Of Gladiators and Mithra: Capua

(Pictures: The Sanctuary of Mithra, the fresco of Mithra slaying a bull, the Capua amphitheater outside, the vaulted tunnels of the amphitheater inside, and a scene displayed at the Gladiator Museum.)

A correre e cagare ci si immerda i garretti.

(By running and defecating at the same time, you'll get feces on your heels. Or -- doing two things at the same time will result in a mess.)

Nook of Naples: Situated sixteen miles north of Naples within the fertile plains of the Caserta province, Capua dates back to at least the 7th century B.C. when Etruscans and Euboic Greeks settled the area. Today, the ancient city lies mostly underneath the modern town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, which came into existence at the end of the 18th century.

The ancient city has several notable claims to fame. In Roman times, Cicero wrote that the fleshpots of Capua defeated Hannibal because his Carthaginians became soft due to the high living in the city. At the time, Capuan residents were considered wealthy, well-groomed, and always perfumed. The city was also called the terra di lavoro or land of work due to its cornucopia of agriculture, metal-working, pottery, ceramics and extensive trade in other goods. The ancient writer Livy referred to Capua as the granary of Rome due to its abundant wheat crop.

The visitor to Capua easily finds the amphitheater at the center of the city. It's the second largest in Italy next to the Coliseum in Rome. Built in the late second century B.C., the well-preserved ruins once held up to 60,000 spectators. The amphitheater is open for roaming the vaulted corridors, the gladiator field, and the underground tunnels where once elaborate stage machinery as well as caged animals used to be kept. During Roman times, the shows at the amphitheater admitted both men and women for free. Exotic animals and fantastic scenery made the events extremely popular.

A Gladiator Museum next to the amphitheater contains two rooms of artifacts as well as a display of fighting gladiators. At one time, Capua boasted the best gladiator schools that trained both slaves and freemen. The gladiators were divided into categories according to the type of armor used and their combat specialty. The amphitheater put on two kinds of shows: the munera where gladiators fought each other to the death and venationes where gladiators fought against wild animals, sometimes even being thrown unarmed into the arena. Spartacus, the leader who led the slave revolt in 73 BC against Rome, first distinguished himself as a gladiator in the Capua amphitheater.

Before leaving the amphitheater, visitors should ask to see the Sanctuary of Mithras. (It's the only way to gain access.) The nice gentleman at the entrance window disappears for a moment, returns with a key, and tells you to follow him by car. You drive through the bustling streets of Capua where signs for the sanctuary appear and then vanish. The museum custodial stops his car at a dead-end road, in the middle of which a red-brick building with a Latin placard marked 'Mithraevm' squishes between apartment houses. He unlocks iron double doors and takes you down a flight of stairs until you enter a vestibule. A rectangular vaulted room has a ceiling with vestiges of red and green stars on a yellow background. In the front niche a fresco depicts the god Mithras slaying a bull.

The cult of Mithras originated in Persia during the 14th century B.C. His cult traveled across Asia Minor to Greece and then Rome where by the 1st century A.D. it gained popularity, especially among the common people. Scholars have written quite a bit about the syncretism between Mithraism and Christianity due to the many Christian churches that were former Mithraean and the fact that Christ's birthday coincided with the birthday of Mithra -- December 25th.

Capua holds more ancient wonders if you have the patience to wind through the streets asking for directions at every block. The Etruscan Furnace still remains from the Archaic period, the Carceri Vecchie is the old jail whose inmates included gladiators, and further afield are the Temples of Diana Tifatina (now a Christian basilica) and the Temple of Jupiter Tifatina (merely stones wedged into a mountain).

An absolute must for a visit to Capua is the Museo Campano di Capua tucked halfway down a narrow street. This small museum houses mosaics, medieval paintings, and funerary epigraphs of the Roman period. But the highlight are two rooms filled with tufo statues depicting seated mothers holding swaddled infants. These statues date back to the Etruscan period and not much is known about them except what can be gleaned by gazing at their elusive faces.

Getting There: Capua, in the province of Caserta, is about 11 kilometers from Caserta and about 35 km from Naples. If you are coming by car, the nearest exit from the A1 motorway is marked Capua. If you come by train, the station is 1 kilometer from the city center.

Books & Movies: The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss details the rebellion led by the charasmatic leader, Spartacus. Stanley Kubrick also made a movie about the gladiator titled Spartacus. The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries by Manfred Clauss provides an examination of the Mithraic god and his followers during the Roman period.

La Cucina Napoletana: In my last two posts I wrote about pasta, so this third and final post must include sauces. Just as the number of pastas here in Naples are abundant, so too are their simple and elegant sauces. My Italian book Pasta: Passione e Fantasia divides sauces into six types. I will list them here translated and loosely paraphrased, but I don't add much by way of precise measurements because the Neapolitans themselves encourage experimentation and the adding of different ingredients from your own particular cupboard.

Fish Sauce: In a pan, fry oil, onion, garlic, and celery together. Add any kind of fish (salmon or trout, for example) and then add fresh tomatoes and herbs (including lemon zest, basil and/or parsely). Simmer for no more than 15 minutes. This sauce goes well with long types of pasta or spaghetti.

Cheese Sauce: Melt a knob of butter in a pan, then add flour and mix until smooth. Add milk and bring to a slow boil. Lower the heat and add any kind of diced cheese of your choice (gorgonzola, gruyere, fontina, parmesan). This sauce is rich in calories and goes well with short pastas such as penne.

Herb Sauce: Melt butter in a frying pan at low heat, then remove and add a mix of fresh herbs (basil or thyme, for example) torn into pieces by hand. Add a few teaspoons of water from the cooking pasta. This is a fresh sauce with lots of aroma that works well with any pasta.

Tomato Sauce: Mince an onion and brown in a frying pan with a little extra virgin olive oil. Add a clove of garlic and tomato pulp. Salt and cook for 10 minutes. Add a half teaspoon of sugar to take away the acid taste typical of tomato sauce. Before serving, add fresh basil. This is a classic sauce that goes well with all types of pasta from spaghetti to penne.

Meat Sauce: Brown minced bacon in a frying pan with a knob of butter. Then add one onion, carrot, and celery. When the vegetables are soft, add ground meat of your choice (beef or veal, for example). When the meat is cooked and sizzles, soften with red wine. Add tomato sauce and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 20 minutes.

Vegetable Sauce: Cut diverse types of vegetables into small sticks (zucchini, carrots, and leeks, for example). Add a little extra virgin olive oil along with herbs such as basil, majoram, and oregano, tearing them by hands to the keep the flavors fresh. Add fresh peeled tomatoes and salt to the sauce. Cook for a maximum of 10 minutes. The vegetables must remain crunchy. This is a light sauce that can be prepared using vegetables of the season.

Buon Appetito!

Virgil's Tomb

(Pictures: A close-up of the fresco at the top of Grotto Vecchia, the dilapidated temple perched above the park where Virgil's remains were once said to have been, the bust of Virgil, the walkway from the entrance to the bust of Virgil, the trapezoidal Grotto Vecchia -- also called the Crypta Napoletana, and the entrance gate off the busy Naples street.)

La calma e la virtu dei forti.

(The calm is the virtue of the strong.)

Nook of Naples: After a decade of writing The Aeneid while living in Naples, Virgil traveled with his friend and patron, Emperor Augustus, to Greece in 19 B.C. During the trip, he caught a fever and died in Brundisium. He left his epic poem unfinished, giving instructions to have the book burned. Instead, Augustus charged two of Virgil's friends to prepare the work for publication. Once published, it was an instant success.

Virgil's ashes were sent back to Naples and today a park between the districts of Mergellina and Fuorigrotta claims to be the place of Virgil's Tomb. Visitors can park their car up on the sidewalk and then stroll through unmanned gates. A concrete path leads to an alcove that has a bust of Virgil. Along the path, gardeners have planted vegetation that Virgil wrote about in his works, including strawberries, myrtle, and ivy.

The path winds up to the trapezoidal Grotto Vecchia, also called the Crypta Napoletana. It's a mammoth tunnel cut into the tuff-stone cliff and measures about 700 meters long by 16 meters wide. Created during the first century B.C., a locked fence bars visitors from entering. Cut into the tuf0-stone ceiling, a bright colored fresco of the Madonna is preserved from paleo-Christian times when the grotto was turned into a church.

The early Renaissance humanist, Petrarch, wrote that a chapel was built here in an attempt to curb pilgrims during the early Middle Ages from gathering for all-night parties and orgies in honor of the goddess Mithras. Interestingly, the Catholic Church later adopted these gatherings as part of its own tradition, creating a riotous celebration at this location for the Madonna of Piedigrotta.

To the right of the Grotto Vecchia, steps lead to a Roman aqueduct that once carried water along a 100 kilometer route. Then more steps lead to a sanctuary. Inside, a tripod burner originally dedicated to Apollo sits in a hollow space. This may have been the place where Virgil's ashes once rested. Today, of course, his remains are lost to time. From the shrine, a stunning view of downtown Naples makes the park and grotto feel like a great place to hold a riotous gathering.

Getting There: 20 Via Salita della Grotta 80122 or by Metro to Mergellina. The Tomb lies right before a tunnel, so it's easy to miss and there's no parking except up on the sidewalk. To get there, you'll also have to wade through the Naples traffic. The Metro might be an excellent choice.

Music: One of the hottest Italian artists here is Giusy Ferreri, a thirty-year-old singer and songwriter from Palermo, Italy. Giusy's voice has a unique mixture of jazz, flamenco, and top-forty flair. Her albums include: Gaetana, Piu'di me, and Fortissimi 2009. To buy her CD's, click here: the Feltrinelli Bookstore and search under the music section.

La Cucina Napoletana: In my last post, I added a recipe for short dry pasta. The other variety is fresh pasta. The difference between dry and fresh pasta lies in their differing water content. Often, people in the southern part of Italy prepare their pasta (both dry and fresh) without eggs. From the cookbook Pasta: Passione e Fantasia, here's a simple recipe:

Fresh Pasta

2 cups flour

1/4 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

Create a fountain with the flour and then create a well in the middle. Pour tepid water inside along with the salt. Knead the dough energetically. Thereafter, shape the pasta.

Pasta with Anchovy Tomato Sauce

Anchovies are another staple in Naples, found in every household cupboard. Here is a sauce that goes well with fresh fettuccine:

1 cup salted anchovies

1 clove of garlic

2 cups tomato sauce

butter

4 anchovy fillets

Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan, then add one clove of crushed garlic. Over medium heat, add the anchovies and fry until they are dissolved. Add the tomato sauce to the pan, mix, cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes. Ladle the sauce over fresh fettuccine and decorate the plate with rolled up anchovy fillets.

The salty taste should remind you of the sea.

Buena Sera!

The Tomb of Agrippina

(Pictures: The vandalized sign in front of the fence, two views of the Tomb of Agrippina, the house next to the lot, and the port of Bacoli next to the ruins.)

La lettera C e la piu soggetta al tradimento -- cugino, cognato, e compare.

(The letter C is most likely to betray -- cousin, brother-in-law, god-father.)

Nook of Naples: The truth about Agrippina, her death, and her remains are as difficult to find as the location itself. Signs for her tomb throughout the twisting Campi Flegrei roads appear and then vanish. After several excursions to the area, I finally drove past Piazza Guglielmo Marconi in the town of Bacoli and spotted yet another sign that led down to a port. There, I asked directions and a man in the parking lot pointed to crumbling buildings along a walkway by the sea. When I reached the area, Roman bricks overgrown with weeds were crunched between two buildings. A fence barred visitors as though making clear that the owners hadn’t paid rent in years.

It's unclear if the people who coined these stones the "Tomb of Agrippina" meant Agrippina the Elder or Agrippina the Younger, both of whom were interesting historical women. Agrippina the Elder was the graddaughter of Augustus, mother of Caligula, and grandmother of Nero. She had nine children and also accompanied her husband, Germanicus, on military campaigns, earning high respect from the Roman citizens who saw her as a heroic woman, wife, and mother. But over time her politics incurred the wrath of Tiberius who, after the death of her husband, banished her to an island off the coast of the Campania region here. When she died, so the story goes, Caligula brought her ashes back to Rome.

Agrippina the Younger was the daughter of Agrippina the Elder and also the mother of Emperor Nero. She was renown, above all, for her sexual escapades and ruthless will to power. While her brother Caligula was still Emperor, purportedly he would hold lavish banquets and commit incest with his sisters. But eventually Caligula turned on both Agrippina and his sister Livilla, who were also lovers with their maternal cousin Lepidus. The three of them tried to murder Caligula, for which Agrippina was exiled.

When Caligula was murdered in 41 AD, the new Emperor Claudius brought Agrippina the Younger back to Rome. She quickly married a second husband, Crispus. (Her first husband, Domitius, was the father of Nero. By the arrangement of Emperor Tiberius she married him at the age of 13.) When Crispus died, rumors held that she'd poisoned her own husband to gain his estate. And indeed, she became very wealthy. Thereafter, she became mistress to one of Emperor Claudius' advisers and through him arranged to get herself married to the Emperor himself. Her motive: to put her son Nero on the throne.

Agrippina succeeded. Once married to the Emperor, she schemed and ordered murders to get rid of many political rivals. When Claudius agreed to adopt Nero as his son, the Emperor died very suddenly. Rumors abounded that Agrippina poisoned Claudius.

Nero took the throne and Agrippina tried to control her son and the empire. But Nero had other plans and expelled his mother to Misenum (off the cape of Naples). Thereafter, he tried to kill his mother several times. He failed to drown her in a collapsible boat, failed to poison her three times, failed to crush her by a mechanical ceiling over her bed, and finally sent assassins to stab her. The Roman historian Tacitus writes that just before assassins finally succeeded in killing her, Agrippina shouted, ""Smite my womb!"

After reading a bit about these two women, the ruins here suddenly shudder with mythical majesty. The bricks leave me waiting for Agrippina's ghost -- the one Nero claimed plagued him after his mother died. Perhaps she continues walking along the brick walking and all who visit should be thankful that the fence keeps her fate inside.

Getting There: When you reach Piazza Guglielmo Marconi in Bacoli, turn down onto Via Agrippina. Drive all the way to the port, passing the cross street via Ovidio. The tomb is off to the left along the pedestrian walkway.

Today, moored boats lap at the port of Bacoli. A Lido Ritorno Quintilio overlooks the water adjacent to the tomb and three restaurants – Da Garibaldi, The Lavish Rock Bar, and The Very Club – tout epicurean delights. The ‘Sport e Vita’ offers underwater archeological tours, taking visitors to see the ruins of underwater villas.

Underwater Archeological Tours: Sport e Vita is located at Via Agrippina 22 Bacoli. Call 081/5235683 or ask for Gaetano Vassallo (who speaks English) at cell phone 335/8183979.

Book Recommendation: For a history of Agrippina the Younger, see Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Empire by Anthony Barrett.

La Cucina Napoletana: For the next several posts, I would like to give a bit of information about Italian pasta. Simple and natural, a product without preservatives that can keep in cupboards for long periods, pasta is, in fact, the mainstay of the Italian diet. Here in Naples, most families have pasta for at least one of their meals everyday. The varieties of pasta as well as their sauces seem endless and Naples is best known in all of Italy as having the largest variety at any grocery store, purportedly several hundred.

In Naples during the 1700's, pasta entered the Court Kitchen thanks to the Chamberlain of Ferdinand II who had the idea to use a fork with four short points instead of the hands. The word 'spaghetti' was coined in Naples, the word coming from 'spaghi', meaning small strings. By the 1800's pasta had become so popular that the first pictures not depicting Mt. Vesuvius were of the 'Maccheronari' who stood on street corners cooking pasta in enormous pots. The Maccheroni were and still are identified with Naples, the city now credited with having discovered the food.

Pasta can be classified as either dry or fresh, short or long. Today, I will include a recipe of short dry pasta that includes a splash of a digestive I mentioned in previous posts. This recipe (as well as the other information about pasta that I've included) comes from the cookbook (in Italian): Pasta: Passione e Fantasia by Antonio Chiodi Latini and Mario Busso.

Penne Pasta with Baby Shrimp and Anice

1 cup penne pasta

3 cups baby shrimp

1/4 cup Anice liquor

1 onion

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt & Pepper

shells of the shrimp

1 celery stalk

1/2 onion

1 carrot

salt

Clean the baby shrimp and then put the shells in four cups of salty water with the celery, onion, and carrot all coarsely cut. Leave boiling until the liquid is reduced by half.

Peel and chop the onion, then fry it in oil until golden-brown. Add the shrimp into the pan and fry quickly, then remove from heat and add two-thirds of the Anice liquor. Cook the penne pasta in boiling water (with liberal amounts of salt) for about five minutes. Strain and pour into the frying pan with the shrimp. Add a ladle full of the shrimp shell broth. Then add the rest of the Anice liquor and mix. Spoon out on plates and crack pepper over the top.

And remember -- if having a large banquet like the Romans, leave immediately after dessert!

Buon Appetito!

The Roman Imperial Navy: Misenum

(Pictures: Tunnel leading to Capo Miseno, the military zone and building inside it, the view of Naples from the vista point, and the Miseno mountain.)

Non affoga colui che cade in acqua -- ma affoga chi male incappa.

(Who falls in water doesn't drown -- but who falls badly will.)

Nook of Naples: Capo Miseno or Misenum (in Latin) is a crater dating back to between 35,000 and 10,500 years. A tough place to find in spite of all the road signs, if you want to try some adventurous exploring drive up the narrow and steep road even after the signs disappear. Eventually, you’ll arrive at the peak of the mountain where a one-lane tunnel spills out into a beautiful vista point overlooking the Gulf of Pozzuoli. Mount Vesuvius and the city of Naples glimmer through the haze.

The largest Roman naval base was first established here in 27 B.C. during emperor Augustus' rule. On one side of the vista, the mountain of Miseno has a walking trail that leads to a Roman tower once used as a military outlook. On the other side, a gate bars access to a fortified military area. How appropriate that two thousand years later, the Italians still use Misenum as a strategic military complex.

When Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., Pliny the Elder was in charge of the naval fleet and went by ship from here toward the destruction, probably to help rescue people, but he died instead. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, was a resident of Misenum at the time and wrote an account of the eruption as he watched from this very mountain.

The name Misenum comes from Misenus, a character in Virgil's Aeneid who drowned off the coast nearby after a trumpet competition with the sea-god Triton.

Getting There: Near impossible to find, getting to the vista point of Miseno takes patience and the will to be an explorer through windy narrow streets. I didn't get an address or even street names, rather I drove from Bacoli up, up, up a hill where signs appeared and then vanished. Perhaps this link may help some to get you there: Ulixes.

Book Recommendation: The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples by Shirley Hazzard and Francis Steegmuller is a fun read that describes the authors' personal experiences in Naples.

La Cucina Napoletana: The magazine La Cucina Italiana, the premier food and cooking magazine of Italy since 1929 has a feature on Naples in its April 2009 edition. The pictures are dazzling and the food descriptions make the mouth water. I'm adding a paraphrased sneak peak of the very famous:

Ragu Alla Napoletana

1 1/2 pounds boneless chuck roast

1 piece lardo, cut into 1/3 inch pieces

1 can whole tomatoes in juice, passed through a food mill with juice

1/4 cup tomato paste concentrate

2 ounces lard

3 fresh basil leaves

Medium coarse sea salt

3/4 cup dry red wine

1 large onion, finely chopped

Make slits in beef and stud with pieces of lardo. In a saucepan, combine pureed tomato, tomato paste and 1 1/2 cups water. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat and cover to keep warm. Melt lard in a heavy pot. Add beef, basil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 cup water. Bring water to cool and cook, covered, until water has evaporated, about 15 minutes. Add wine, increase heat to high and cook, stirring frequently, until wine has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Add tomato sauce and onion. Reduce heat to lowest setting and gently simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce is flavorful and beef is tender, about 3 hours.

Buon Appetito!