Nothing a Hot Bath @ Caracalla Can't Cure

Le Terme di Caracalla were my first sight of Rome's Centro Storico. Driving into the city after 30 hours of travel and then BOOM, enormous terracotta structures that set my heart a-flutter. We made it to the largest bath structure in Rome last week.

As you can tell, we felt quite comfortable at Caracalla. I include this picture also to show some sense of scale -- I hover between 5'4 and 5'8, depending on my mood. These baths could blow bubbles to the sun.

One thing I am learning on this trip is the failure of cameras. A camera is a desperate attempt to catch a whiff of an image, that only the human eye can appreciate. Walking through the baths quiets the soul. Texting shouldn't work here. Laptops must be banned. No connectivity is allowed except for one's connection to the 6000 Romans who would bathe here at a time.

While most decorations have been removed to museums, about two dozen remnants of mosaics remain. The mosaics depicts mermen, tridents, Cupid shooting arrows, animals, snakes, fish. The level of detail created with white and black pebbles startled me - the intricate movement of the fishtails alone move one to wonder.

Seeing the Roman ruins has made me think about materialism. We often say, in a general manner, that modern Western civilization is too materialistic. We like things too much. Rome is changing my mind. We are not too materialistic, we simply don't respect things enough. We have so much stuff that we pay little effort into artistry. Stain your favorite shirt? Buy another one. Apartment looking stuffy? Build a new complex.

We love things too much because we want too much. I can't defend Roman philosophy as a complete intellectual system. But it seems that because they had fewer materials than we did, they put so much effort into creating their art and architecture. I cannot think of a single modern structure that can compare to the Colosseum. The Baths at Caracalla are produced from more thought and beauty than even the best malls.

In one section of the Baths, the floor mosaic was intact. We - afraid to sit on two thousand years of history - stepped on it instead. It was a glorious ancient manhole, covered with Clark's and Converse, fur boot and black flat.

Reluctant to leave Caracalla, we meandered around the gardens and made a new friend. Diocletian danced through Elena's legs and made his courtesy to each of us in turn, prompting a series of Ooohs! and hand sanitizer.

I wonder what Diocletian thinks about his home. I thought it was spell-binding.