Day 87. Saintes Nov 1 2010. ‏

Sometimes the words to describe a sense of awe, beauty, wonderment and an almost overwhelming feeling of ancient power, simply do not exist. It is the difference, to borrow a phrase, between talking about lightning and being struck by it. But I will try to put words to the indescribable.

We awoke early today, worried about missing breakfast. Our alarm had cratered a couple of days ago and now only makes a horrific noise whenever it is opened. As it happened we didn't miss breakfast, we were the first ones to it. It was the same fare in La Rochelle but enjoyed much more because we were expecting it. This time we both stole jam.

After a brief morning nap we set out. There was no exploration today, we were both sure of our goal. We cycled up the steep streets directly for the Arena. We locked our bikes against the metal rail that surrounded the upper rim of the site, paid our five francs entrance fee and walked in. Here words fail me completely. I have to pause and think for even the smallest description to come to mind.

I have spent the last five years studying histories of people long since dead, the Romans foremost among them and, Virconium and Rockbourne Villa aside, I had scarcely seen a Roman site. Walking into the arena was like walking into a physical manifestation of these past five years, each stone a word in a textbook or a minute in class. In mere seconds I felt Rome, the weight and history of Empire, as no book could convey. I could hear the roar of the crowds, see blood flow on the sands, smell the sweat and excitement. I travelled time as I walked the steps, phasing effortlessly between the now of grass and ruins and the then of living breathing history.

The arena was an enormous structure built to hold between fifteen and twenty thousand people, the entire population of Mediolanum Santonorum. It was a mixed structure so that some was built into the sides of the valley while other parts, particularly the Processional Port of the Gladiators rose from the valley floor in enormous arches. The upper floors were gone, half the seating disappeared as time and people eroded the arena to the level of the valley. It was built in 40 or 50 AD when the Emperor Claudius reigned and had decayed for 1500 years and it was magnificent.
We walked down decaying stairs to the floor of the arena. The sand that had absorbed the blood of dying gladiators was buried from sight but you could feel the weight of the crowds gaze and despite the empty ruins you could hear the cheering. Smooth stone, like modern side boards, rose to protect the wealthy patrons from wild beasts or escaping warriors

We walked up the Procession Way under an arch too high to be captured in words. A massive entrance to a massive structure. The borders of stone had smudged and run together with age and dripped now with ancient stalagmites so that it seemed more cave than structure.


We explored every nook and cranny that we were allowed. The ruin is crumbling, though partially restored in some places, especially the arches. Cold blooded lizards crawl over the sun warmed rocks as they must have done since before the arena was built.

We crossed the vast arena floor, ants on a tabletop, and found the other arch, the exit. It was almost buried beneath the risen ground, a half arch the seemed sinister in the light of day. It disappeared into the hillside beneath the road. We entered the darkness and allowed our eyes to adjust. The tunnel was half filled with the accumulated dirt of ages but the arches were still impressive. Here as nowhere else in the structure, beneath a patina of white lime deposited by centuries of seeping rain water, the patterns on the rocks cut by the builders were still visible. The whole scene was very eerie.

We emerged from the tunnel, back into the area, blinking in the sunlight. Together we found a seat in the nobles section of the arena, naturally, sat down and pull out sketchbook and journal respectively. Scarcely had we begun to record, in our individual way, the sights around us then we were approached by a friendly American couple, Scott and Amy, with mother-in-law and child in tow. In a place of foreign languages a familiar tongue is a magnet and we are drawn together, if not as fellow expatriates then as neighbors on a continent.

Scott, it turned out, was working for a French company. He was having difficulty adjusting to the less competitive atmosphere of Europe and was on an enforced vacation that seemed to leave him chomping at the bit. Amy's mother was visiting them, feeling safer here than in her hometown of Washington DC. Their boy, Clayton, enjoyed running about the sand floor and reenacting ancient gladiatorial battles, climbing his father's side and demanding to be shown where the dead bodies had been taken out. Only after they left did we realize that we had failed to exchange any contact information. Too bad, because as they left Scott said, "I wish we could throw your stuff in the back of the car and take you with us." Me too.

We returned to the writing and drawing, feeling the atmosphere and the quiet of the place fall over us like a physical thing. It was so tranquil and yet energizing to sit in the midst of the vast ancient place. And then the gatekeeper came and kicked us out for her lunch break! Never have we been so discontent with the hours the French maintain. We stomped back up the stairs and tried to recapture the mood while looking through the iron fence, but it had disappeared, not to be regained.
We left with a little disappointment but still immensely grateful we had seen such a sight.

We cycled across town to the ancient Roman baths, hoping to find something similar but the baths had been small and abandoned early. When the town had regrown the site had been a church, then a necropolis and tombstones littered the grassy plain. No fence regulated who could enter here and the mausoleums were was filled with broken beer bottles and a smell of vomit and urine.

We spent the evening at the feet of the great Roman arch that had once crowned the road into town. Built at the end of the first century AD the road had linked Lyon with Aquitania. Caius Julius Rufus, a high priest of the Imperial cult, had built the arch in 18 or 19 AD. The arch had marked the entry to the town’s bridge, each arc a direction travel.
With the advent of the Middle Ages mills had been built on the bridge, backing up the waters so the river flowed around the front of the arch. The bridge was then connected to the rapidly eroding riverbanks using long planks of wood, inadvertently creating a drawbridge.
The coming of the 18th and 19th centuries had seen the gradual destruction of the bridge to make way for river traffic and only the intervention of the Minister of Antiquities had saved the arch.
The arch was built of enormous blocks of stone, out of which perhaps ten had retained their original shape. The rest of the blocks crumbled and chipped until the whole structure was a child's set of building blocks with the overwhelming feeling that anyone could walk by and destroy the ancient structure with an accidental shove. I had to resist the urge to try.

All things considered, today had been one of the trips highlights.

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