Italy is the country of beauty [bellezza], but it has some dark sides too. Sometimes, those dark sides are decisively unaesthetic. For instance, Rome’s very center erupted in violence last month during the city’s “Occupy” protest. (Link to BBC article and on-the-ground video.) Nothing new about that: riots were relatively common [comuni] during the Roman Empire too. What has definitely changed is how riots are handled.
During the Roman Empire, the Praetorian Guard — the elite bodyguards and soldiers of the emperor — would be in charge of the policing of riots and deal with mutiny in the Empire. There were no telephones [telefoni] or cameras or free press at that that time, so you can kind of guess that the Guard was pretty heavy handed vs. today’s standards: Praetorian Guard used cavalry and swords against stone-throwers and the alike. If you have watched the “battle scene” of the movie Gladiator you get an idea. In that scene, Maximus [Massimo, no relation to me — as far as I know] is actually “policing” a revolt — i.e. that is not a war battle — in Germany [Germania].
Gladiator - Battle Scene from HúszTíz on Vimeo.
All I have to say: take a look at this picture, it is from the recent riots in Rome. The riot police, apparently, kind of run away from the riots scene. The guy in the picture was later arrested. His defense: “I was trying to put out the fire”. So, yes, you can actually find beauty in ugliness [bruttezza] too.
