6-17-14. Nimes, France
The strike continues. I recall reading that president Truman once attempted to forestall a strike by steelworkers in wartime by drafting every worker involved into the military. The act was ruled unconstitutional, but at least it galvanized negotiations. Although France is not at war, allowing a strike of this magnitude to continue for more than a week in a country that travels more by rail than by car seems nothing short of irresponsible. I can only hope that the proper heads will roll.
In the meantime, I am forced to rely on the bus network, which was designed for local travel and is correspondingly slow. After spending upwards of an hour last night poring over bus and train schedules, I devised a way to visit two of my three remaining sites – not ideal, but the best solution possible. I began, again, by travelling to Avignon. After nearly missing the camouflaged bus stop, I caught the bus to Orange just in time, and soon found myself marveling before Europe’s best-preserved Roman theater. As pagan spectacles were outlawed or lapsed in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries, theaters across the Empire, with their vast quantities of ready-cut stone, were converted into quarries for newer and more pious construction. The seats of the cavea sometimes survived spoliation by virtue of their size and unwieldiness. The stage buildings, however, were almost always destroyed to the lowest courses; their marble facings suited lime-burners, and their blocks were sized for use. Orange is one of only three exceptions in the entire Empire. I have visited one of the others, at Aspendos; and while the cavea there is better preserved, the stage building at Orange is, if anything, more imposing, ninety awesome feet of time-darkened limestone. In the museum across the street are a set of relics equally impressive in their way, the Empire’s only preserved cadastral (survey) maps. On this ancient equivalent to the plat atlas, natural landmarks were marked alongside field boundaries and ownership; nowhere is the Roman passion for order better marked.
Orange’s other Roman building is a massive arch of disputed date. Whether constructed under Tiberius or Septimius Severus, its reliefs testify eloquently to a highly developed iconography of victory. The panels depicting shields heaped as trophies were particularly impressive.
Another long and halting bus ride brought me to the town of Vaison-la-Romaine, a scenic town in the shadow of a long range of forested hills. Beneath the imposing presence of a ruined chateau, medieval streets straggle down and along a rocky hill, separated by a rocky river from the straighter avenues of the Roman ruins. The excavated portion of the Roman settlement is organized as an open-air museum. One begins in the museum proper, filled with the usual paraphernalia of sherds, glass, and mosaic, before proceeding through a series of excavated villas. Although none of the standing ruins can compare with those at Orange or Arles, the extent of the ensemble is impressive, as are some of the surviving mosaic floors. A pleasant complement to the ruined walls of these buildings is provided by the Romanesque cathedral. Though the church itself is austere, the colonnades of the adjoining cloister are finely carved. I rounded off my circuit with a look at the still-functioning Roman bridge over the river. Since the time for my bus’ departure was at hand, however, I could not indulge in any lingering examination. A thunderstorm rolling down from the neighboring hills sped my steps.
It took four hours to return to Nimes. Walking through a light rain as I left the station, I happened to look back one last time at the amphitheater; as if on cue, a double rainbow glimmered into existence above the ancient building. Appropriately, the clouds of another storm massed over the station.