Shit-hole of Romulus

In a letter to a friend Cicero described Rome as the shit-hole of Romulus. Having recently spent ten days in Rome I can confidently report that in over 2000 years very little has changed. I have been photographing Rome since the mid ’70s. It is a city I love, but it has its shortcomings.

One of the main problems with Rome is the Romans. Or at least some of them. They have so little civic pride. Rubbish is everywhere and omnipresent. People just throw stuff on the ground. They do it whilst walking along the street, from cars, they dump old furniture anywhere they can get away with it. It’s almost as if no opportunity should be missed for the locals to rid themselves of anything superfluous to requirements. It makes a beautiful city really ugly.

The graffiti infested walls don’t add to the overall effect. Hundreds of stickers for removal firms seem to be on every lamp post. Empty beer bottles are on every street corner left there by eastern european immigrants. They probably drink so much they forget to put the empties in the bin and expect someone else to do it for them. Maybe they were never taught to dispose of litter correctly. The immigrants just take a cue from the locals who are just as bad.

SPQR can be seen on a lot of buildings in Rome. It stands for Senatus et Populusque Romanus. The Senate and People of Rome. Some wag once announced it should stand for Sono Porci Questi Romani, these Romans are pigs.

On my trip back to the airport, discarded rubbish lined both sides of the motorway, like some incessant and worthless guard of honour. The sight of this to me is sickening. It is a kind of visual assault that I find hard to bear. It was much the same when I lived there over three decades ago.

Maybe the locals have become immune to it. A friend, who was giving me a lift, went into a five minute rant about what a filthy lot the Romans are. So the locals too find the extraordinary amounts of litter offensive. As always it is probably a small minority who ruin it for everyone else.

But not all is bad. On the plus side the Romans have a great attitude towards life, a great dialect and sense of humour. Some of the things they say and the way they say them can have you in stitches.They enjoy life. They appreciate good food and good quality produce. Their cuisine makes my mouth water just thinking about it. You won’t find a Starbucks in Rome and I doubt there ever will be one. The Romans like good coffee too much. You only have to go to the Bar Sant’Eustachio at 1am to see people three deep at the counter to realise how much the Romans love their coffee.

So, even though it is still the shit-hole of Romulus, I will always have a love affair with Rome. Maybe Rome and the Romans are just a reflection of what the rest of the population of the planet do to their environment. We keep dumping stuff with no concern for what effect it has. I live in hope that one day the inhabitants of Rome will come to see the error of their ways, but I’m not holding my breath.