Tourism in ancient Rome
Travel was made difficult due to shipwrecks, storms, poor maps, and a lack of modern transportation methods.
Roman tourists sought out sites in Greece of cultural and historical importance, such as the numerous Greco-Roman temples and the athletic games such as the Olympics.
Wealthy Romans would spend the hottest parts of the year in villas outside of the city of Rome or in resort towns such as Baiae.
Tourists would also travel to other areas in hopes of seeing sites of historical or religious importance, such as the ruins of Troy or temples throughout the Greco-Roman world.
However, these claims are certainly ideological in nature; they likely served as propaganda pieces intended to justify and promote Roman leadership and governance.
[17] Roman tourism peaked in the 2nd century CE due to the easier travel conditions brought by the Pax Romana.
Plutarch, in a collection of works called the Moralia, wrote that "the guides went through their standard speech, paying no attention whatsoever to our entreaties to cut the talk short and leave out most of the explanations on the inscriptions and epitaphs.
In the Amores, a set of two dialogues discussing the nature of love, Pseudo-Lucian comedically describes an incident at the Sanctuary of Dionysus where numerous opportunists beset one of the characters, offering to explain the stories behind the various sites for a price.
The gens Julia, the family of Julius Caesar, claimed descent from a mythical founder called Iulus, who they identified with Ascanius.
However, these temples did not collect as diverse an assortment of artifacts as modern museums; they focused on preserving the history of the local deities and communities.
Tourism in Greece assumed heightened importance during the Second Sophistic period, a historical term referring to Greek authors from the 1st to 3rd centuries.
[54] Dio Chrysostom, a Greek orator, claimed that Sophistic philosophers attracted tourists to Greece; some allegedly came to the Isthmian games to glimpse Diogenes Laertius.
[55][56] Second Sophistic writers emphasized classical Greek culture; their ideals possibly motivated the focus on pre-Roman sites found in the Descriptions of Greece of Pausanias.
For many of the customs obtained in ancient days among the Egyptians have not only been accepted by the present inhabitants but have aroused no little admiration among the Greeks; and for that reason those men who have won the greatest repute in intellectual things have been eager to visit Egypt in order to acquaint themselves with its laws and institutions.
"Strabo, a 1st century BCE Roman geographer, describes a possible example of an ancient Egyptian tourist trap at Syene.
Strabo writes that local boatmen would sail upstream past the first cataract of the Nile into the rapids to entertain tourists.
[65][66] The ancient Romans misconstrued two statues in Thebes, likely of Amenhotep II, as depicting the Greek mythological king Memnon.
Some graffiti merely announced that the inscriber had heard the voice of Memnon or arrived at the site;[67] others were long epigraphs written by professional poets venerating the supposedly miraculous capacities of the statue.
[69] Julia Balbilla, a Roman poet and a friend of the emperor Hadrian, wrote four poems in Homeric style detailing her encounter with statue.
[76] Visitors often traveled to the base of the Palatine hill, where a fig tree supposedly marked the location where the cradle of Romulus and Remus was overturned.
Horace, a 1st century BCE Roman poet, described how the luxury villas in these areas were packed so tightly that "the fish were feeling cramped."
For ancient Roman villa owners, traversing the shore in litters and riding on oar-propelled boats were common activities.
[84] In Athens, tourists could collect paintings, pottery, terracotta, artifacts, silver statuettes, glass bottles, and miniature figures depicting the Statue of Athena by Phidias.
Another Egyptian inscription reads "I, Gaius Numidius Eros, was here in Year 28 of Caesar, returning from India, in the month Phamenoth.
"[90] Roman tourism during the Imperial era was heavily influenced by the concept of otium, a term referring to leisure time.
"[93][96] Prior to the Hellenistic period, ancient Greek writers typically associated the concept of curiosity with excessive interest in irrelevant or useless things.
Stoic philosophers adopted a more positive light on travel and curiosity: they believed exploration benefited the knowledge of the tourist.
One inscription from the Temple of Mandulis in Talmis references a man named Sansnos who traveled to sites throughout the empire with the hope of worshipping each god.
Egeria, a Roman woman who authored an account of a pilgrimage, also emphasizes the spiritual motivations of her journey; possibly due to an attempt to avoid appearing vain or pleasure-seeking.
In both Classical Greece and Ancient Rome, the sick flocked to the temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus seeking treatments for their ailments.
