Mae'r stref yma yn anodol, mae'r stryda sydd yn ei gweld. Mae'r hyffordd yn ein hyffordd yn hyffordd yn gweithio'r cyfnod. Ond mae'r cyfeiriau yn enwedig, mae'r ffemol iawn i gynnig i'r hollwyr yn Hollywood, mae'r ffemol iawn i'r hollwyr i'r hollwyr yn gweithio'r ffemol iawn i gynnig i'r hollwyr. i chi'n ddweud, ond mae'n gweithio'r cyfrifol yn ymweld, fel y byddwch chi'n gwybod yn ymddangos, yn y ffyrdd yma. Welcam. Rwy'n Brian Schmidt. Rwy'n gwybod yn Y Cosmologi, ac rwy'n gweithio'r gwybod yn y Tych yn Ymddon yn Allasghaf. Rwy'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r Unedig Nesafol. A gennyn gyda'r bair hwnna diwethaf gweithio ar y Tyn ni yw hefyd peiriau yw'r amlodau iawn. Yn Ymddangos Mary Beird, ein profesiadu ceisgrannu a'r Unedig Nesafol. Mae'n canhwch ar Ffyrdd y Tyn, gyda'r Pwysig, fe fyddwnyn, fel yr hyn yn ei ffordd, ac mae'n rhoi'r ffyrdd eich vlog fi, rydyn ni'n bod yn gweithio'r blog i Ddon. Mae'n cofnir, roedd yn ddod yna heddiogol, dwi'n credu kunnaig, Not her as learned but accessible which seem to be a slightly interesting way of describing it, but often described as the world's most famous classicist, which I would say at some levels also may be damning with faint praise. That's what my husband says? To me I guess I would say she's more than that, a true public intellectual, perhaps dyma'r cyfnod o'r cwmhwysau arwyr argynwyr arweithio. Felly yn rhoi cyfnod oedd yn ystod genedlai, dyma'r cyfnod o'r amddogau cyfnod o'r cyfnod. Mae hwn yn ffodol iawn yma i hefyd i eich chesaf i fynd i chi, a'i gweithio eu chesaf i'r hodd. Yn ystod, dyma'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod. Mae'n adrodd gael ar gyfer dyma. Rwy'n meddwl gwybwy ni ein rydyn nhw. Mae'n adrodd ei fod yn llull yn cyfnodol. Mae hyn sy'n gyffredig ein bod yn ddechrau'r adrodd. Rwy'n meddwl gael ar gyfer y cyfnodol. Mae'n adrodd fel rhyw bryd i wen yn ysgrifthu gyn nhw'n gweld. Belyd don e塵i'r ymu. Blyd ei fod yn ymraed. Blyd ei fod yn yn ymraed. Rwy'n meddwl yw eu bod yn maelio gael eich teulu, sy'n fawr o'r cyllidell na ddりfodur i mi yn lleidio ysgrifennu a'r panel i'n deudio ar y cyllidell yn bleidio? Ddurwn ni'n ddweud i hynny. Proses ystod y llifon wedi всёnd a fawr i chi, teimd gwyl i'r blestau a haf o tek yn ei gweithio'r byd y cyllidell ac mae'n ddwy'n gilyddol o fasilwenydd a fïgu. Rwy'n ddim yn ddwy'n gilyddol yn d inductionol, ac mae'n ddysgu'n ddwy'r panel I set ther in a historical context. I'm a classicist, and I'm a rather old fashioned classicist in many ways. I've read Home as Odyssey since I was a teenager. There was one passage that I must have read 10 or 15 times but only noticed about 10 years ago, which is the beginning of the Odyssey. ac mae'n gwybod i gyddoedd o'r gwybod, yma, y mynd i chi'n gwneud i ddechrau Gerddorodd. Felly mae'n gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r Yngrifordd, yma'n gweithio i gyd yn Ithaca. Mae gennym ni'r lleidio, rhai amser oherwydd allwch yn bwysigol, maen nhw'n gallu'n gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio. Os yw, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio. ac yn siŵn, mae'n gweithio panellopau yn ystod y cyngor yn y cerddau'r llymigau, gyda'r cyfrifio'r cyfrifio'r cyfrifio, rydyn ni'n cyfrifio ar gyfer adysius, ac yn y cerddau'r cyfrifio ar gyfer adysius yma. Roeddwn ni'n mynd i'r stori o'r oedysius i'r stori o adysius yma, ond mae'n ddysius i'r stori o'r cyfrifio'r cyfrifio. A'r cerddau panellopau yn ystod y cyfrifio ar gyfer adysius yma, ac mae'n gweithio yn ystod y cyfrifio ar gyfer adysius i'r stori o adysius, ac mae'n cyfrifio ar y cyfrifio ar gyfer adysius i'r stori o adysius yma, ac yn pethu'r cyfrifio ar gyfer agor aelodau, o'ch bywch yn cerddau'r cyfrifio ar gyfer adysius, i'n gweithio ar gyfer adysius. Pynalepe gwybod i'n fwyaf yw'r rhai yn y bryd yn ystod yn y gallu'r fawr chyfyddiadau, fwyaf, gwybod i'r fawr, o'r tymwcys, oherwydd felly mae'n rhaid i'ch ddweud cyhoeddion yng Nghymru, oherwydd yn ystod, oherwydd yn ystod, oherwydd yn ystod, oherwydd yn ystod, oherwydd e'n gwybod i'r gweithio. Mae'r mwy ysgrifennu ei ddweud yn ystod, oherwydd mae'n ystod, oherwydd mae'n mynd yn ystod, oherwydd mae Pynalepe i'n ystod. Now, I have I managed to read that for about 30 years of my adult life and never notice it? I don't know, but once you have noticed it, you say, here we are, here we are, guys. We're at the very beginning of Western Literature. And what's happening to women?  That's... It's not just that he's being a kind of an awkward teenager, he's doing what he should do. And there is no bit of the history, I will say confidently, of the history of the west, but I think it goes a lot further than that. There's no bit of the history of the west in which that scenario has not been replayed ever since. Rwy'n cael ei wneud o'r rhan o bwysig. Mae bobl King pawb pwynteth, dweud a directilicio, rhan o bwysig o'r rhan o bwysig a dyma? Is yn ôl i gynhyrchu sy'n cyfnogaeth sy'n gael eich pwyntaeth, dwi'n bod fy neu ar yr amser mawr. I can guarantee, I'll not be proved wrong, of course, but I can pretty well guarantee there's not a woman on the planet who doesn't know what that feels like. There are all kinds of other factors involved. There is race and there's class and there's privilege of all kinds of other ways. But actually, when it comes down to it, the history of the world is a history of men not listening to women. Hi by that. The world could do to listen to a lot of other people, I have to say, but they certainly should start by listening to women. Hard for me to argue, as someone who watches within a university, conversations occur and being gobsmacked sometimes by how they play out. So that is a particular case of Penelope, because she is portrayed, I guess, from my memory of reading that when I was young, as what I would describe as a very, I had a very strong mother, so I've been indoctrinated in some form of feminism, even if it wasn't particularly described that in my youth. And to me, she was just a very weak character, Penelope. Penelope is really savvy. Penelope, she's the one, she should tell the bar to shut up, and she's the one who's got all those blokes crowding into the palace. Odysseus is still coming back. They all think, right, okay, I want to marry that woman, because then I will be king of this outfit. And what does Penelope do every night? Well, she says to them, okay, you can marry me when I've finished my piece of weaving. And every day she weaves that, every night she pulls it out, and so she never finishes the piece of weaving. Now that, you can say, as many an ancient Greek would have, there's female wiles for you. You can't ever trust a woman, can you? She never does what she's going to say. But, you know, in a sense, Penelope, okay, there is one image of her as the perfect faithful wife who was waiting for Odysseus to come back home.  And does what he says, you know? And I guess as it is interesting from my male perspective, I guess I see that as perhaps a woman not empowered, but what you're telling me is she actually was empowered within the confines of society of the day. Yeah, she's, you know, she's fighting it. She's fighting it unsuccessfully.  But actually, within the context of, first of all, classical, but then European and more wide culture more generally, that scene has never ceased to be replayed.  But it's actually that you see there in a nutshell what has happened ever since. So let's talk about some of the works back in this time where women seemingly are empowered or have power, but it's always done in a very simple way. You can choose whichever one you want, but since we're talking, I guess, if we look at Agamemnon, for example, in the same story of the war, how is strength in female portrayed? I mean, I think ancient Greece has been a very interesting lens through which to look at this. And it's partly an interesting lens because there are, at first sight, a number of powerful women.  I'm meaning the mythological stories, the literary fictions, really, of ancient Greece.  You do get entranced, and there is something complicated about this. You get entranced by the powerful women who take control, you know, Medea, who's deserted by Jason, saying that I'd rather stand in the battle line ten times than give birth to a baby once.  Oh, guys. And so there is a very strong rhetoric there of women, fictional women only, fictional women speaking out.   She's taken a lover and she kills him. But every moment that you see male, female power in the ancient world, you know that you can write the end of the story. This is going to go, female power always goes to the bad. Right? And that's, and there is not a single example I'm prepared to pledge this where female power works well. Women in Greek fictionalised mythology are there to show that women are incapable of ruling. So the myth of matriarchy that we often think about, look back in those early Greek myths and you see powerful women, no you don't, you see a justification for the rule of men because women can never be trusted to rule. Look at the Amazons, you know? The warrior women race. What happens to the Amazons? They get slaughtered. What about someone like Antigone who strikes me as being maybe... She doesn't have a happy ending. She had a dignity. I mean I think men have always said that about Antigone. That's their dignity, you know? But I think, look, I'm oversimplifying and over-critifying it because if the nuances of Greek literature was quite as simple and straightforward as I'm saying, I think it's pretty much that, but if it was quite as simple, it would be a pretty unsophisticated thing to be reading. And I think that one of the challenges of Greek literature, it's, apart from the poetry of Sappho, everything that survives is written by men. Part of the challenge of Greek literature is that some of these male playwrights can actually ventrally inquise a version of women's complaints. So they build into these plays, although the end is always the same. They can construct an image of gender wars in a way that I think does engage you. So I would not like you to think that people like Euripides or Sophocles are not worth reading because the women always die in the end, although that's broadly speaking true. They are actually on the way to that. They are problematising it. They are saying, so what might the woman's voice sound like here?  Now, in the end, we're not going to elevate Ovid to be a pioneer of any sort of modern feminism, but what I think is interesting is that Ovid can at least play with that idea and say, what would it be like to be on the other side of this? And you find other aspects of kind of interesting attempts to think outside the box. There's a famous little bit of Greek mythology, which is a question of, do men or women enjoy sex more? And there's only one person who can answer this question, and it's the prophet Tiresias, who in the gender fluidity of the ancient world, which is something in a sense I think we're seeing again, in the fluidity of the ancient world, Tiresias has spent several years as a woman. So you have the male prophet who has been female. But of course what Tiresias comes out with is the idea that women have the best time in sex. Playing into another kind of ancient conceit, which is the poor phallic patriarchal man, is always outsmarted by the woman. Now, how many times have we heard that? So I'm actually curious, because at one point I read the complete works of Sappho, which if you've done so, you'll realize it's actually not a huge accomplishment, because it's not much. Sappho was apparently revered as a very capable poet of her time, but how was she portrayed back then? I mean, as near as I can tell, they again had a way to diminish her. She ends up throwing herself off a cliff. Yet another example of the creative, in this case powerful with her words, Sappho, ends up committing suicide in love for a man. So you have the lesbian poet of antiquity, lesbian both in the sense that she comes from the island of Lesbos and giving her word to our sense of the word lesbian. They called her the 10th muse, a brilliant poetry, but she always, they have to be got rid of, so she falls in love with this fine character and throws her and commits suicide. So I think that, as I said, I don't want to credify this, because the end of the story is always the same, but the way you get there is not always the same, and I think quite a lot of... I think this is going to sound very... I don't mean it to sound conservative, but I think that some of the people in the world who see the ambivalences and the difficulties of oppression most, well, they're not only the oppressed, they're sometimes the oppressors. But I have a benevolent enough view of human nature that I think that it is actually morally and emotionally hard to oppress another class, and you have to go to enormous intellectual lengths to justify that to yourself. We've seen that all over the world. It's tough, and I think that Ancient Greece and Rome in terms of the gender politics of Ancient Greece and Rome have bequeathed to us some quite complicated ways in which men justify the oppression and suppression of women.  It strikes me that she didn't she get the last word in, sort of one way or another. We can talk about that. There's a very nasty story about the wife of Mark Antony who in the middle of Roman civil wars gets to see the head of her enemy, Cicero, displayed in the Roman Forum. They've decapitated him, and they've put the head up in the Roman Forum in the middle of a very nasty civil war. The story is that Fulvia takes a pin out of her hair and she pierces the tongue of the head. The tongue which Cicero, whose head it was, had given some of the most devastating hostile speeches against her husband. That's a scene that has been very popular with later painters who've done things like imagine Fulvia taking the head home, putting it on her bed, and doing it. A very erotic pose. Huge thing. A little weird. I think that, look, we can spin that story and we can turn it over to his head and think that this is righteous female revenge. When it's told by ancient writers, this is an example of true horror. This is the woman who is doing precisely what you fear women might not be able to do. She is not respecting the head of the dead. She has a very nasty record of doing all those things that women are supposed to do, like seducing innocent poets. She's transgressing. She transgressively involves herself in military activity. She ends up, and the civil war does, as wars often do, in a sense kind of shake a bit of Rome and certainties about gender. But it's very interesting that Fulvia is involved in a siege at the town of Perugia, modern town of Perugia. She's inside and it's one of the most vivid glimpses that we get of ancient army culture, because what has survived from the town of Perugia is the sling bolts that go backwards and forwards, each with basically a message on, up yours, Octavian, and this kind of thing. In the way that we're told, I don't know if it's true, that soldiers in the Second World War wrote messages onto the bombs they dropped, into, in a sense, a rather crude version of sexual power over the enemy. Well, students sometimes ask, when we're talking about female anatomy in the ancient world, when do we first know the words for things like clitoris? Well, fascinatingly, the first use of the word clitoris, known in Latin, is on one of these sling bullets, which is aimed at Fulvia, and it says on it, this bullet is going for Fulvia's clitoris. Now, if you start to think that Fulvia was someone who had great respect and was an upstanding moral lady who claimed some authority in ancient Rome, think of the squaddys on the other side saying this is going for Fulvia's clitoris. Okay, yes. Sorry, I've been... Ancient literature is like this. So, when we go through and think about how things maybe haven't changed as much as we'd like them to, one of the things that you said that struck me is, one of the most obvious things to come out was repeatedly used as explanatory tools for otherwise unexplained events.  I mean, it's absolutely standard in Roman culture and also in later court culture where you've got one man rule in a palace to explain the sometimes old and inexplicable events that happen behind the palace walls that you can't see. You say, oh, it's the woman, it's the Empress. So, many of you, I'm sure, have read Robert Graves's I, Claudius, where Livia manages the wife of the Emperor. We're told she poisons anybody she doesn't happen to like. So, any unexplained death is poisoning by this Machiavellian character. I think it always comes as quite a shock to people to say, you know, look, she might have been quite a nice sort of homely character. All this might be fiction and projection, but when that hits home is when it comes out in, something, you know, the British royal family's been having a bit of a rocky time lately in more ways than one, but I was very struck in all the stories of Harry and Meghan, how you had, and I think interestingly, the female of the royal family, the mixed race female, you know, why is it that our smiley ginger-haired prince is wanting to leave his royal deity and go to Canada? It's Meghan Markle. Now, we have absolutely no idea whatsoever what has gone on between Harry and Meghan, there's no way we're ever going to get it. But we are, our press, at least, is absolutely convinced that somehow the explanatory tool here is the female interloper. And that happens really commonly throughout politics, in the secrecy of politics.  And in the UK, Sherry Blair coped it when Tony did things that we didn't want. No, that did stop eventually when Tony did things that we really, really didn't want and it became implausible that it was Sherry. But there's that sense that, it's a kind of Cherché la femme in order to blame. You want to be able to blame the woman. So another thing that you've talked a lot about is essentially women seizing power through the Me Too movement. And I guess I'm kind of struck by, well... Seizing power, I think, is putting it a bit... I would say it's a way of asserting and saying we are going to drive the agenda. Yes, I think seizing power would just be a bit beyond what I would say, but go on. OK, fair enough. But if you think of women in the Aristophanes comedy and Lystradda trying to seize power by withholding sex, so do you think the Me Too movement is going to keep going or do you think it's going to end up being sort of dismembered by traditional institutions reasserting their power? I'd like to think that Me Too was the start of a big change. I'd like to think that, and I hope that's the case. I mean, I think the difficulty here is that it's in the process between being a hashtag and actually being getting something done. Now, we don't know what's going to happen with Harvey Weinstein, you know, and I think my money would probably be on that he will in some way get off. Does that mean that the Me Too movement was a futile gesture? No, it doesn't. I think that things, certainly in that business, will never go quite back to what they were before. But whether more widely hashtag Me Too will become a way of women asserting and claiming power, I don't know, and I partly don't know, because I think that if your analysis is necessarily that, why is it possible for those things to happen? Well, that actually has to be because of the power structure of, in this case, we're talking about the movie business, and it follows, I think, that if you want those things not to happen, it is almost an essential that the power structure has to change.  But actually, when still there are so few female directors and producers in Hollywood, when there are still so few of those female directors who get recognition, until that happens, then things won't change as quickly as most of us would like. So, yeah, there's an interesting question about, I guess, how we do bring equality. Before we get to that, because we're going to have to wrap up here pretty quick, some of the things that struck me, I was saying, okay, so we've talked about the western world, and I just quickly went by one of my colleagues here suggested, let's say, what are the top women of classical China? And it turns out they can be broken into sort of two bits, beautiful and evil power models. So very similar. So are we dealing with not just what I would say a societal construction, are we dealing with just a flawed design of the human species here? We're dealing with a societal construction, but we're dealing with the societal construction that I believe repeats itself over the planet. And I think it's always very, you know, it's difficult to talk about cultures in which you have not grown up and internalised their norms, but I've done the same with you. I've asked and read, and it seems to me that we've got something which is fairly universal. The fact that it's universal doesn't mean it's natural. The way I feel that my generation of women was always put down and put back in our box, and it's done in the ancient world, and in almost any other historical society, was it is not natural for you to be doing what you're doing. The trouble about nature is that nature is a societal construction. And we can change it. Nature is a kind of shorthand for what we think always happens. So I'm always trying to figure out how to fix things, and this will be the last thing that we, I guess, discuss. How do we get equality? There are differences between men and women at some level. The challenge is that whenever you have some sort of separation then I would always say that it would seem that separate is never equal. But I guess I'm struck by the fact that you are in Noonam College, which is a all woman. So, I mean, is that the solution where you need to have some freedom from men to survive, or was it just an accident? I don't think, if I was inventing the educational system all over again, I don't think I would stop by segregating it by sex. I think that currently in Cambridge, a woman's college is extremely useful in terms of the historical development of a university which was all blokes for 650 years.  All the pictures on the walls, the chairs are all made for men. Everything, the lavatories are always better for the men. Everything is done for men. So I think having a kind of college that can act as a ginger group is a good idea. I don't think it solves. I wouldn't say that that's the solution. I think the solution is a long struggle in changing how we think about ourselves in our heads. That I think is... I'm not going to live to see that. But I'll just give you one example of how we're all implicated in this sense that women are not... Women are not in positions of power. If you say to an audience like this, and I say to myself, close your eyes and think of a professor. Just think of a professor.  Be a scientist. I see that image.  So when your own imagination doesn't see you, even though that's what you are, that I think is an indication of the sort of gap that there is between us and equality. Well, it is a gap which I think we're on a very slow march to fix but I think we'll finish on that. Thank you.


All right, sorry here, H-of-Roam Live. We are here, we're gonna take a walk from the Spanish steps, we're gonna go all the way to, I just wanna thank everyone who's tuning in. Thank you so much. We have achieved our phenomenally, with a difficult goal of that matching challenge grant to raise $35,000, matching the pledge of $35,000.  And right now, as a way of thanking you, we're gonna take you on a little walk in the northern campus marshes, to see some of the lights, to see some of the beautiful situation, the panoramic views of Rome today. We'll start here with this column of Cipollino Marble. It was found in the 1700s, and it was erected here in the 1850s, and it's celebrating that kickoff moment of the calendar, the Catholic calendar of Rome and of the Catholic Church. And the pope was here on December 8th. I filmed it on December 8th, the fireman placed a wreath in the hand, the extended hand of Mary. Let's go take a look. So it's Christmas season, Christmas season starts right here.  So let's come around here. We can see lots of, we can see lots of flowers. Just come over here and take a look at the wreaths that are right here at the base. And we can see here that a lot of people are placing at the base here flowers, but it's up at the top. If we pan up to the top, we'll get a view as we walk back further. We're gonna walk over to Piazza Espana, but there in the outstretched hand of Mary is the new garland. It's placed there by a fireman.  It's a great spectacle. It's something really wonderful to behold. And I'll also say as we walk around here, I'm gonna also remind you that if you did reach our goal, you can still contribute any amount. And we have another donor who will match that any amount. So please, no donation is too small. Everything that you're contributing is going to really incredible, unique educational videos. We're gonna be filming the Dacian video in Jose de Le Terni. We're gonna be filming many extraordinary sites and exhibits. And so what we're gonna do is we are going to walk down here. We're walking past the Spanish Embassy. And that's why we have down the street here the Spanish Steps. So you can see that a lot of people are out and the weather's not that cold. I'm probably a little overdressed. Let's walk over to look at the Spanish Steps. And we can see also that the light is shining bright over lots of stairs, including the streets and boobies, we know. So if you have seen Rome on holiday, the Valentino building right here was where Gregory Peck was going to get his check. So we have lots of history here and the streets of Rome. Of course, a lot of history isn't just ancient, although our favorite topic of Rome is ancient Rome. But we can see everyone's out and about. The weather is quite, I'd say mild, and it was actually quite warm. It wasn't very sunny. We had a downpour rain yesterday. And now here we are approaching the stairs of the Spanish Steps. At the top of the Spanish Steps, there's the famous Republican Villa of Lucullus. One of the early rivals to pop is great, ultimately superseded by Julius Caesar. But Lucullus had a beautiful, magnificent, sprawling villa right on top of this hill. And now it's replaced by Tainty Monty Church. And of course, halfway up the Spanish Steps, we can walk up a little bit towards this glorious, glorious tree, I gotta tell ya. I was not a fan of the tree of last year. I like this one very much today. So we can just make our way up and admire the view. I don't know who did it last year, but this one's Dior. So it has a certain amount of bling quality to it, which I think is nice. And as you know, if you've been to Rome, you can't sit down on the steps of the, you can't sit down, but we can certainly admire. Let's go up a little bit. And then we're gonna make our way up. Got to know popular. Look at this, woo! And we'll turn around. Oh my God. Wait a second. You gotta take a look at the crowd down there. Look at that crowd. Oh my God. Look at that. The entire vide conduct, obviously a lot of people are shopping a bouldering today, but it is jam-packed. I haven't seen this just jam-packed in a long time. We're gonna be walking over towards Babuino in just a second, but imagine right here just above, just above the Spanish steps, soft inside there is one of those reservoirs where the water from the aquavergen, the aquavergo, 19 BC, a grippa, it flows right across here still today. I've been in those channels for a number of programs. Those channels still exist. And then underneath these steps, you have some of the reservoirs where the water would disperse into and then go out through pipes. And of course that water still flows to many of the fountains of Rome today, including the Trevi Fountain, which is just down the street. So I can only imagine how crowded that's gonna be today. This is absolutely spectacular. So everyone's out and everyone's ready to celebrate. Yeah, so this is a great, this is the place from the Trenta di Monsi Church, the historic church, and you have children in the neighborhood, including a school up at the top here, and the children come down and bring a lot of those breeds that they put at the base of that statue, and then the column. And it's also a column that's particular to the Roman Catholic history because behind it is the propaganda of the faith building, another historic building, and within all their decisions, they decided to really push the presence, the standing of Mary within the Catholic teachings. And so to get Mary on that, that discovered a chipolino marble column that's about 11 meters in height. So it's a pretty massive structure. Wasn't used in antiquity, it's kind of discarded, and they bring it to a new purpose and a new use as we'll see for the obelisks that are gonna be repurposed throughout the city of Rome.  It's a quick little view. So, so very crowded. We're gonna have to get a shot. So this is Rome right now. What a beautiful, beautiful tree. Of course, it was one of the grandest staircases in the world. If you're just joining us here in this Atomome Live, we talk about ancient Rome, we talk about ancient history, we share our videos on YouTube, like we're doing a live.  We've had a fantastic capital drive. We thank all of you for tuning in. We thank all of you for joining. If you get our newsletter at atomomelive.org, you get the access, you get the links to free lectures, at least two free lectures. Occasional live stream per month, in addition to the content we're putting on, the articles we're putting on our website.  You can also travel with us. I will throw out again that in March, we'll be doing the city and cities for a week and for five days. And we will do also ancient city course in May. We're even doing an architecture program with North Carolina State University in Rome. So you have all these opportunities to come to five day courses in May, one in the southern city. So we're going to be going to these access places. We're going to be going to Pompeii. We're staying in Naples. All the information is on ancientromelive.org. Let's make our way down now to Piazza de España where I'm sure there will be a few people. And what we'll do is I think because it is a crowded place, we'll go over to Babuino. And then once we see an ancient statue, we'll head over to the El Corso. And the El Corso is a really old street going back to 221 BC. Today we call it the El Corso because it is a place kind of like the Palio of Rome. It's a glorious day, folks. The weather is wonderful. Glad to have you with us. We're in Piazza de España. And, of course, this is a great place for people to arrive if they're Italian because you've come all over the city or outside the city. You just take the metro. The metro stop, Piazza de España, is a famous one to get you into the center. It's a great place for people to visit. And, yeah, it doesn't really... It doesn't really feel like winter at this point. A couple days ago with the lighting of the tree, you know, Friday, that was pretty nippy. But today is actually a quite warm day and everyone's out. And we're happy that you're out with us as well. So we're gonna walk down here. Keep in mind we're in the campus. With Marcia's, we are in the flood plain on ancient Roman times. And what we'll do is we'll go over to... We'll go over to the tree Babuina for one more lovely look at the Piazza de España area. There's our solitary column in the distance. So you can see we haven't traveled that far but so much this week. And what we'll do is... We'll leave this area. We're gonna leave at the campus Marcia's area that presses up against the Pinscio Hill. We're gonna weigh down this lovely historic street, which is via Babuino. So we're gonna go down via Babuino. A little bit, I'm gonna show you an ancient statue that gets repurposed. It gives the name to the street. And then we're gonna cut over for maybe the ultimate measurement in our our lighting of the city. It's our big Broad Street, via Lata. It was called in an ancient time. So today we call it Broad Street. I'm gonna be heading over there. And then we'll make our way up to Capit del Popolo. So we'll cross carefully. Always look around when you're crossing the street in Rome. And so many people. This is what tells you Rome is one big pedestrian mall. Guess what it was like in Imperial Roman times? This was a big pedestrian mall. A big pedestrian mall. You didn't go around in a chariot. You didn't go around in a wagon. You walked. So if you come to Rome, if you come and do a program with us in Rome, guess what? We're gonna be walking. Shouldn't be as many people as we have here right now. But here will be people. All right. Everyone's out. I kind of brought the dog today. It would have been something to do. But she'd be licking everybody. It is this is a great street to go shopping on. And up here we have a nice historic cafe coming up. But everyone's out. So even up here, we have the water reaching from the flooding of the typhoon. So underneath this, underneath these street patterns, we have ancient Roman ruins. Are there any questions? If you have any questions, obviously you can type them in. We'll try not to get hit as we answer them. Beautiful lights here. Historic buildings. Occasional car.  So we have this really great system of roads that are created in the Renaissance times. In the sense of what we have is three streets that are going to converge on Piazza del Popolo, which is in the distance from the Circus Maximus. So this is via Babuino. Next to it is going to be we're going to cross over to Via del Corso and then there's Via de la Repeta, which is on the river bank. And those three roads will converge up ahead in a couple hundred meters. Let's take a look right here at this little fountain with an ancient statue. We're going to walk right to it. Here it is. On the Popolo we have a couple, it's a great question. It's the northern gate. So you're exiting the city. So once you get to the northern gate, you have tombs. You bury the dead outside the city walls. From the city part of the city walls, they get reconfigured.  When you have the queen of Sweden visiting, she has a comfort to Catholicism so she gets a nice monumentalized gate. But generally speaking, at that point in the city of ancient Roman times, tombs. Here, let me show you. Look at this guy right here. Get real close. Look at his legs. Not just a naked guy. Look at the legs over here. You can see the legs are bully. But this is a satyr. And we have all these statues that get set up throughout the city. And here's one of them. And it gives the name to the street. What?   That's the... I'm thinking of a machine gun. This gentleman right here is a satyr and is one of our talking statues that we have in 16th century Rome. What we'll do is... This is Kanova's workshop, studio, but it's also now a great coffee shop. Historic. And you can see some of the cast. Some of the classrooms for this statuary. So it's quite amazing right here to get that kind of history in that collection. It's like being in a museum. That's a great place to have... At this point I'd say, what do you want to have right now? A cappuccino? No, you want to have hot chocolate. Hot chocolate. Or... An appetit divo. Let's cut over to the other corsa. Because I want to show you another set of lights. We're just going to cut over. We're just cutting over here via the greci. And we're going to make our way to the distance. We just follow the lights. And what we're doing is we're cutting over to the second of the three roads that then converge. As they make their way north to Piazza del Popolo. So, this is the historic street I love. It really creates an important the north-south access to the northern gate. Which is in today's Piazza del Popolo. Going straight shot down to a piazza that didn't exist in antiquity. It didn't exist until the unification of Italy. And that's Piazza Venezia. The Piazza Venezia wasn't really big. It was much smaller. You get a number of palaces destroyed. You've got the creation of the altar of the homeland. So, you have that axis that existed already in antiquity. Because the road existed from 221 C. But it becomes something else in the late 19th century. What's going on today? Well, it's where you go and shop. It's where you hang out. It's quite neat. It gets the great light show. It gets the great lights of the city because it is kind of our main thoroughfare for shopping and so forth. It's a place of social life. It's a pedestrian mall. It's fun. So, we're not living in a museum here. We're in the outside atmosphere. So, plants grow. Biological material, moss forms and whatever, and it's periodically clean. That's all you can do. And the thing is, you can't be so invasive that you're cleaning it every day. That would be really bad. You do it periodically. So, all these monuments, these statues and so forth are constantly monitored when the intervention happens in a kind of series. So, let's go. What's your thing with the lights? We're now on via del corso. You can get your roasted Castania nuts right over here. Your roasted chestnuts. This is a great tradition and I do recommend you get them. They are wonderful. As you stroll around, as you stroll around Rome, that's what you eat on your way back from your Appetitivo or on your way to the Appetitivo, but now we're on Broad Street. So, just think, the age of Roman roads were usually about 16 feet. And with, this is massive. And there's massive streets in Syracusa, in Sicily, in ancient Alexandria. They had a road that's 100 feet wide. So, here we have Broad Street of ancient road. Republic and also of the imperial times. And guess what? It never goes out of use. And then the electric company Achea has financed the lighting here, which is pretty awesome. So, we'll make our way here. Yes, this road that we're walking on has always existed from 221 B.C. This has not deviated. So, I'll endre, I'll endre, I'll endre, I'll endre and drink to basta. This road here, we're walking in the Vialdo Corso. So, they call it the Vialdo Corso again because this is the place of the palio, the racehorses of the Renaissance times to the right. So, to the right of where we're walking is the Via Bavarino Road. That's not an ancient road. There was a road along the riverbank which is to the left of this road. And that's the end of that attempt today. So, the three roads were in the center road. The other two roads are converging. So, we're getting this nice uh, trivial, they call it.  And the end for us is going to be Piazza da Pulpa. Why are we going to Piazza da Pulpa? Traditionally, the city's uh, the city's Christmas tree is in Piazza Venezia. But guess what? There's a huge hole inside of Piazza Venezia because they're going to put that in metro stop in Piazza Venezia. How long will it take if people always ask me oh, when is it going to open? 10 years. When is the mausoleum of Augusta's going to open? I don't know. Hopefully 2024. Fingers crossed. So, Rome wasn't built in a day. These products don't finish in a day. Sometimes even a decade. The lighting here changes every year. This is very beautiful. But everyone in the festive mood. And it's uh, I think they've done a great job this year. It's quite spectacular. I was here for the lighting. So, what they did, we're going to take you to the Christmas tree which this year is in Piazza da Pulpa and for the foreseeable future. So, what they did was we were all in Piazza da Pulpa on Friday. And then they said, you know, let's do countdown. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And they don't like the tree. What they do is they light this entire length. I don't know what it is. 800 meters, about a kilometer. It just came straight through. And when the lights hit the piazza, bam! The Christmas tree lights are gone. And I think you're going to like the Christmas tree. It's quite impressive. And they put it to one side. Because what's in the center? The obelisk. The obelisk that was one of the turning posts of the Circus Maximus. So, we have this incredible ancient Egyptian obelisk that then is brought to Rome as a war trophy by Augustus. It's set up as a turning post in the Circus Maximus. And then it falls over and is brought over here. And we erected in the 16th century, about 1585. And it's not the only one that we know. Rome was filled with obelisk from Egypt. So, let's go take a look at this guy. Because it's very impressive. It's dedicated. We have the inscription. We have all the hieroglyphs, of course. And then we have the inscription from Augustus. He dedicates it as a gift to soul, the god, the sun god. He conquered Egypt. So, straight ahead in the piazza is the obelisk. And we'll see it's the left will be Rome's Christmas tree. Ah, good question. We have for you is how do you like live streaming? We've done a couple. And some of you know me back from Periscope days when I used to do live streams all the time. Do you like live streams? Do you like the formats? Do you like the content? Where would you like us to go? Live streaming, of course, means if we wanted to do it during the day most people in the US I know most of you are tuning in from the US you won't see it live. But you have the reality of this is alive. So, I think the streaming quality is good enough I think the sound quality is good enough things have been improved. So our question to you is would you like to see more of this? Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay, good. So we have so if you do like this and I know I see I appreciate that. I mean for us it's like this if we do a zoom and we do a lecture the quality of the zoom, right it's less. So the best quality resolution, the 4K that we get with our iPhones and so forth and the audio, it's top with the top editor we can give it to you on YouTube. So yes, they're not 45 minutes shorter because the production has a cost to take time and so on and so forth. I really like the live streams with the temperature there currently during the day. Today, what is the 17th region Fahrenheit I'm blanking? It must have been I mean you might have been like 55 but it was actually it must have been 55 but I was out in a T-shirt at a certain point so it was warm so like I said it poured all last night it was cold Friday with the lighting was freezing I mean literally it was literally freezing and so this is winter more live stream? So what I can also suggest what I also say that we'll do besides a live stream at night taking advantage of the beautiful oh yeah of course everywhere we're going we've found that there's research in what's at Lanford Lanford, yeah it went to my alma mater but I don't know anyways it's funny because oh my pleasure thank you, let me tell you something you just need the right clothes we'll tell you guys this if you don't know me I've lived here one in five years or something like that I've had a lot of time here I'm an archaeologist but the greatest thing about being here is being immersed in all this culture and all this history on a daily basis and then sharing with you so Ancient Rome Live it's about sharing this with you in the education side we also want to show you a little bit of that contemporary side because this is an amazing if you don't follow me there already so just Dari, sorry but let's come here to the tree because I think this is the this is the star of the moment and my camera first I haven't seen it live yet so drink it in, look at that look at that glorious space oh my goodness that's a great one you're going to stump me it might have been Karnak maybe Heliopolis but it definitely is I think manufactured I want to say about 1500 BC or something like that so it's been standing around for a lot of time in Egypt and then you bring it back as a trophy yeah we're in Piazza del Popolo and I will tell you this as well we're in the northern gate we are now leaving Rome or we've done a huge trek it's a pilgrim coming all the way from Germany or France as a pilgrim or we're coming in from the provinces and we're entering in and what would we see we would see a number of tombs around here just down the street a couple hundred meters is the mausoleum of Augustus still closed the public will be have great videos taking you inside on ancient Rome live and we have the pincher hill over here in the darkness we have our beautiful view of the Vita Corso maybe walking down Main Street when you came into Rome and it is something quite spectacular now I will tell you this, the Piazza here in the Renaissance times by the 16th century they get this office here but it's kind of actually squarish it wasn't round when did they make this round you have to have our buddy Valenier who reconstructs the Arch of Titus he's the one who gives us the curves he's the one who throws in all those statues of the god he puts in all the sphinxes which are very trendy at the time so it makes a lot of time and a lot of architecture goes into making this into the extraordinary space that it is it wasn't just created once in the 16th century or the 15th century it was literally generations and generations and other contributions so let's come over here we'll come over here and still closer to the tree what is it? it's a pretty nice tree I like it and actually I've got to tell you also if you're in Piazza Venezia where we are traditionally for years and years and years there's all the traffic this is always a pedestrian mall well it's been a pedestrian mall for 23 years or so because I remember when you could drive my scooter right through this place there's no problem the time to change folks it's much more of a pedestrian family area yep now you see some lions over here the lion fountains that are again these are copies of ancient Egyptian lions that are on display on the base of the Capitoline Hill these are just copies but back in the day I would have my kids sit on them and that's what we used to do nowadays you don't sit on them but it was a fun tradition while it lasted are there any questions because this is kind of where you guys today I want to show you some of the magic of Rome this is the eternal city of course and man I tell you we've all got our cities we can complain about the potholes we can complain about the work we can complain about the metro never being finished but this is still Rome and if you have ever contemplated being here in the holiday season this is a wonderful time but everyone enjoys great weather everyone enjoys the holiday time and of course a lot of Roman kids they're occupying the high school so kids aren't even going to school the kids are on a strike so we have a lot of differences cultural differences here in Italy but it's so much fun so much fun to walk with you so please consider making a contribution of any amount to us we're a non-profit we did reach our capital drive thank you so much you guys tuning in I know a lot of you are the rock solid people that have tuned in to all the Zoom lectures and tuned in for live streams and subscribed to the newsletter everyone else please do check out our website and the newsletter and then think where the travel courses that will reiterate just go to hroomlive.org and you can see that we offer one in March we're going to do the Suvian cities we're going to Pompeii, Stavia, Herculaneum we're going to go all through Annapoli and you're going to go with me and my colleagues who are archaeologists, excavating in Pompeii so we're going to get some great access you're going to have an amazing time you're going to get information coming out of your ears and at the same time I guarantee you're going to be thrilled with the experience same thing for Rome, building an ancient Roman city you're going to be in and around Rome for a day or five days and then the week after we have an architecture course with North Carolina State University we've got spots on that if you're really really interested in architecture take that course they're all happening they're all green light so if you're interested write to me directly go to the website we have 2DFs all over the tails everything better than tails and I already guarantee that in the fall as well we're going to be offering something so stay tuned for that thank you guys very very much thank you for your support thank you for joining me on this walk and please subscribe and watch the new videos on youtube if I'm forgetting anything any questions, last questions thank you we'll try to get another live stream for the years out so just stay tuned and we'll see you guys before you come up soon thank you guys very much Merry Christmas, Happy New Year See you soon from Rome