On Seven Hills...
In his mind, Daniel Barbarossa could hear the sounds of trumpets and returning generals' triumphs as he came to his wife's hometown. The wolf was respected here as he would be- the wolf had a special bond with Roma as he would truly understand later. This was a city that had over the years had played host to the world's most powerful and wealthy empires- the Empire run by the Caesars and Catholicism. It was a city that as his wife Maria had told him was filled with "anni e rotture"- years and tears. And yet for all the bloodshed the city had experienced, all the corruption in the Senate, from the incompetent later Emperors to Berlusconi today, some of the greatest things had been accomplished here. Daniel kept this in mind as his ears perked up in the ruined Senate building where the famed orator Cicero once spoke and in the Old City, where the ideas of apartments and private paintings were developed. Roma was trulythe Eternal City. He examined all the species, brought from various walks of life and all over the world in St. Peter's Square to hear the Mass spoken by the Pope and he admired the beauty of the Vatican City.
Across the lazy Tiber River, he saw it in a museum- the marble statue which gave Daniel pride as a wolf. It was the Capitoline Wolf, the kind mother who most of the wolves respected as a saint suckling Romulus and Remus. With the same ferocity, Romulus and Remus would outwit and kill the others who sought to destroy the settlement which would eventually become the Eternal City, and all because of the kindness of a she-wolf who raised them as her own cubs. It was one of thoser moments he felt this indescribable joy, for what a member of his species had done many years ago.
Of course, Romulus and Remus would get involved a petty dispute over where the Capitol building of Rome should be located. Romulus decided that the Mons Palatinum would be the formal head of the city and as the first King of Roma, his brother objected to this, saying that the Mons Aventinus should be the head. This culminated in Romulus shedding his brother's blood and naming the city after himself- a clear foreshadowing to how the city would be run from its founding to today. These two ferocious sons of the wolves would kill each other and with that same ferocious nature, the warriors of Roma would conquer the known world, all while fighting for an exceedingly-violent Senate which would kill Emperors if its needs were not met.
Daniel the wolf admired for the first time the artwork in the museums- he was a simple wolf, the son of farmers from the north in the Italian Alps, who had never seen Roma before. On Seven Hills, the wolf saw the beauty of what the world's first Republic had produced- the glory of the Caesars, the beautiful Corinthian pillars which in times past had witnessed the rise of the Empire and the public deification of the emperors. The wolf knew well from his upbringing in Catholicism, the persecution of the first Christians but the city which once served as their graveyard would indeed become the headquarters of Catholicism itself. In a way, this was a homecoming for Barbarossa whose parents were forced to flee persecution themselves before he was born because of Mussolini's Fascists, three decades prior.
This was the first time he would see the city his parents spoke fondly of and the wolf was impressed, as he stroked his beard-fur and contemplated this city.There was a reason why Shakespeare would look to the histories of Roma for the material for his plays- in the Eternal City built on seven hills, one could find the glorious and dastardly in behavior, throughout all the ages. No one knows for certain whether or not was Julius was as innocent a victim as the play makes him out to be- Daniel himself had donned the purple toga of nobility and played the role in his village's Italian-language presentations for years but not known for ceratin whether or not Brutus had a reason to kill Caesar. He often thought that the corruption of the Senate was a precedent for how mis-managed the government in Italy was today. Historians have estimated that the Empire itself lasted 539 years- the common joke in Roma was that 539 years was 538 more than any other elected government in Italy since the fall of the Empire. Perhaps maybe some day a new Marcus Aurelius or Cicero would come and bring long-awaited unity to the squabbling parties in Roma today but that just didn't seem likely.
'It seems strange that such a city with so much history is still alive today and looking for the future,' the wolf thought to himself as he entered one of the locale notturoes that Roma was known for- translated from the Italian, a "locale notturo" is a nightclub. And in Aventurrizi's, Daniel and Maria would dance feverishly to the sounds of disco d'Italia, a mixture of European disco, traditional Italian dances, and American jazz, which provides the soundtrack for a trip to Roma's more trendy locations. For Daniel's trip, the beautiful October weather, the 'bella Ottubre' the Romans speak of caressing their bodies with its Meditteranean warmth, was itself medicine for a wolf who had seen better days in his years, working as a peasant and fantasizing about how glorious and beautiful the city of Roma must have been in those thrilling Imperial days.
Visitors often come to Roma expecting to see a dry has-been city filled with ruins and museums but soon find themselves dancing at the discotheques, eating at exciting ristorantes, and enjoying the nightlife of a city with no shortage of magic and glitter. Daniel was no different in that regard- the entire weekend he was there he spent admiring the history of the Eternal City and yet... life still occurs on these seven hills, as the wolf and his wife found out over their romantic weekend. He thought back to how Maria came to his small town near Milan and fell in love with the rural surroundings and a farmer's son with a gentle voice and uncanny wit. And this would be her first trip to Roma in decades since the two were married.
And Daniel knew that in a city like this, one thousand years means so much more than it does elsewhere. He knew that the nights in Roma still held mysteries and allure, thousands of years after the city's founding by Romulus. He still knew that the Romans could be as ferocious and cunning as the wolves who raised the city's founders. And as the train pulled out from the station that Monday night as the couple began to adjust to the workweek again, Daniel waved his paw towards the city and declared
"Roma, siete la bella e eterna città . Costruita su sette colline".
Roma, you are indeed the beautiful and eternal city. Built on Seven Hills.