Hunting for Horace's Humble Home
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ITALY DAILY, WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2001 PAGE 3 DISCOVER Hunting for Horace’s ON THE GROUND By Elisabetta Povoledo [email protected] Humble Home G-8 Was No Boon Did the Poet Live as Modestly as He Said He Did? For the Birds Either An Archaeological Team in Lazio Takes Him to Task The widespread use of teargas by police in two days of rioting during the Genoa G-8 summit last weekend By John Moretti In 1914, Pasqui’s state money ran out [email protected] has decimated the city’s pigeon pop- and the dig was closed. He concluded ulation, Il Secolo XIX reported Mon- was that this was indeed Horace’s home, day. he Roman poet Horace once wrote: and future generations would base their After the riots, the Genoa daily “Let him who has enough wish for studies on his conclusions; most notably, observed, locals began to see dead T nothing more.” Giuseppe Lugli, the leading authority on bird carcasses piling up on the streets, For two centuries, archaeologists have Roman topography. stunned squabs stilled into immobili- searched for the source of those words In his texts, Lugli would express surprise ty on cornices or drunkenly stagger- and the environment that surrounded at the way the poet actually lived, casting ing around in circles. their author. Because Horace was more doubt on Horace’s accuracy. Some ventured that maybe the autobiographical in his writing than many But these days, a privately funded dig birds were keeling over because of of his contemporaries, he left clues as to led by Bernard Frischer of the University lack of food — after all, many where he made his home. of California Los Angeles is re-examining Genoese abandoned the city during He wrote of a modest farmhouse in a the site and testing those claims. By dig- letter to a friend, enticing her to visit the ging deeper, Frischer has shown that the summit, meaning fewer “Valley of Ustica” in the shadow of Mt. Pasqui’s work was only half-done. there appeared a patchwork masonry At left, the site. Above, Charlie Steinmetz munchies for their feathered friends. Lucretilis. In the 1700s, a site in eastern “In the 1990s, I accepted Lugli’s conclu- known as opus mixtum — associated with makes one of his frequent trips to the dig that But while locals may have flown Lazio was pinpointed, and in the 1900s, sions as did everyone else in the field,” a period 100 years after Horace’s death — his family is sponsoring. Below, Frischer on the coop, pigeons do not live by archaeologist Angleo Pasqui started dig- Frischer says. “But I was making a new and not the net-like opus reticulatum of the location. bread alone, and it’s unlikely that ging there, looking more closely. argument, which now you can see in a day. insects, or inanimate seeds and fruits Pasqui and his team turned up some different light. But beneath the layers of mixtum, from the sea, it is almost by definition by — favorite pigeon snacks — would intriguing Roman walls. Although the “Horace had always described his villa Frischer found a smaller set of walls dis- imperial order,” Frischer says. have mysteriously dematerialized for excavation revealed a building of palatial as a modest farmhouse. But with about playing reticulatum, suggesting that an old- There is another clue that might link a week. dimensions, which could in no way be 20,000 square feet of living space, [what er structure did exist there and that some- Horace’s home to Vespasian, this time According to the paper, the considered modest, the archeologist was Pasqui found] would have been the one had actually built around it. Eventu- gleaned from the poet’s writing. pigeons began meeting their maker convinced he had found the 1st-century biggest mansion in Beverly Hills.” ally, he came across a small atrium with- Horace mentioned that his father was a on Saturday. Putting two and two B.C farmhouse nonetheless. As Frischer exposed more of the rocks, in the palace, revealing Augustan features freedman, a former slave who went on to together, it quickly pinpointed the and a floor plan more in line with the middle-class wealth by becoming an auc- culprit — teargas, which was so nox- abode Horace described. tioneer. He moved from Venusia, — now ious Saturday that some demonstra- Frischer’s colleague, Kathryn Gleason Venosa, in Basilicata — to Rome, so as to tors had to be placed in decontami- Weather of Cornell University, also unearthed two give his son the best education. nating showers to get rid of its after- layers of vegetable garden dating to At school, Horace met the poet Virgil, effects. temp min c/f max c/f TODAY Horace’s time. By analyzing the seeds in who in turn introduced him to his patron, City officials, however, were more Bologna 20/68 29/84 Bolzano and around the perfectly intact flower Maecenas. Maecenas was a good friend doubtful. Bolzano 20/68 26/79 pots, she hopes to learn more about how Frischer has an answer to that, too, of Caesar Augustus and through these “We’d love to know if teargas was Brindisi 19/66 31/88 Turin Trieste Roman poets went about their garden- though he stresses it is purely hypotheti- lofty connections the young middle-class the reason, because then we could Cagliari 20/68 30/86 Milan Venice ing. cal. poet would not only land himself a bombard Genoa every day and do Catania 20/68 31/88 Genova Bologna Frischer notes that Pasqui’s method About one kilometer from the site by patron, but would befriend the emperor away with the pigeon problem alto- Florence 19/66 29/84 would not have led him to the same Mt. Lucretilis is an inscription on an himself. gether,” said Paolo Albonetti of the Genoa 24/75 28/82 information anyway. Those of the old ancient water pipe, mentioning the In his will, Horace the bachelor Firenze city’s urban fauna office, responsible, Milan 21/70 29/84 school were interested only in what they restoration of a temple by the emperor bequeathed his farmhouse to Augustus. among other things, for pest control. Naples 17/63 30/86 were looking for, and other layers “just Vespasian. The property would eventually be passed He was kidding. Palermo 24/75 30/86 got in the way,” Frischer explains. The “Now, Vespasian was not a big builder down to Vespasian. In fact, he does blame the G-8 for Rome 17/63 28/82 modern stratographic method, he says, of temples,” Frischer notes. “So why “Like today,” Frischer remarks on Rome Brindisi the recent pigeon slaughter, but reck- Trieste 18/64 27/81 uses each layer to date nearby artifacts would he have built a temple in such an Horace’s social windfall, “education was ons the preparations for the summit Turin 19/66 28/82 Naples with more precision. out-of-the-way place?” the great equalizer.” were more lethal than the teargas. Venice 21/70 28/82 It is still not entirely certain that this is The villa, he reasons, sits halfway The UCLA archeologist would also His office began to record an Horace’s villa. But the location is unmis- between Rome and Rieti, the village once meet an important patron through cam- increasing number of bird deaths six SUNNY Cagliari takeable, scholars agree, and the Augus- known as Reati where Vespasian grew up. pus contacts. One of his students was a months ago, when all the restoration Palermo tan walls and the small dimensions would It would have made a suitable resting Steinmetz, from the Los Angeles family of work began in the city center. PARTLY CLOUDY suggest that Horace was telling the truth place for an emperor travelling from the airplane-frame builders, who would “Downtown pigeons, finding their Catania about his lifestlye. capital to the countryside. become his principal sponsor. usual habitat thrown upside down, CLOUDY “Why would Horace have misled us With respect to other imperial palaces, Frischer believes the money is well- had to migrate to the suburbs where about where he lived?” Frischer asks. “In the one built around what is presumably spent because it answers an important his- there was much more traffic than the RAIN fact, it seems everyone else was misled Horace’s hut is not especially large. But its torical question: How reliable are ancient birds were used to,” said Mr. by Lugli.” marble is suspiciously abundant and dis- scribes and poets? A dig like this, he says, Albonetti. Not known for their intel- THUNDERSTORMS TOMORROW The question that now arises is: Who plays a craftsmanship indicative of the is the only way to find out. Bolzano would have built such a lavish palace Flavian dynasty. “He’s talking about X. X still exists,” he ligence, the pigeons were nothing around the poet’s country home? “If you see that much marble that far says. “Let’s see if it corresponds.” other than sitting ducks. “There were SNOW Turin Trieste a lot of squashed pigeons around,” Milan Venice he said. FOG City officials delighted in noticing a Genova Bologna Horace’s Villa on the site from 1930-1931, led by Recently, many improvements to the Licenza, Lazio Thomas Price, a Fellow of the Acade- site have been made. Lighting, pave- similar migration among rats. temp min c/f max c/f Open Tues. through Sun. my at the time. Despite these projects, ment of roads leading there, and park Besides, Genoa has had some suc- Bologna 20/68 30/86 Firenze 9 A.M.