Giornale #2 - Stadium of Domitian

The museum which holds the Stadium of Domitian is unassuming to the eye. I had walked

past the entranceway a couple times already, never even suspecting that I was standing

on top of such immense history.

After purchasing a ticket, I descended down the stairs and walked straight into antiquity. I saw
arches and full structures from the original stadium, old art everywhere, and signs teaching
me more than I ever thought I’d know about a single building from nearly 2,000 years ago. I

felt like I myself was a Roman in imperial times.

As someone who has been fascinated by classics essentially my entire life, this experience

was far from usual. The closest to full immersion that I had ever before felt could be found

in novels inserting ancient mythology into the world that I knew, like reading Percy Jackson

as a little kid. For the first time, in the Stadium of Domitian, practically alone among the ruins,

I felt like I was the one being transported through time.

Though we were technically in a museum, because I was surrounded by original walls, it

felt so much more immersive than that. To be able to touch the brick as I passed by felt unreal,

I was in awe at the size and the stature of these artifacts that had survived for so long.

One part that struck me in particular was a set of stairs, surrounded by two walls, leading

to an archway. The fact that this piece of the stadium, which I assumed to be an entrance

to the seating for the events, had survived for so long together was miraculous to me. Though

there was a large hole in the middle of the steps, the fact that these weren’t fragmented

otherwise came as a shock to me. Staring at these steps, I was able to lose myself in

wonder.

I wondered who walked these exact stairs so many years ago, wondering if they would ever

think that students two thousand years in the future would be thinking about them. I could

see myself, walking through ancient Rome, through the crowds in the stadium, on my way

to see a wrestling match or a foot race. I imagined the people I would see, emperors, priests,

vestal virgins, and common folk coming together to celebrate athletics, in the same ways that

we do today for sporting events.

I had only visited this museum a few days into the trip, I wasn’t used to being able to have

such a thorough experience with the pieces. To be able to look upon the stairs that the

emperor Domitian had ordered to be built in the year 80 CE, not just a model or an image

online… I felt like I was dreaming. I had no idea what would be in store for me for the rest of

this trip, nor the feelings that I could experience while walking amongst magnificent structures

I had treated for so long like vocabulary words. The Stadium of Domitian was only the start.