What have the Romans ever done for us?

What have the Romans ever done for us?
Carthaginians were the first empire builders to show up. The Romans pushed them out and held onto Spain for more around 700 years. Spain was among the most Roman of the provinces. Emperors Trajan & Hadrian were born in Spain, as was the philosopher Seneca.
The Romans had the first dominant influence on Spain. They gave it the name & language. The Empire collapsed in the 5th Century, but the culture and people hung on. And there were constant reminders of the old Empire. Nobody ran the lands of the old empire better than the Romans had for at least 1000 years. It must have been humbling to see the “rhetoric in stone” of that great empire.

You see the Roman bridge in my picture. It has been repaired many times, but the general structure has endured. Romans built to last. They showed their power in stone.
We easily see how Roman affected our own Western culture and institutions but we sometimes forget that Rome was the major influence on every subsequent civilization in its former Empire and through those outside it. Orthodox and Islamic Civilizations are heirs to Rome and anybody who speaks Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French or Romanian is speaking a language evolved from Latin.

I am very much a fan of Rome. I know of their many faults and their brutality, but I also know that for their time there were none better, and there were none better for a long time after. The Roman genius was in governing and assimilation of the ideas of others. They absorbed, assimilated and passed along the great cultures of the ancient world. Our civilization is heir to all that and we are heirs of the Romans.

I thought about these things as I admired the Roman bridge in the pictures. You can see me with the bridge and river in the background. On close inspection of the bridge, notice how they built the upstream supports at sharp angles to deflect the water and rounded the downstream ones to support the structure and slow the flow. They built for the centuries.

Layers

Many churches in southern Spain were once mosques, that were once churches that were once Roman temples. History is layered here.
I think it is useful to think of a kind of time line to show the really long years were are talking about. Roughly:
— 500 years as Roman temples
— 400 years as Christian churches
— 500 years as Muslim mosques
— 700 years as Christian churches

Some of the people in Cordoba evidently object to their Cathedral being called a mosque, since it has not been one for more than 700 years, since 1236. On the other hand, lots of people still call it a mosque and if you search on internet, that is what you find.

When you visit the cathedral, you see the layers, not only layers of Muslim and Christian but layers among Muslim and Christian. It never ended. The Muslim rulers who build the famous arches you see in my pictures and have seen in so many pictures were wise and tolerant rulers. They were replaced by others not so good, and you can see it in their construction. As you get farther away, the construction gets cheaper and more slip-shod.
When Christians reconquered this place, they left most of the Muslim things there, but added Christian symbols. They also added more features, so you have influences through the Renaissance and in the Baroque.

It was not always Muslim v Christian. The Umayyad Muslim rulers in Spain were often on good terms with the Byzantine Christians, since they shared a common enemy in the Muslim rulers of Syria, who had murdered the family of the Umayyad ruler and forced them to flee to Spain in the first place. The Byzantines sent skilled artists to help decorate the place. So Christians decorated the Muslim mosque. After the reconquest, the Christian rulers employed Muslim artists to decorate part of their cathedral, so Muslim artists decorated the Christian church.

It is all very beautiful and the diversity hangs together well, as you can see in my pictures. The decorations and forms are very similar. You can easily tell the difference, however, in that Christians often depict human or animal forms, something Muslims never do.

Eating late

It gets hot in Seville and so people have adapted by doing more in the morning and at night. It was not that hot today, but the night was still very wonderfully pleasant.

Spaniards eat their evening meal very late. We were on that time-table because we were jet lagged. The result is that we hit the restaurants at around 9pm, the peak time. All the tables outside were taken, even thought there were so many spots. We wanted to eat outside, so we ended up in our own hotel courtyard.

My other pictures are from around town at night.
The movie theater near my house when I was a kid was called the Avalon. It was in the Moorish style and the main auditorium featured a Moorish courtyard, complete with fake stars in the sky. I know it was corny, but I liked it. Seville is like the real thing. Truly an enchanting place.

Jet lag

Tired from jet lag and a full day. Will write more tomorrow. For now, I will note the Seville is a delightful city, certainly one of the most pleasant I have ever seen.

Evidently, it was the set for many movies and TV shows, including “Game of Thrones” where it was the headquarters for Dorne.

Barcelona, Spain

Chrissy & I went to Barcelona. Compared to Poland in December, it was warm and pleasant. We needed only light coats. The big downside was that I got pick pocketed. The guy who did it was a real pro. He told me there was dirt on my coat and then he and a friend “helped” me. I suspected they were crooks, but when they left I still had my wallet. Unfortunately, when I tried to use my credit cards, both were gone. Even with that, the trip was worth it. Barcelona was fully of gaudy architecture.

This is an arch in the park.
Streets were lined with sycamore trees. They made the whole place much more pleasant.

The thing I liked about Barcelona and the thing I like re Europe in general is that the streets are alive with people walking and living. Chrissy and I had a really good time in Barcelona. It was not what I expected. The medieval part was like France and the people looked as I would expect Germans or French, not Spanish. I guess Spain is a big and diverse country.