Italica

Our first excursion outside the walls (figurative walls, walls around cities went out of style some 200 years ago) of sevilla. It was not a excursion of grand length, it lasted only two hours and we could see the city from where we were exploring but still a new place and a somewhat interesting one at that.
Italica is the remains of a roman city that once occupied the land around modern day sevilla. Spain, like all of europe and some of africa and other places as well I'm sure was under roman control for some six hundred years or some other number whose vastness means nothing in the modern blur of time. Our professor told us that we would have to use our imaginations heavily as much of the ruins were, well ruins, and I must say it was hard to imagine a sprawling roman metropolis while tying not too look at the blinking red neon sign advertising local beer at the gas station across the street. Still my imagination is strong from years of being a weird loner of a child and it was interesting to picture walls growing in my minds eye around the foundations that were left and imagine the people (50,000 or so I think) going to bake bread or repair the sewer (oh yeah they had sewers) or just walking enjoying the day as we were almost 2000 years later.
















Here of course are a few pictures. This one is simply the road that went through the city. The long down the road shot was prettier in gladiator but I never claimed to be a photographer. Each of these blocks along the side would have been a pillar in roman times and would have connected with the houses to make a covered walkway to protect citizens from sun and rain and keep them out of the road so carts could move. Pretty clever eh? Yeah, I know.
















This is one of the many foundations of the houses in italica. All of them are these lovely murals and they all had themes that reflected what the person who owned the house liked or didn't like as it may be. Apparently this fellow liked neptune, god of the sea, but didn't like the back half of horses and decided to replace them with something more going with the sea theme.
















This was probably the neatest thing we saw. This is a hallway in the roman amphitheater where gladiators would wait, listening to the snarls of lions that they were about to face in battle (lions are notorious being awesome at eating gladiators). I imagine if I was about to face a lion I might try to quickly befriend it, but my lion is worse than my spanish and I haven't been able charm many spaniards just yet. So i'd probably be toast. Thats all. Thanks for the picture grandma, the guys are all quite handsome and really tall, a genetic quality my brothers and I are still a little short on (get it?) but I'm glad to see they are well and i will continue to be about to send you a better email soon. Cheers.