Old World/New World

When I took some of my Latin students overseas last year, a few expressed surprise that we were going to the United States as well as Italy. The Roman Empire was big, but most people realise that they weren't able to cross the Atlantic and establish a province on the American continent (though if they had, I wonder what they would have called it...). Anyway the purpose of our visit to the States was twofold: (i) to visit some of the biggest and most important ancient history collections in the world (the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, then New York Metropolitan Museum and the Getty Roman Villa and  Museum in Los Angeles) and (ii) to get some kind of understanding of how the old world has influenced the new. That is, how the art, architecture and more importantly the ideas of the Greeks and Romans have influenced and shaped American society.

That's not a revolutionary idea, and I'm sure many wiser people than I have had lots to say about it, but I thought it might be interesting to compare (without much comment) some of the photos I took from the two halves of our trip.

 Washington Arch, NYC;   Arch of Constantine, Rome

 Harvard, Boston;             Paestum, Southern Italy

 Quincy Market, Boston;       The Pantheon, Rome       

 Boston Town Hall;            The Pantheon, Rome