In the Land of the Sibyl - Monmouth College

To Rome: Summer at the American Academy
by Andrew Willey
From atop a high ridge, I looked down
upon the remains of the Roman colony
of Alba Fucens. The walls of its central
buildings snaked across the valley bottom,
seemingly at random, and presented
a beautiful sight for the eyes of our group.
But perhaps we were not so able to appreciate
its rugged aesthetic beauty at that moment;
for we were there not as sightseers,
but rather as students and scholars. And
we were faced with the daunting prospect
of an exam, that is, to go down into the
colony and, using our newly-acquired
knowledge of Roman archaeology and cityplanning,
identify the various structures of
the excavated town and their uses.
“That looks like a Forum” someone
cried out. Another student added: “And
this looks like a sanctuary or temple.” But I
was too busy at the far edge of the settlement,
looking at a complex jumble of walls
that could have been anything. It’s one
thing, of course, to see a neat diagram in a
book and quite another to be confronted
with the stones themselves. Confused for
a second, I wandered about trying to get
a sense of the whole when suddenly it all
made sense — a narrow entrance led into
a rectangular room with a small square
pool at its center, this, in turn leading to a
large colonnaded portico — surely this was
an aristocratic domus. A grand entrance, a
characteristic atrium, offset dining rooms
and cubicula, all leading to a fantastic peristyle
garden at the very back. It couldn’t
be anything else. And then, as the skies
of central Italy began to darken and we
all ran for cover (under the remains of the
nearby baths!), I realized just how much
I had learned in such a short time. What
before might have been an incomprehensible
amalgamation of brick, stone, and
mortar now really meant something to me.
Thanks to the Classical Summer School
of the American Academy at Rome, I had
an infinitely greater understanding of what
these structures were, how they were built,
and, most importantly, how the ancient
Romans used them to go about their
everyday lives.
This, however, was just one of the
many “aha!” moments I experienced at the
Classical Summer School. I count myself
extremely fortunate to have been able,
through the generous support of Eta Sigma
Phi and the University of Minnesota,
to attend this fantastic (and intensive!)
six-week course in Rome. For more than
50 years now, the American Academy has
been offering the summer school program
as a way of introducing Latin students and
teachers to the history and topography of
Andrew at the Ara
Pacis
Andrew and fellow
participant Chris
Wood converse at a
Taberna in Ostia
the Eternal City. The program, in addition
to taking care of all logistical details (a
great help, as any traveler can tell you), was
able to offer us unparalleled access to the
sites and museums of Italy. Entering into
the normally locked houses of Ostia, or the
off-limits ground level of Trajan’s Forum,
or the often closed site of Monte Testaccio,
we all felt more like celebrities than
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