Vandals overrun Rome

I don’t mean Alaric and his merry men, circa 410 AD. The vandals in question are Western tourists, circa 2023 AD – our contemporaries.

One such gentleman (see photo) recently used a key to scratch his name on the masonry of the Colosseum, and you’d think the ancient structure has suffered enough damage since it was built by the Flavian emperors in the first century.

Vespasian (who ruled in 69-79, going down in history as the victor in the Judaean War and – for lovers of trivia – the only perfectly straight Roman emperor) started the construction, his elder son Titus (79-81, known for destroying the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD at his father’s behest) completed it, his younger son Domitian (81-96, known for his persecution of Christians) modified it.

Earthquakes and fires inflicted much damage on the Colosseum that the subsequent generations of Italians haven’t bothered to repair. And now modernity is adding its own unmistakable touches.

Nor is it just in Rome. The vandals, otherwise known as mass tourists, are befouling what’s left of our civilisation with gusto, turning formerly elegant and civilised places into giant pastures for grazing herds.

Tourism has become not just affordable but cheap, and our huddled masses are taking full advantage of it. They have to tick off all the places they look at without seeing anything, and understanding even less.

We used to go to Florence quite often, where we made friends with a Scotsman who owned an English-language bookshop. He told us that some Anglophone, mostly American, tourists would drop in every day asking for directions.

They wanted to know how to get to the Bridge of Sighs (“It’s in Venice.” “And where are we?”), the Colosseum (“It’s 160 miles south of here.” “Gee, that’s a long way) or even the Parthenon. With that kind of cultural baggage it’s no wonder they don’t think twice before vandalising a structure built two thousand years ago.

Not far from where we are in France there is a 12^th century Abbey at Pontigny, what’s left of it. That’s where Thomas Becket found refuge when he was on the run from Henry II.

Only the Romanesque church has survived the previous swarms of vandals. The rest of the Abbey buildings were destroyed first by the 16^th century Huguenots, then by the 18^th century revolutionaries. Thus spoke nascent modernity, but it didn’t quite say the last word.

That privilege has fallen to the tourist masses yearning for cheap travel. They don’t quite go so far as to take the surviving church apart stone by stone, but they do their level best to disfigure the snow-white nave walls with crude graffiti.

Some only sign their name or that of their current love interest, but others also gratify future historians by helpfully dating their contributions. None predate the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, when herds of vandals began to pollute ancient places en masse.

These days it’s impossible to go to great European highlights in season, and some have been turned into a contiguous stampede even during the off-season. Venice, for example, has become a theme park for the culturally disadvantaged all year round. Anyone going there even in winter must be prepared to shoulder his way through noisy, gawping, selfie-snapping throngs.

“How revolting,” I thought the last time I was there, as I was spray-painting my name on the wall of the Doge’s Palace… Just kidding: I did no such thing. But some people did, vindicating my heart-felt belief that modern masses have a Midas touch in reverse: everything they touch turns to muck.

A useful parallel can be drawn with fruit and vegetables over the past half-century. Victorious modernity has decreed that most produce should be available to most people throughout the year, regardless of seasons. And so it is, except that to achieve that goal we’ve had to sacrifice everything that used to make produce worth eating: taste, fragrance, texture, nutritive value.

Such a fate has befallen our culture as well, including the part expressed in the stones of great ancient cities. Vandalism is the founding animus of modernity, and these days it’s enabled and encouraged.

Given half the chance, today’s heirs to the Visigoth vandals, Huguenots and revolutionaries will vaporise those sublime places, using the latest technological achievements of which they are so proud.

For the time being they merely have to content themselves with using their house keys to etch their names into ancient masonry. Thank God for small favours.

P.S. An à propos headline in today’s Mail: “Le hangover! Two US tourists are found asleep near top of the Eiffel Tower after getting stuck inside Paris landmark overnight ‘because of how drunk they were’.” And I thought only Britons did that sort of thing.