted to and pawns of their patrons. He believes that patrons are really the ones true muse inspired artists must beware of, for they believe that they are wonderful artists in tier own right, and this is hard to compete with. Twain sees them as ancient bores and creators of glorified junk (such as dried out fire screens). He also thinks that tour guides are way too focused on “famous” painters such as Michelangelo, and he gets bored with the obsession with them. Juvenal believes the honor means that someone is upright and honest, that they are active (involved militarily or work their own land), that they are eloquent and well educated. He does not think that they should be as concerned with their aesthetic image (he denounces shaving backs and butts) or with the quality of their food (in terms of their excessive gourmet banquets for themselves), he denounces their greed and their occupation with frivolities (such as different places to eat depending on whether it is raining or sunny out so your horses don’t have to get wet).
I honestly was not very amused by any of Juvenal’s satires. There was one line that was relatively amusing, and that was in the eighth satire, and it was “the chests of his forbearers were hairy; Look at him, though, with his butt all smoothed by Catanian pumice!” I found that line funny because it seemed like such a ridiculous thing to object to. That of all the things that the author could have compared or complained about he chose a smooth butt seems very strange to me. However, for the rest of the satires I was not amused. I believe that for satire to be funny you have to understand the political and social contrivances that are under critique, and I did not understand those which he was critiquing enough to find the humor in them. I did not understand the significance of the little barbs that were probably being thrown, and because we read a translation I also missed any play on words that the author might have originally employed. I don’t know enough to understand why litters and slaves are a joke, or why being fed and eel might be amusing or even insulting. There is too much distance in between me and what he is critiquing for me to understand the humor without much more study of the time period.

Writing Journal #6

I chose the character I did because on this trip I see all of us sitting in the Rome Center on a regular basis, talking to people or doing homework online instead of spending that time exploring the city, so I thought I could use the situation. In order to satirize this I decided to have a girl who has always wanted to go to Rome but who is also addicted to the computer get to Rome and spend all her time online. The most challenging part of writing this was coming up with the idea. I actually stared at my blank computer screen for several hours before I managed to think it up. My character is quite flat, but I think that this is useful to satirize the idea she is representing better. I did not return to Twain for anything for this assignment.

Satire

Angela had wanted to go to Rome since she was thirteen and had first seen a picture of the Coliseum while she was Googling romantic vacation spots for her future honeymoon. She had known that for her life to be complete she would have to visit this city of wonders. She spent her freshman computer class searching out the highest quality snapshots of St. Peter’s and the Tiber instead of practicing typing, and at night she read traveler’s blogs instead of The Lord of the Flies. She knew that to insure a return to Rome you had to throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain and that the Mouth of Truth bit off the hand of any who answered a question falsely. She enjoyed spending her free time looking this up, and would often call her friends with new information she had recently discovered buried deeply inside an obscure website or travel directory.
Angela’s senior year was spent searching online college websites, looking for the college which ran the most programs to the Eternal City. She ranked her choices based on the quality, length and cost of their different study abroad sessions, and finally made her choice for the University of Washington because they had at least three different programs that traveled to Rome on a yearly basis and several others that ran special tours on occasion. She was sure that she would qualify for at least one of them in her time as an undergraduate.
So she spent her freshman year wandering around the dorms, working hard to get into the different departments that would allow her the chance to go to Rome. She focused most on the Honors Department, as they offered not only one but two programs a year. In her spare time she made facebook friends who were also interested in Rome and looked up the Spanish Steps and the Piazza de Popolo on Google earth, spending hours playing with the 360◦ views that allowed you to see the monuments from all angles. She avidly watched every episode of the HBO series, Rome, and read Ovid, Dante and Virgil off the University of Virginia’s online book reserve. She checked online daily, waiting for her prized programs to offer the chance for her to study in Rome. Finally she received the email she had been waiting for for years, “Winter Study Abroad in Rome Opportunity.” For a moment Angela just stared at the screen, tears of joy and excitement welling up in her bright blue eyes. She flicked a curly brown tendril out of her eye and immediately messaged her best friend, Rose. She and Rose had entertained dreams of studying abroad together since they first sat next to each other in European History in ninth grade.

RomeIsCallingMyName says:
Hi Rose! guess what??? the honors department is accepting applications to study art history in Rome this week!
PrettyAsAFlower says:
Really? When did they post the app?
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
five minutes ago
PrettyAsAFlower says:
Wow, you noticed already? Lol
PrettyAsAFlower says:
You need to get out more.
PrettyAsAFlower says:
have you applied yet?
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
I’m loading the app right now.
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
isn’t this exciting?
PrettyAsAFlower says:
When is it?
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
winter quarter
PrettyAsAFlower says:
Damn it!
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
what?
PrettyAsAFlower says:
I have to continue the o-chem series, I cant go then
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
what?
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
but you have to go!
PrettyAsAFlower says:
I cant, if I get behind I wont be able to major in bio chem, and you know I want to go on to med school. I can go in a couple of years, or in the summer, but not this winter
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
sigh. well fine. be that way
PrettyAsAFlower says:
Sorry
RomeIsCallingMyName says:
its ok. I g2g, the files done loading. Wish me luck!
PrettyAsAFlower says:
good luck. ttyl!

Angela closed the conversation and eagerly filled out the application and returned it. A few weeks later she received notification that she had made it through the first round of applicants. She joyously posted a note on the facebook group “Io Amo Roma,” announcing her hopes of being able to travel to their adored city and received fifteen jealous and encouraging posts in the next two days wishing her luck.
Three weeks later she walked out of the conference room in Mary Gates Hall, confident that she had kicked ass in her interview. She had been able to talk for fifteen minutes about the amazing sights to see and things to do in Rome. She had expounded on her excitement at the prospect of shopping during Saldi, which ran throughout January (she had learned this tidbit from shopping online at the United Colors of Bennington last January). She pointed out that studying art history in Rome would be a once in a lifetime opportunity because Rome housed an amazing collection of famous art, from Michelangelo to Bernini to Caravaggio (which she had researched thoroughly last August when she had looked up different Roman art sites after a bad case of sunburn sent her back to her computer for the rest of the week). She felt that the program director, Laura, had been gracious and amazed at her enthusiasm and extensive knowledge, so it was no surprise when she received the email a week later. The subject line was the most exciting one Angela had ever seen: Welcome to Rome!
Fall Quarter seemed to fly by to Angela. Every day she did not spend preparing herself for Rome and gloating to Rose online was a day wasted, in her mind. She didn’t notice which classes she took and she only did her homework as a break from surfing the web. When winter break finally rolled around she could barely contain her excitement. She packed her bags a full five days in advance and nervously rechecked her airline bookings online, faintly worried that something would go wrong and her flight would be canceled. But the first of January came and saw her snoozing lightly against the window of a British Air jet.
Two thrilling days later saw her rolling her stuffed suitcases through the Campo di Fiori to the UW Rome Center, where she got her keys. She hurriedly lugged her suitcase up the six flights of stairs to her apartment and ran back down to sign in and gloat to all of her friends. And that is where you can find her today, moving between the first and third floors of the Rome center, waving her computer about hoping to catch the wavering wireless network. Day and night she chats with Rose and her other friends back home, constantly telling them about all the amazing ruins and paintings she has seen. She sends out mass emails to her family and more distant friends, and she experiments with Skype and Messenger Live to see which allows her the best conversation clarity so she can describe her experiences in person. She also writes daily to her Facebook friends, friends who are hanging jealously on her every word, wishing fervently that they could have been the ones who were experiencing Rome the way Angela is getting to. After all, she is living her dream.

Writing Journal #6

Figures and institutions satirized:

• Italian government- bankrupt, wasting money, unnecessarily grand, uses the Church as a resource
• The Church- domineering, greedy, sells favors, hypocritical
• Relationship between the church and the state- Church owns best of everything, best broken
• Italian state- churches and starving people, illiterate, no modern contrivances, all stone
• Priests- happy and comfortable while others are starving
• Medici- tyrants, blasphemous, ridiculously created self aggrandizing frescos (which the art world applauds), thieves and smugglers
• Art- saving tyrants from the oblivion that they deserve, groveling artists stooping to paint that, clouded beauty, admired junk
• Mary cult
• Beggars- everywhere, persistent
• People’s relationships to beggars- uncaring and very anti Christian, drive them away, esp. the friendless, orphaned and widowed.
• Dominican friars- dress silly, live on alms, “suffer” for their religion, incomprehensible, never wash, beg
• Italian work ethics- non existent- work for a few hours and then go home and do nothing.
• Papal States- paranoid, squalid, dense
• Government officials- dense, suspicious, pointless, don’t get jokes
• Relic worship- “bottled fragments of saints and not even a nail from the true cross”, ridiculous, hard to believe
• Ruins- moldy, decaying old buildings
• Modern Romans- slothful, superstitious, and ignorant
• Rome- unoriginal, discovered
• Insurance agents
• American women and fashions- silly, extravagant, wigs
• Italian men’s clothing-
• Italian’s bathing and washing habits- never wash their clothes and if they do they don’t wear the clean ones
• Italian Property ownership system- people don’t own the land unless they are priests or princes
• Over excess of soldiers and priests
• Treatment of Jews- treat them like dogs, cant work as they want, not given rights, shunned by Christians, live in ghettos, constantly cursed, humiliated
• Lack of free speech
• Reverence for ancestors- lack of change, stagnant, behind the times, plow with sharpened sticks
• Disbelief in that which they haven’t seen
• Strong outwardly enforced morals- my character is ruined! I have been branded a speaker of untruths!
• St Peter’s- huge, ornate, so big it looks small
• The Inquisition- compared to martyring Christians, brutal, hypocritical
• Modern theater/Coliseum- proper, opera glasses, snobbish, superfluous, sensationalist, unfeeling
• Modern Newspapers- hobnobbing, unfeeling, concerned with show, all knowing.
• Martyrs- over emphasized
• Michelangelo- monotonous, over emphasized, revered, monotonous, bore
• Tour guides- uncomprehending, fun to ridicule, Bad English, parroting, eager to please

Six Examples of Humor:

• “And now that my temper is up I may as well go on and abuse everybody I can think of”
• “One or two of those people who are so fond of writing their names in prominent places had been there before us- a million or two, I should think.”
• “But when they showed us the print of Peter’s face in the hard stone of the prison wall and said he made it by falling up against it”
• Of a playbill found in the Coliseum “There was a suggestive smell of mint drops about it still, a corner had evidently been chewed, and on the margin, these words were written in a delicate female hand:”
• “The whole to conclude with a chaste and elegant

GENERAL SLAGHTER!”

• “Marcus Marcellus Valerian (stage name- his real name is Smith)”
• “‘’Gyptian mummy!’ ‘Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?’”

Writing Journal #5

In choosing a character I didn’t really think about my choice, I had to create her before I could choose her. I knew I wanted her to be female because I understand the way women’s minds work better than men’s, so I could write a piece entirely from a girl’s point of view much more believably than I could from a guy’s. I found that to create a complex character I had to place her in a situation that would create mixed feelings and which would allow her to show different sides of herself, and creating that type of situation without using dialogue or a true plot was difficult. As I designed my character I used something that is socially a familiar situation, but added the unsettling addition of being able to see into the uncertain thoughts of one of the participants of that situation. I did this because it was a context in which different sides of a character could be drawn out. I used several mechanisms to do this, such as including the character’s thoughts and mentioning other common social constructs like magazines and movies.

Character Description

Stop it!
The words resounded inside Kat’s head and she shivered. What is wrong with me? She wondered. She wanted to walk away, to leave the entire situation behind. She barely knew this boy next to her, and she wasn’t sure she liked the way his hand had wandered around her waist. I should just tell him I need to go home. She thought. He will understand. But something held her back. She wanted to tell him to let her go, to pick up her book and walk out the door, but at the same time she didn’t want to move. Part of her was enjoying the feeling of being wanted and the way his hand was resting on her slender waist. She wiggled slightly, and he tightened his grip around her waist. Her heart pounded faster. This was not what she had been expecting at all.
It had seemed so innocent last week, as they had talked in between classes in the crowded halls of Adams High School. He was a couple of years older than she was, so she was surprised when he had sat next to her in the back of chemistry class. Later he had found her at lunch, picking her out of the midst of her twittering friends. Her heart had fluttered every time he had glanced at her, and she had liked the feeling. She was a bit unsettled by him though, after all, no one had ever looked at her like that before. She was intrigued by the sound of his voice and at the way his fingers seemed to keep accidentally brushing hers. She thought that the way he made her heart jump must mean that she liked him, so she had been excited when he asked her to come over and study for their chemistry test tonight. So here she was, her chemistry book discarded in the corner and his arm around her.
Slowly he pulled her towards him, one arm tight around her waist, the other resting gently on her stomach. She leaned into his shoulder, because that is what girls are supposed to do. One part of her told her that this is what she wanted, that no one else felt the hesitation that made her want to slow down.
Don’t be silly, she whispered to herself. Why are you so uncomfortable? This is what I want. This is what every girl wants, isn’t it? Everybody wants to have a boy like you, and the way you let a boy like you is to let the boy touch you. After all, it feels good to be held like this, doesn’t it?
Kat forbade herself from ruining the moment and ordered herself to enjoy the flutters in her stomach. After all, this is what everything is about. Hasn’t she watched all the movies and seen the TV shows and commercials? This is what every girl wants, a voice whispered in her mind. It is! Give in, relax, turn off your worry and let the moment sweep you away. Enjoy yourself, give in; don’t worry about the wandering hand or the soft breath against your neck.
Give in. Enjoy it.
No, no! This isn’t what I want!
The hand around her waist tightened a bit more and her neck tingled slightly as his lips barely brushed her skin.
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
Give in, give in.
No, no, stop touching me, please stop.
The words warred in her throat. “Stop, let go,” almost reached her mouth, they were on the tip of her tongue, but then the uncertainties pushed them back into her chest, where they beat futilely against her ribs, begging to be freed from the cage of his arms. His hand wandered further, slipping gently over her back, pulling her closer to him. Once again she fought the urge to scream. This is normal, she tried to convince her panicking heart. This is what everyone wants, what everyone talks about. It’s harmless, harmless! No! It’s not right! Not now, not here, not like this! But the words still stuck in her throat. His mouth moved next to her ear and whispered to her, telling her how special she was to him, and her heart melted. But then his hand slipped under her clothes and the panic set in again. His words fueled her worries even more. Did he really mean what he said? Or was he just saying that so she would let him touch her, so she wouldn’t object to his wandering hand? That thought horrified her, and she turned to him, wanting him to stop, wanting an assurance that he wasn’t just using her. She opened her mouth to tell him to stop; but before the words could leap from her lips he kissed her. Her words were swallowed, and her determination crumbled. She stopped protesting to the hand lingering on her thigh and running over her back. Her fluttering stomach was forgotten as he pressed her close to him, enveloping her in his strong embrace.
Later that night Kat locked herself inside her room and cried. She didn’t know why she cried, but she couldn’t hold back the tears of confusion, of hurt and of shame. She unconsciously lamented what had been lost; lamented the fact that she hadn’t been strong enough to say “Stop!” She sat curled in a corner and wondered why she felt contaminated. She felt used, but she didn’t understand why. She liked him, didn’t she? She had enjoyed herself, hadn’t she? Why didn’t she feel happy and special, like all the girls on TV and in the magazines strewn across her floor said she should? So she sat through the night, staring at the wall through her bloodshot eyes as the questions ran through her brain.
The next day in school she smiled at her friends and at him, hiding her confusion as she nodded in time with her beating heart as he invited her over again later that night. She smiled and said she would be there. After all, how could she say no?

Reading Journal #5

Dorothea
Young, caring, naïve, helpful, obedient
“To make her open face look more youthful and appealing than usual”
Dorothea is charming, young and simple girl.
Mr. Casaubon
Stuffy, polite, suspicious, intellectual, inapplicable
“This dried up pedant, this elaborator of small explanations about as important about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor’s back chamber”
Mr. Casaubon lives for meaningless minutiae.
Will Ladislaw
Moody, passionate, artistic, charming, honorable
“the smile was irresistible… it was a gush of inward light illuminating the transparent skin as well as the eyes.”
Will is a charming man with a contagious smile.

The author believes that the most important, and indeed most difficult duty of a writer of fiction is to portray things as they truly are. He uses the analogy of paintings, he believes that the paintings of mystical sibyls and prophets are not nearly as moving as paintings of old women going about their daily business. He also believes that capturing the truth of everyday life is difficult and a venerable thing to strive for.

Writing Journal #4

I learned that it is very difficult to write a piece in first person that does not come from personal experience. And it is very difficult to make a personal experience fit into the classic story outline, because in real life things do not happen in neat sets of three, with each experience increasing in urgency. So writing a story in such a format is quite unrealistic and is therefore difficult in the first person, which begs a realistic setting and approach to make it believable.

Red Rocks

Not many people know it, but the desert outside of Las Vegas is beautiful. The mountains that surround that city are often overlooked because of the flashiness of the Strip and the various manmade wonder that constantly vie for your attention. But if you are lucky enough to be able to look past the Mirage and the MGM you will find high red peaks crossed by small white trails that lead you through some of the most stunning desert in the world. Or so I read in one of the brochures piled in my lap as I sat in Southwest Airline’s small seats. I was excited to go to Las Vegas, and I was determined to have a memorable trip that was more than the stereotypical “Las Vegas experience,” and I thought I had just found the little something extra that would give this trip the unusualness and adventure I craved. So, after a week of wandering through the man made wonders cluttering the valley floor I drove out of the city, past the manicured palm trees into the hills dominated by twisted yucca and sagebrush.
As I parked my red rental car in the parking lot I breathed in the scorching desert air and looked around at the sandstone landscape. This was exactly what I wanted! As I started out on the neat path marked by white stones I knew I had found something that very few people would be able to boast of after coming back from Vegas. The hike was enchanting. The trail wound through small thickets and over trickling streams. Large boulders were marked with ancient hand prints and mystical stick figures of long lost Indian tribes, and burros watched me with large brown eyes from distant hills.
As I walked along, enjoying the sunshine and the lovely views I spotted a couple of boulders a ways from the pat that leaned against each other, creating a shadowy cave between them. I looked around and didn’t see anyone who would object to my leaving the path, so I stepped off of the white stones and clambered up to explore the cave I had spotted. It was a bit farther up the hill than I had realized at first, so I welcomed the shade as I rested against the dusky sandstone. This cave reminded me of when I was a little girl and I played on sandstone boulders, exploring and climbing high over my anxious mother’s head. I glanced out of the cave and saw that the sun was still high in the sky. Perfect, I thought, I still have hours before sunset. Plenty of time to do some exploring. Just excited as I had been when I was eight I clamored off, following the cave deep into the mysterious sandstone palace, climbing over fallen blocks of red rock and piles of gray sand. I continued on until I emerged into a small valley. All around me grew twiggy bushes with hesitant green leaves opening their hopeful faces towards the sun. Across the valley a small waterfall cascaded over the rocks, sending a refreshing mist across my face. Happily I sat down on a lichen covered rock and reached into my bag for my water bottle. But my hand came back empty. Shocked at my forgetfulness, I remembered that I had left my water bottle sitting on the seat of my little red rental car in the parking lot miles away. I sighed at my absentmindedness and decided that without water I should head back soon or I would have to worry about sunstroke. Resignedly, I got up to leave the valley.
Two hours later I scrambled over yet another sandstone boulder. The sun was at my back and was casting worryingly long shadows in front of me. I didn’t understand, the path had been this direction, I was sure of it. But every time I climbed around a boulder, convinced that on the other side I would find the little path of white stones, nothing met my eyes except more boulders and a plain full of prickly pear. I had learned to hate those small cactus, they were just the height that they pricked right though my socks, making my ankles itch and sting. And they were everywhere, covering every inch of ground that wasn’t a lonely pile of boulders. My mouth was dry now, so every breath stuck to the roof of my mouth and made me think longingly of the water bottle in the lost parking lot. I was worried. No matter how many boulders I climbed over I could not find the path. And the sun was definitely setting now. Horrified, I shivered in the rapidly cooling air as the sun dipped below the hills behind me. Frantically I rushed through the fields of prickly pear, searching for the stones that I hoped would still glow white under the light of the moon. Somewhere below me I could see the red glow of the city, like a bloodstain across the edge of the horizon. Somewhere close by a coyote howled, a strange yipping sound that sent shivers up my spine. After awhile I realized that the more I wandered in the dark the more lost I was going to get. Exhausted, I fell into a small hollow under one of the sandstone boulders and fell asleep.
I woke up with a start in the gray predawn light. I couldn’t figure out why, until I felt something crawling up my leg. I screamed and jumped out of the hollow, shaking my leg frantically. A small black shape flew off and hit the stone where my head had been moments before, and I stared in horror as the scorpion landed and started scuttling towards me, its tail raised menacingly. Blindly I turned around and fled, tripping over more prickly pear and scraping my knees raw on the red sandstone. By the time the sun was above the mountains I was exhausted again. My ankles stung and were bleeding. I gasped, my throat felt like it was cracking from want of moisture. I leaned against a boulder and sobbed, but I had no tears to shed. I needed water, and I needed to find a way back to the city. I stood up and wandered down the hill. Down meant I was going away from the mountains and towards the valley, and the valley meant the city, right?
I stumbled into the dried out streambed by mistake. But since it was free of prickly pear and headed down, towards the city, I decided to follow it. I was so tired I barely noticed as the bright sunlight faded. I didn’t wrench my eyes up from the dusty ground below my feet until I felt a raindrop hit the back of my head. Thrilled, I looked up at the dark sky a moment before the rain started. I had never experienced this kind of rain before. I poured down from the sky in warm waves, completely drenching me in a matter of seconds. I opened my mouth and gulped down mouthful after mouthful of sweet water, feeling it course down my parched throat and revitalize my sun burned limbs. I held out my arms and laughed in triumph, knowing that with those few mouthfuls I would regain the strength I needed to reach the city and my waiting hotel room. I wiped the water out of my eyes and set off with renewed vigor. But it was harder to walk than it had been, the sand beneath my feet had turned into mud, and there was a bit of water rushing around my stinging ankles. In a few seconds the water had risen to my knees, and by now the current was pushing hard against my legs. I struggled to make it out of what was fast becoming a strong stream, but with a horrifying jolt my feet were swept out from under me. The water rushed me along, pushing me under its muddy surface and smashing me against the rocky sides of the stream bed. I struggled, tearing my hands on the bushes that rushed past, crying as it became harder and harder to keep my head above the water. Slowly the world condensed into the swirling waters that filled my eyes and the burning in my lungs as I spat out another mouthful of water. And then there was only blackness creeping in quickly until it filled my mind and I sank beneath the torrent.
As the clouds rolled away the sun peered down on the desert landscape. The storm was over and the only evidence of its passing were fields of prickly pears slowly unfurling their delicate, blood red petals and the muddy stream winding its way down the mountain..

Reading Journal #4

Benevento portrays himself in a very methodological way, starting with his family history starting several generations back and then describing his birth and first few years of life using several anecdotes. He portrays himself as a man with a very clearly defined purpose in the world, whose detailed origins are infinitely important to the man he has become. We know where and when he was born, all about his parents, and many of the specific events associated with his early life, career, and parental guidance thereof. Andre, on the other hand, remains unidentified by name throughout the entire piece. He is simply a first person entity, an “I” who describes memories in a rather haphazard fashion that mirrors the way we actually remember things. We know that he has spent some time in Rome from his description of a summer’s afternoon in the Campo de Fiore, and later we learn that he actually lived there during his youth, that he returns to places where he created memories as an older man, indicating that he now lives in a different place, and he also mentions that he came to the city as a refugee, indicating that he had left another place before he came to Rome. However, unlike Benevento we never learn about his family or its origins or the black and white outline of all of the moves in his life (Benevento would have included anything as momentous as a move between cities, much less a move that was attached with being a refugee). This makes Andre’s piece much more open ended, as if it could have happened to any young boy in the 1960’s in Rome. It could have been anyone’s experience. Benevento’s experience was, on the other hand, specifically his own.
I think that both of the authors are very conscious of their readers and have a very specific message they are trying to get across, but I think that Benevento was much better at getting that message across than Andre was. Benevento was very clear in saying that he wanted to record the events of his life with a “certain amount of pride.” In other words, he believes that is life is worth remembering and he sets out to do so. He thinks that the first mark of a good life is his strong family, and the second (which is all we can identify from the readings we have done so far) is excellence in a respected trade. So he starts his autobiography with a description of his “very ancient and gifted family” from whence he came, and he outlines exactly who his family is and all of their virtues, as he sees them. Then he goes on to outline several narrative from his childhood, aimed at showing fortuitous signs over his life or to set up the coming struggle over his career that he discusses later. As that was his second mark of importance that is what he then turns his attention to, and he describes every detail of how he became a self supporting and well respected goldsmith. Andre is not nearly this direct about stating his reasons for writing an autobiography.
I think that “believable” is a very inaccurate term to apply to an autobiography. Both of the authors describe their life as they see fit, and both are believable to a point. Benevento’s life is obviously edited to put himself in the most respectable light possible, and Andre’s life was edited to become a story. Both of them contain truth and omit truths, both have and lack details that the other supplies in abundance. I think that they are both merely different ways of portraying the truth of events of a life.

Writing Journal 3

I thought of my moral, that honesty is the best policy, and came up with a frame I could display this moral in. That frame ended up being a college setting, with a dishonest Dean trying to dispose of a dishonest Professor who are both exposed at the end of the story. So my anecdotes had to it within this frame. The contextual ones were all about setting up the situation, so they were fairly easy to come up with; the Dean discovering the problem, deciding to fix the problem using a student and proposing the solution to the student. The next three anecdotes would fall under the action section, and I chose them on three things I could imagine would annoy teachers- being disruptive in class, doing awful homework, and annoying them in their personal time. The moral of my story is “Honesty is the Best Policy.” I think my reversal surprises the reader. Who would have expected the worst student in the History of Trinity Western to excel to the point of graduating with honors? I did return to Machiavelli’s fable as the inspiration for my contextual anecdotes. I modeled my Dean off of the Prince of Hell who was more concerned with saving face than anything else. The most challenging part of this assignment was finishing the piece without making it sound cheesy, or using a cliché, or just ending it. Actually, I am not sure I really managed that anyways. I don’t feel more prepared for writing my next story because I do not know what our next assignment will be. So far we have written is such different styles and with such varying goals that I do not feel like what I have learned really carries over into the next piece. Besides, these pieces would be more helpful in preparing us for our next assignment if we got them back, with critiques, before the next assignment was due. Since we get them back after the next assignment is due they are not very useful for helping us apply what we learn in the next assignment.

Fable

For years the students at Trinity Western had known there was a problem, but it was a surprise to the Dean when he found out. He sat in his study, starring out the window. He had been Dean at Trinity for years, and he was very proud of everything he had accomplished. So he had been thoroughly surprised when he had uncovered this problem, and he had been mulling over it for the last half and hour. “CLARENCE!” he barked sharply. The small doorman jumped to attention. “There is a problem.” Clarence nodded as somberly as he could, trying to look sympathetic and interested but not impertinent. The Dean was a very exacting man, and Clarence knew better than to upset him because of the wrong facial expression when he was mulling over a newfound problem. “Now, as you know, I cannot tolerate problems at my University. It simply is not right. So I need someone to help me solve this problem.” Clarence stared at the corner of the Dean’s impeccable desk, nodding at every other word. “The problem is this. Professor Wertin has been, taking bribes.” The Dean shuddered as Clarence gasped in the appropriate shock. The Dean nodded. “I know, it’s true. The report came in this morning. And what do you think we should do about this? We cannot dismiss him publicly. The school would be disgraced!” Clarence shook his head to indicate the hopelessness of the situation. The Dean squinted intellectually at the corner of the room. “There is only one solution. We must find a student. The worst student in the history of studentdom. We will promise this student a college degree, no, a degree with honors! if he will make Professor Wertin resign. Maybe we should offer him a scholarship as well.” He looked Clarence in the eye. “Well? What are you waiting for? FIND ME THAT STUDENT!” Clarence nodded vigorously as he scampered out of the room.
The next day Clarence handed the Dean a file. “Jhonny Buluks.” The Dean flipped through the excessively thick file and smiled. “Sounds perfect.”

Jhonny smiled to himself as he slouched down the sweeping staircase outside of the Dean’s office, drawing horrified glances from the proper schoolgirls that he passed. He hadn’t been very surprised when he had received a summons from the Dean. Even though the senile old fool never seemed to remember him, he had been called there on numerous occasions for one antic or another. But this visit had been different. Instead of the usual admonishment about upholding the standards of the prestigious institution of which he was a part, the Dean had conspiratorially revealed to him the fact that Professor Wertin had been taking bribes in exchange for giving out good grades. While that had not surprised him, after all, that was how he had passed Wertin’s Intro to Philosophy class; he had been shocked when the Dean had offered him everything that he had been trying so hard to avoid in exchange for convincing the Professor to quit. He had agreed instantly, after all, it would be a feather in his cap to be able to be solely responsible for professor’s resignation, and an eternal badge of honor to be bribed by the Dean of students for doing so.
That next quarter Jhonny arrived for the first day of Wertin’s “Ethics and Virtues” course. He talked through the teacher’s introduction and asked loud questions over and over again, shocking his classmates by addressing him as “Wertin” instead of the honorary “Professor.” In the next week he ate crunchy food in class, walked in late, threw paper airplanes and spit gum under the Professor’s feet. He read newspapers and magazines and talked on his phone, occasionally even asking for Wertin’s opinion on matters he was discussing with his friends. He did all of his homework, but he did it so badly he knew that it would physically pain Wertin to read it. He misspelled words and mixed up sentences, he answered the wrong questions and wrote pages on short answer problems. Jhonny also went to visit Wertin outside of class. He would follow him to his next classes, sometimes walking into those classes to ask personal questions of the Professor. He found him at lunch and would talk at him while chewing gum or would spit while he talked, even occasionally helping himself to Wertin’s food. He called Wertin in the middle of the night to ask for help on homework problems or to ask his opinion about current sporting events. But as the weeks passed and the bags under Professor Wertin’s eyes grew larger, Jhonny started to think. He had never attended every class before, and he had certainly never turned in homework before. He was finding that he was interested in the things he was reading. Then one night while he was reading “A Treatise on the Benefits of Honesty” he was convicted. He stared at the page and felt everything that he had ever believed about school fade away. He suddenly wanted to do well. He wanted to succeed in his classes. He wanted to graduate with honors. But more than anything else, he wanted to do it honestly! He fell asleep that night content, knowing what he had to do.
Lexi Perpercon had been editor of the school paper for three years now, and she had never seen anyone waiting outside the school newspaper office before. But there was definitely a boy sitting on the hard couch shoved under the frosted window this morning, waiting for her to open the doors. As soon as she did he jumped up. “Are you a reporter?” He asked eagerly. She eyed him skeptically. “No, I am the editor. But I can write a story if you have a scoop you want to share.” She ushered him into her office. “Now, if you would like to tell me what you know?” she said as she closed the door.
The next morning the headline of the Trinity Press blared “Dean of Students Bribes Student to Remove Professor.” After three whirlwind weeks both the Dean and Professor Wertin had been replaced. The Board of Governors had been horrified at the lack of honest dealings of both the teacher and the Dean, and had taken the appropriate measures to purge the school of such dishonest people. Meanwhile, Jhonny had embraced his new moral standards. In several years he did manage to graduate with honors, and he went on to teach his own classes, forever reminding his students of the valuable lessons he had learned so many years ago.

Reading Journal 3

The Context of this story is set when the author introduces the problem setting up the following action, in this fable it is the idea that men are driven to hell by their wives, and that this is a problem that the devils of hell want to deal with. This sets the stage for a devil to go and love with a wife and allows all the following action to happen. The three context elements are all present when 1) Belfagor becomes a human, 2) Belfagor takes a wife, and 3) he falls in love with her and she drives him to ruin. These three elements are followed by mini stories, the anecdotes, to set up and explain them. For example, the first anecdote, in which Belfagor becomes human, describes the way in which he was chosen, the constraints and rules placed upon him as a human, and then his actual transformation. The turning point of the story is started by the sentence “Thus, living such a tumultuous and unsettled life and having already consumed all is ready cash in extravagant expenditures, Roderigo began to live in the hope of the profits he expected from the Eastern and Western investments.” The actions of the main character start after Rodrigo promises to make Gianmatteo rich in exchange for helping him escape his pursuers. The actions are 1) Gianmatteo hiding and saving Roderigo and then learning about how to become rich, 2) his expelling Belfagor from the daughter of the Florentine noble, and 3) his expelling Belfagor from the daughter of the King of Spain. One moral of the story comes after Gianmatteo returns home, to “enjoy a peaceful life.” He is not greedy but is content with his lot and is happy to live in peace for the rest of his days. This moral is fairly obvious. The other moral of the story is a more subtle one which insinuates that women are trouble making and will bring about your ruin if they are allowed to have free rein. This is set up in the context of the story but is also supported by the fact that the girls who are possessed are the cause of a loss of a lot of money for either distraught fathers, and by the fact that in order to pursue his peaceful life Gianmatteo does not go home and seek a wife but seeks a life alone. The wife is also, in the end the undoing of the power of the devil, and therefore is a troublesome entity. The reversal comes when Belfagor possesses the daughter of the King of France. This upsets Gianmatteo’ plans for a peaceful and happy life, or it forces him to confront the devil. However, there is only one reversal, after that comes the resolution to the story in which Gianmatteo confronts and outsmarts the devil and, thanks to his resourcefulness, sends him back to hell. And the final resolution comes when Gianmatteo returns home to enjoy the peaceful life that he had wanted in the first place.

Myth Journal

I chose Demeter and Dionysus because I wanted to write a commentary on the modern day relationship to nature, so the gods of fertility, the harvest and the vine seemed like logical choices for characters. I utilized metaphor by contrasting the modern city with nature, who was personified by Demeter. It was not very difficult because the way I wrote the story it was inherent within her character. My use of third person gives the reader the feel of having a narrator tell the story which plays into the idea that, as a myth, someone is explaining a truth to you through a story. It reinforces the reader’s idea that they are being told this by an impassive third party who is the one trying to impress a point upon them. I chose to include dialogue because I felt it would show a more realistic interaction between my characters. The most difficult part of writing this piece was coming up with a framework and choosing out characters that fit the framework for a story that I could work with.

Modern Day Myth

Demeter stood on a balcony of her mountain home, looking out over her domain, and worried. Once when she stood on the great blue mountain overlooking the valleys and low hills her domain stretched from one distant horizon to the other. There was a time when the hills were covered with woodlands and the valleys were covered with golden fields. In those days people waited for her, sending her sacrifices to insure her blessing on their crops, knowing that it was her blessing that made the earth fruitful. But now there was a strange haze in the distance. For years she had watched it develop, watched it grow to cover the hills and valleys she had once tended. First it was barely a smear on the horizon, but it had been creeping closer and closer to the blue, cloud-kissed mountain that she called home. Now it was barely three valleys away, and it worried her. She could not see into that haze and could not understand what was keeping her out of her ancient domain. Frustrated, she jumped off of the balcony and rushed down the side of the mountain.
Soon the woodland around her gave way to big leafy vines. She slowed and looked around till she spotted a large, lush bunch of grapes.
“Dionysus!” she called “God of the vineyard, I need you!” She waited impatiently as a slight rustle stirred the deep, glossy vines. After a few moments the vines nearest her jumped of their supports and twisted together, growing, changing. Before long the figure of an ample man stepped out of the doorway of grape vines.
“Demeter! What are you doing here?” he smiled at her, his chins quivering with mirth. “Care for some wine?” he asked, pulling two glasses full of ruby liquid out of the air.
“No thank you. I have a question to ask you. Do you know what is on the horizon, covering my hills and valleys, filling the air with smoke and filth? I have watched it for years but I cannot see it through the haze.”
“Oh, my dear, of course I do! But it is not a place for you. It is a city, my dear.”
“A city? But I can go into cities. Don’t you remember Babylon? I planted a beautiful garden there. And in Athens, Thebes, and Alexandria people needed me to tend their kitchen gardens and to bring a little green into the yards. They cannot bear to live surrounded by only wood and stone without any living plants to lighten their day.”
“But, my dear, this city is different. You used to be needed there, but it has learned to shut you out. They call it modernization. Haven’t you noticed that haze? That’s what happened when the people there decided they had no more for growing things, or for you. They are content in their worlds of glass and cement. They have colored paintings instead of flower beds and canvas awnings in lieu of trees. For people with those kinds of amenities, who needs nature?”
Demeter stared at the haze on the horizon with tears in her eyes. “But Dionysus, if I am shut out, how do you know these things?”
“Because I’m the god of wine, of course!” He waved his empty glass at her and it refilled with a crisp white wine. “People in that city love wine. They pride themselves on it, even though it comes from fields farther and farther away.” He looked momentarily sad, but soon the look was replaced by his customary mirth. “Would you like to see into this city that is worrying you so?”
Demeter nodded, eager to see this strange place for herself. Dionysus held out is hand, and as soon as she took it in her own they were off. They sped over the hills that she knew better than anyone, but as they went farther something felt wrong. The soils were off, the air was foul. But then they broke through the haze and she gasped in surprise. Towers of glass and steel rose high into the air, blocking out the sun. Brightly flashing signs vied for her attentions and all around her were people. People walking, eating, sitting, hurrying past in cars and busses. And as she stared I amazement she noticed that Dionysus was right. The city had nothing growing anywhere. She searched frantically through the brightly lit roads and the dark narrow alleys, on the rooftops and in windowsills but could not find a single plant that would need her watchful care and blessing. After a long while she found Dionysus, sitting at a café with a bottle of wine on the table. As he poured her a glass a lone tear fell from her eye and hit the pavers at her feet. Where it fell a daisy bloomed, its deep roots stretched out for the least bit of nourishment and its small face turned toward the little sunlight. But Demeter was so distracted she didn’t even notice it until she heard a little girl in the crowd behind her say quietly, “look mommy, there’s a flower.”
Her mother looked down and smiled and said, “yes darling, that is a lovely flower. Just like the ones we had in my yard when I grew up.”
Demeter heard this and smiled. For now she knew that even in this hazy city there were still people who loved flowers. She set down her glass next to Dionysus’ and jumped into the air, speeding over the city. Behind her rain fell and from that rain things started to grow.

The Propaganda of the Roman Triumph and the Arch of Constantine

Introduction:

“The Triumph lasted three days. On the first, which was scarcely long enough for the sight, were to be seen the statues, pictures and colossal images… On the second, was carried in a great many chariots the finest and richest armor of the Macedonians…” These are some of the images Plutarch recalls of the Triumph of Amelius Pauleus in 168 BC. Other records of these decadent and lavish victory celebrations of the Romans are found on the Triumphal Arches erected to celebrate the Triumphs as well as to glorify the Roman general honored by the ceremony.

The Roman Triumph was a Roman military victory celebration. It was celebrated throughout Rome’s history, from the first Triumph of Romulus to the last triumph in the sixth century. It was a lavish ceremony aimed at justifying the recently ended war, purifying the troops and city of the bloodguilt of war, and appeasing and honoring the gods. The triumph was only awarded to successful generals who had 1) been the presiding officer at the specific battle, 2) killed 5000 enemy troops, 3) fought against a foreign enemy, 4) been fighting a sanctioned war of conquest, and 5) if the battle had led directly to the end of the war. If these qualifications were met the general could return to Rome to receive his Triumph. The Triumphs themselves were glorious affairs that are hard for us to imagine. All of the spoils of the war were paraded through the streets of Rome, filled with people in their holiday best. The interesting, valuable, exotic and rare were all placed on huge carts and drug through the city as strange animals were led along behind the humiliated enemy captives. The day would have been full of celebration and feasting and the distribution of largess to the troops and the people. And amidst it all rode the Imperator in his quadriga, or four horsed chariot, his skin painted red, wearing a gold-embroidered purple toga with a laurel wreath held over his head. Yet the celebrations were not simply aimed at admiring the general; the ceremony was sanctioned by the Senate, giving validation to the recently ended war. Sacrifices to purify the army and the city were offered to the gods both before the parade and at the peak of the Capitoline Hill at the end of the ceremony. The entire parade was meant in part to honor the gods of Rome through conquest and sacrifice.

As time progressed and the monarchy moved into the Republic, the Triumphs grew more elaborate and generals started to desire even more glory, so they started to build fornix. The fornix were wooden arches meant to commemorate specific triumphal processions and glorify the honored general. When Augustus came to power at the end of the first century BC he changed the Triumph so that only an emperor could achieve a Triumph, thereby reserving the greatest honor and highest mark of prestige for those who were seeking to concentrate power into their own hands. He also built the first marble Triumphal Arches, giving a more permanent form to the magnificent structures.

At the end of the third century, however, there seemed to be little reason for Rome to celebrate a Triumph. The empire had been wracked by civil wars for years and the latest era of peace under the tetrarchy and Diocletian had come to a bloody end. Yet at the beginning of the fourth century a young general named Constantine had managed to defeat all but one of his rivals for power. At the Battle of the Milvian Bridge he faced the last of these rivals, Maxentius, and handed him a sure defeat. He then made a triumphal entry into Rome, complete with all of the splendor and pomp that Rome could give to its new emperor. Three years later, for Constantine’s decennial celebration, the Senate unveiled one of the last imperial monuments, the Arch of Constantine.


Description:

The Arch of Constantine is a triple bay arch modeled after the Arch of Septimus Severus in the Roman forum. It is decorated with sculpture and reliefs of various styles and time periods. Four columns grace each side, topped with figures of Dracian captives from the Forum of Trajan. The attic is decorated with four panels taken from an Aurelian monument flanking an inscription which reads, “To the Emperor Ceasar Flavious Constantine, the Great, the Pious, the Fortunate, the Exalted- inasmuch as through the inspiration of the deity and the greatness of his mind, he, with his army, avenged the State, both of the tyrant and on all the partisans of his faction- the Senate and the Roman people dedicate this arch adorned with Triumphs.” On the North and South sides the arch is also decorated with four Trondi taken from a Hadrianic monument describing scenes of a hunt and a long continuous frieze depicting Constantine’s battles, triumphal entry, and scenes of the distribution of largess. The arch’s spandrels are decorated with winged victories and river gods, and the column bases are decorated with winged victories leading foreign captives. In the central bay and on the East and West Attic there are scenes of a battle frieze taken from a Trajanic monument. The East and West sides of the arch are decorated with roundels showing the rising of the sun god Sol (in the East) and the setting of Luna (in the West). They also have continuations of the Constantinian frieze, which starts in the Northwest corner, under the setting of Luna, and wraps around the arch in a continuous narration of Constantine’s exploits.

This arch was a traditional form of monument that had its roots in the fornix of the Late Republic. Even the use of spolia was a common practice by Constantine’s time, so its form and decoration are fairly traditional. However, the carvings from Constantine’s time are quite new and innovative. Instead of adhering to the realistic sculpting of the second century, which is demonstrated on the arch itself in the Aurelian panels and Trajanic frieze, the Constantinian carver decided to work in a new style. This style is more frontal and utilized a hierarchy of scale, making the most important people the biggest, determining size based on importance. Also, the sculptor paid less attention to realism, instead focusing on telling a story with his panels.


Function:

The Arch of Constantine was meant to be seen by the Roman citizens as a memorial to and instruction about their emperor. It was placed on the road entering the Forum, the gathering place of the Roman people. It was also right next to the Flavian amphitheater, the largest amphitheater in Rome and the sight of the popular gladiatorial games. The arch’s close proximity to this building meant that it would be viewed daily by thousands of people. Since the Constantinian Frieze can be read like a story it is fair to say that the arch was placed at this busy intersection in order to instruct and remind the citizens of Rome about the exploits of the emperor.

The use of spolia also had a very specific function. Spolia was incorporated into the arch’s decoration to relate Constantine to the emperors in the past, such as Hadrian, Trajan and Marcus Arelius. So while the Constantinian frieze told the onlookers a story, the spolia brought to mind venerated and very popular emperors of old. The decorations were meant to bring to mind specific images and ideals associated with the emperors Constantine had chosen to emulate.

The inscription and numerous pictorial references to the sun god Sol were also meant to minimize the emperor’s new conversion to Christianity. In the ancient world, the stability of the empire, nature, and the state of life in general were often seen as directly tied to the piety of the emperor or king of a country. Constantine’s conversion to a new religion that, for many Romans, was a perversion of everything holy was a very bad omen for the future of the empire. The Arch Constantine emphasizes Constantine’s connection to a monotheistic paganism - his worship of the sun god, Sol. Some have argued that Constantine actually believed there was little to no difference between the sun god and Christ, and many Christian idioms used to describe Christ, such as the light of the world, blurred this distinction further. The arch used pictures and references of Sol to emphasize the emperor’s traditional piety.


Addressing the Goals of Constantine:

Constantine had several very specific goals in mind when he built his triumphal arch. He wanted to inform the people about his reign and his deeds as emperor, while associating himself with a good past to indicate a bright future. In his frieze he depicts several things that are meant to be read as a story by his contemporary viewers. He depicts on the North side of the arch his battles at the siege of Verona and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and on the south side scenes of oratio and largesse, which show the emperor addressing and interacting with an adoring public. These scenes are used to remind the people of Rome of the emperor’s prowess in battle, a mark of prestige and power, and of his generosity and beneficial relations with the Roman public. This frieze also correlates with scenes in the Aurelian panels, again relating Constantine’s actions with those of an emperor that fourth century Romans venerated and respected.
Associating himself with good emperors of the second century was the second of Constantine’s goals in building his arch. He primarily uses the spolia to do this, although he also had busts of other good emperors behind him in the oratio scene of the Constantinian frieze. The spolia was taken off of other public monuments in what was most likely a very public manner, so the people who saw the carvings in their new setting probably new where they had come from and which emperor they correlated with. This served to align Constantine’s vision with the visions of these emperors. Because the third century was so full of civil wars, the second century emperors were honored by the late third and early fourth century Romans as protectors of peace and Roman virtue. By aligning himself with these emperors, Constantine compared himself to men that were venerated by the public, trying to show himself in a very good light.


Conclusion:

Even though the last Roman Triumph was thousands of years ago, and the Arch of Constantine was the last of the Imperial Monuments, the Triumph and the Triumphal Arch have been used in many different mediums into the modern era. Medieval writers adapted the triumph for allegorical use, writing poems about the Triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death, and Time. Other artists of the time used these allegorical triumphs as subjects in paintings and decorations. The quadriga, the four horsed chariot that the Imperator rode in, has also been given more modern meanings. It now tops buildings and monuments as a winged victory, symbolizing the triumph of the victory of whichever country paid for the monument. The Triumphal Arch has also been rendered in several different mediums. It has been used as a background in paintings to symbolize the triumph of the subject, as Bottecielli did in his panel of the Sistine chapel wall. He depicted Moses fighting the Korahs, and to symbolize their defeat by Moses he overshadows the battle with the Arch of Constantine. The form of the Arch itself as a monument has also been making a comeback as a war memorial, such as the Arc d’ Triumph in Paris.

In this assignment I was surprised by the different sculpture styles that were used on the Arch of Constantine. I thought it was interesting that in one monument two styles were utilized for different purposes. I also was fascinated by the Constantinian frieze. The way it told the emperor’s idealized story, even though the figures were not very realistic was fascinating. I really enjoyed reading an in depth discussion of the different scenes in that frieze and analyzing why Constantine would choose to include that scene from his life.



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