What were the favorite holidays of the Romans like? What attracted them? In Hotel Roma (Confluencias), Fernando Lillo, doctor in Classical Philology and professor of Latin, answers these questions and describes the tourist circuits through Greece and the exotic trips around Egypt, “the closest thing that existed then to what would be today Bali or Thailand”, he points out.
According to Lillo, the Romans were very fond of writing graffiti in the places they frequented. For example, a visitor from the distant Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea), went to the tomb of one of the Colossi of Memnon, in Egypt, and created a new word: “I, Hermogenes of Amasa, having seen the other galleries, I I admired, but when exploring this one from Memnon, I was ‘over-admired’”. Thousands of “tourist” graffiti are still preserved today in Egypt, Pompeii, Sparta or Rome.
The nearly 80,000 kilometers of roads that existed around the year 117 AD, when the Romans reached their peak of geographical expansion, “caused almost everyone to travel from one side of the empire to the other,” reveals Jerry Toner, specialist in classical antiquity, in Guide to travel through the Roman Empire (Criticism).
As if that were not enough, the Romans had up to 177 holidays a year and were benefited by the pax romana, a period of relative tranquility on both shores of the Mediterranean that lasted from the reign of Augustus (27 BC. -14 AD) until that of Marco Aurelio (161-180 AD) In ??total, 207 years in which it was possible to travel the known world with a tranquility never seen before.
When the heat was on, wealthy Romans sought out the pleasures of their pleasure villas. As a general rule, the wealthiest maintained at least two second homes: one on the coast and one in the mountains, although Cicero owned up to ten, both in the interior (Tusculo, Alba, Frosinone and Apino), and on the coast. (Ancio, Astura, Formia, Cumae, Puteoli and Pompeii).
Some summer houses housed ponds where turbot or moray eels were raised, ready to be served in luxurious dining rooms. The most opulent villas had summer and winter dining rooms, with views of the sea or mountains, arenas for group ball games, sumptuous private and visitor spas, and areas for intellectual retreat.
It was quite common for their owners, says Lillo, to invite neighbors from other nearby villas to cultivate their social relationships. In addition, if the place was sufficiently remote, the patriarch could dress informally, without the mandatory and very uncomfortable toga.
The Sperlonga cave was the ideal place to spend the summers of the first century AD. C., if you were lucky enough to be invited by the Emperor Tiberius. Located 120 km from Rome, the villa was known for its sea cave (spelunca), inspired by the figure of Odysseus. The most privileged reclined on a triclinium (a three-seater divan that the Romans used to eat reclining), located in front of the grotto. Everywhere were marble statues, some of which rose from the sea.
Saving the distances, the Sperlonga cave and, above all, the twelve villas that Tiberius owned on the island of Capri, were the closest thing to the current Ibiza, at least if we pay attention to the gossip that Suetonius and Tacitus spread about the ” monstrous pleasures” that sheltered…
Another very popular place on the Campania coast was Bayas (currently a submerged city). Its mineral waters were very famous for their alleged heavenly properties, as well as for their earthly temptations. The poet Martial wrote the story of a Roman woman, called Levina, who came to Bayas as a faithful Penelope, but who, after bathing there, fell in love with a young man and abandoned her husband, leaving the place as a Helena, one of the archetypes of infidelity.
But… how did the Romans move? In Travels through the Ancient Roman Empire (Nowtilus), the historian Jorge García Sánchez explains that the commoners had to be content with covering long distances on foot, on donkeys and mules, or in the hollow of rattling carts full of vegetables.
In practice, there was a carriage for each type of person and trip. If the journeys were long, a two-wheeled cart pulled by two mules, called a carpentum, was used. There was also an equivalent of the stagecoach and coaches for long-term group trips: the raeda. It was a four-wheeled cart drawn by two or four horses, with several rows of benches for passengers and the protection of a hood.
For its part, the carruca also had four wheels, but it was more elegant, to the point of becoming the high-end all-terrain vehicle on Roman roads. Some were adorned with columns, silk curtains and cushions, in addition to having leather straps as shock absorbers. Finally, there was the sleeping carruca, for traveling under the moonlight.
Whether they traveled by land or by sea, the Romans managed, says Lillo at Hotel Roma, to get to know Sicily and the mythical scenes related to the voyages of Hercules. Once there, some would climb Mount Etna or visit the Ear of Dionysus of Syracuse. There was a legend that the tyrant Dionysus had introduced the prisoners of the Peloponnesian war into that cavity in the form of an auditory pavilion to spy on their conversations, taking advantage of its acoustics.
Another alternative was to make a tour of mainland Greece. “Taking a grand tour of the iconic sites of Greece represented a kind of visual appropriation of the conquests of Rome,” Toner writes. Many Roman aristocrats sent their children to Athens to hone their oratorical skills and learn Greek, like the youngsters currently on Erasmus programs.
The Romans were also very fond of spas (with their rooms for mud baths, shrouds, and showers), as well as sanctuaries dedicated to Asclepius, the god of medicine. The main ones were in Epidaurus, Greece, but there were also in Pergamum, the island of Cos and the Tiberina island.
Another incentive was to visit the seven wonders of the world: the pyramids of Egypt, the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the Colossus of Rhodes… The proliferation of lists that enumerated them “can be considered an indicator of the growth of ancient tourism,” Toner suggests.
The Roman elite also enjoyed natural treasures: in the thickness of the forests, inside the caves and the flow of water in rivers and springs, the Romans perceived a latent divinity.
The Timavo River, which ran for 7 km in the open air, then disappeared underground for 40 km and resurfaced near the sea, seduced them, as did Lake Averno, considered the gateway to the subterranean world. Still in the fourth century AD. C. the Roman nobility walked in colored boats from that lake to Pozzuoli, imitating the adventure of Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece.
Another tourist modality consisted of going to the scenes of famous battles (Marathon, Thermopylae, etc.) or visiting relics of mythological characters (the tomb of Oedipus in Athens, Perseus’s sandal, almost one meter long, which was exhibited in a temple of Egypt, the breastplate of Ulysses from the temple of Apollo, in Sición…).
But they enjoyed the athletic festivals even more. From Athens to Olympia (site of the most prestigious games) it was five days’ journey by land, while the distance by sea from southern Italy was six days of navigation. The trip was not without its dangers, since, although the so-called “Olympic truce” was decreed, the “sports tourist” could be the victim of attacks by pirates or highwaymen, according to Lillo.
Once in Olympia, the problem was accommodation, taking into account that between forty thousand and fifty thousand people could crowd. The general public stayed in tented camps, somewhat similar to those of today’s modern music summer concerts. However, there were private ones and also shared with unknown companions (Plato used to stay in these).
In short, a custom arose on the banks of the Tiber that today is called tourism, perhaps because, etymologically, the term derives from the Latin tornus, which means “return” or, what amounts to the same thing, traveling with the aim of go back.
