Transcript

5.15.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio EY and today
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I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May
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twenty twenty five. As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading
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service intended for people who are blind or have other
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disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Please
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join me now for the first article, which is part
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two of Explore Rome's Hidden Underworld, Where a City Lurks
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Beneath a City by Tony Perrette. The first part of
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our story delved into the hidden underworld beneath the city
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of Rome, revealing a fascinating subterranean world that includes ancient aqueducts,
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pagan shrines, and apartment buildings. The author embarks on an
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adventure with Luca Messina, a Spilio archaeologist, and other members
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of Sotrane di Roma, exploring the Aquaanio Vitis Aqueduct and
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other underground sites. The journey uncovers the intricate engineering of
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Roman aqueducts, which were built to supply water to the
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ancient city, and the efforts of modern explorers to map
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these ancient structures using GPS technology. We also learned about
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the diverse subterranean spaces beneath Rome, from Christian catacombs to
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grand sewers, to hidden lakes and ancient apartment complexes. The
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exploration provides a unique perspective on Rome's history, revealing how
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the city has evolved over millennia. The author describes the
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thrill of discovering these hidden sites and the dedication of
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amateur spelio archeologists who work alongside academics to piece together
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a more complete map of Rome's underground world. The Monastery
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of San Cosimato had just closed off the main entrance,
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they lamented, citing the need for repairs, but there were
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other entry points. One club member, a Spanish born school
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teacher named Alfonso Diaz Boye, joked, we might just get arrested,
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but we can try. Here now is part two. After
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the regulation espresso stop in the village, we parked by
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a lonely roadside and descended through thorny bushes to the
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serene Aeo River. Echo Quy, said Marco Placidi, a founding
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member of Socherane de Roma, pointing in a dark hole.
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Here it is, then, he added reverently. Pliny the Elder
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said the Aqua Marcia had the best tasting water in
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all of Rome. Constructed between one forty four and one
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forty b c. By an ancestor of Julius Caesar, the
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praetor Quintus Marcius Rex, after whom it was named. The
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Marcia was also the longest of the eleven aqueducts, running
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nearly fifty seven miles from its source springs to Rome.
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With head lamps lit, we climbed into the beautifully preserved
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specus or tunnel. Its floor and sides were smooth, while
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their roughly hewn ceilings still showed the marks of ancient
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construction workers picks. We were part of a great tradition
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of visitors, diaz Beau said, pointing out graffiti from explorers
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in the fourteen hundreds and sixteen hundreds. Finally, about fifty
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yards into the aqueduct, he shown his head lamp on
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the carved signature of the venerated Thomas Ashby, the British
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archaeologist and scholar scoured the remotest corners of the Roman
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Campagna from nineteen o six to nineteen twenty five and
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published a magisterial tome The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, which
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was published posthumously by his wife in nineteen thirty five
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minutes later we stopped at a second ashby signature. He
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stayed here for two days, so signed twice. Diazbo marveled
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he might have even slept in the aqueduct. I thought
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that my obsession with the Roman underground had run its course.
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But I had only been back to New York a
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few days when I was surprised to find in my
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inbox an e mail from the water company Asia. I
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had finally been granted permission to accompany an official into
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the Aqua Virgo via an off limit's entrance in the
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heart of Rome, using the legendary sixteenth century staircase in
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the Villa Medici. This was something too much out of
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the Da Vinci code to resist, so I booked a
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flight back to the city and checked into the Hotel Mediterraneo,
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a marble lined Art Deco gem filled with the busts
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of emperors and heroes, whose over the top grandeur seemed
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to encapsulate all our enduring fascination with antiquity. The next morning,
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at ten, I climbed the Spanish steps to the fortress,
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like Villa Metici, whose outer wall was embedded with an
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anonymous gray metal door and a small worn and barely
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legible marble plaque announcing access to the Aqua Virgo. Waiting
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for me was Marco Tessall, an engineer with Assia who
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manages visits to its restricted sites. Far from a faceless bureaucrat,
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he turned out to be a burly, affable, bearded Roman
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with the love for the inventiveness and craftsmanship of his
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classical ancestors. Joined by three other Assio workers, we pulled
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on fishermen's waiters that came up to our armpits, downed
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company hard hats, and descended one last time into ill Oblio.
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Two thousand years of Roman history now came together in
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one spot. First I stepped onto a spiral stone staircase
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known as lotch Chiocchiola del Pincio. Chiocchiola means snail, which
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descends like a corkscrew some eighty feet below street level.
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Long closed to the public, it is an astonishingly elegant
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Renaissance creation, with a symmetry that might be ascribed to
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a Michelangelo sketch. It was built around fifteen seventy four
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on the orders of the villa's then owner, the wealthy
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cardinal Giovanni Ricci de Montepulciano, an efficient papal administrator and
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antiquities collector who oversaw ongoing renovations of the aqueduct, and
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was designed by a famed engineer and champion fencer named
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Camillo Agrippa. Then, after descending one hundred seventeen well worn steps,
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I was back in antiquity, inside the two thousand year
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old carved tunnel of the ancient Aqua Virgo, whose crystal
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clear waters were flowing smoothly below my feet. The aqueduct
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was functioning just as it had in nineteen b c.
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Rarely has history felt so alive. There are two legends
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related to the Aqua Virgo's name, Virgin Tasaul explained as
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I took the last few steps down a metal ladder
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into the channel. The first is that it was named
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for the purity of its water. The second that it
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was named after a maiden who showed some weary legionnaires
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all the way to the mountain spring. But to day
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it's not pure enough to drink. Tasol warned. Along the
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route bacteria may have seeped in. There was something almost
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speptismal about stepping into the floe, which had originated in
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the hills east of Rome and soon enveloped me up
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to the waist in an icy caress. There was a
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layer of gravel underfoot. Some parts of the aqueduct's sides
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were calcified and slender white stalactites hung in clusters from above,
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but the superb Roman engines nearing was entirely intact. As
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Tessol explained what was above our heads, I could imagine
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a new map of the city. We waited one hundred
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yards in the direction of the trevi Fountain, which is
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to day so popular that a tourist commissioner proposed in
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September that tickets be charged to control access. We then
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doubled back two hundred yards beneath the Villa Medici and
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its marvelous Renaissance gardens, among whose sculpted groves I had
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once attended artistic and musical events hosted by the French Academy,
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which has owned the villa since eighteen o three after
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Napoleon purchased it. Along the way, we admired flourishes like
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carved arches and a seventy five foot high shaft used
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by construction and maintenance workers. At one stage, we carefully
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navigated underwater steps. Most of the VIRGUINEI was too deep
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for the Goths to destroy. Usa said proudly. That's why
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it could be restored in the Renaissance and flows today.
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The sixth century AD chronicler Procipius records how scouts of
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the besieging Goths even tried to enter Rome carrying torches
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through the Aqua Virgo, but found the route blocked by defenders.
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After about ninety minutes, we pulled our cells out of
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the water and began to ascend the snail. According to
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Italian historians of science, the Renaissance staircase had another purpose
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beyond providing access for workers. Camilla Agrippa, the staircase's designer,
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devised an ingenious hydraulic system here, using wooden wheels to
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pump the aqueduct's water back up the corkscrew steps via
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a metal tube embedded in the wall to irrigate the
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Medici gardens. Although gone now, the sophisticated device would not
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be equalled in Rome until modern engineers began improving the
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water systems of the city in the late nineteenth century.
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An extraordinary bridge between ancient and modern stripping off my
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waiters I was elated by the immersive experience, but I
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had to confess that I'd finally had my fill of
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ill oblio. It was time to repair to an outdoor
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cafe and enjoy a pasta luncheon bathed in Roman sunshine.
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Next what spurred the South to join the American Revolution?
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How a disagreement with a Scottish lord over westward expansion,
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a cache of gunpowder, and the future of enslaved labor
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helped kick start the Southern colonies embrace of the radical
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cause by Andrew Lawler. Everyone knows how the Red Coats
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clashed with Patriots at Lexington and Concord in April seventeen
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seventy five, sparking the American Revolution, Yet often forgotten is
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an incident that took place two days later and some
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five hundred miles to the south, an event that proved
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nearly as significant to the cause of independence as the
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bloodshed in Massachusetts. It was the moment when the South
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was finally roused against the British, and its main participants
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were some of the nation's most famous founders. It began
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after Patrick Henry convinced the conservative tobacco planters of Virginia,
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the largest, most populous, and richest of the thirteen colonies
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to organize a militia. That decision put Virginia's royal governor,
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Lord Dunmore in a bind. Appointed by George the third
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and seventeen seventy one, the gregarious Scottish earl had purchased plantations,
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bought enslaved Africans, and schemed with his friend, a gentleman
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farmer named George Washington, to obtain vast tracts of indigenous
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land in the distant Ohio Vacle. Among Dunmore's neighbors in
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the capital of Williamsburg was Peyton Randolph, then serving as
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the first President of the Continental Congress. As patriots thrilled
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to Henry's stirring words, give me liberty or give me
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death and agreed to form a militia, London was buzzing
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with the news that New Englanders had seized cannon and
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gunpowder from a British fort. Dunmore decided to remove the
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ammunition Captain williamsburg Powder Magazine, a whimsical octagonal building in
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the town's market square, but patriots posted sentries to guard
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the colony's arsenal. Dunmore, in turn had his own spies
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watching the watchers. In the early hours of April twenty first,
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seventeen seventy five, gale force winds whipped across the town square,
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driving the shivering sentries from their posts to the shelter
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of their beds. Dunmore's informants quickly reported the guard's absence
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and roused him from sleep at the nearby Governor's palace.
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The Earl scribbled a note in the candlelight and sent
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a messenger to deliver the letter and the magazine key
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to the captain of a Royal Navy ship anchored a
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half dozen miles away in the James River. About three
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o'clock that morning, under a waning moon, a wagon carrying
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twenty Royal Navy marines and sailors trundled into the sleeping capital.
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The blustery winds muffled the clank of wheels and thud
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of hoofs. Dismounting, the ship's captain unlocked the outer gate,
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and his men scurried into the courtyard, squeezing through the
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small door that led into the gunpowder room. The men
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stacked fifteen half barrels, each weighing about sixty five pounds
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in the wagon. By the time some early riser spotted
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the intruders and sounded the alarm. It was too late.
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The precious cargo was soon rolling toward the James River
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in the safety of the ship's hold. The alarm awakened
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William Pasteur, a London trained surgeon who served on the
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town council and was sympathetic to the patriot cause. He
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pulled on his breeches and waistcoat and rushed into the
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street amid a great commotion. Most of the city's white
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male inhabitants were out in force. He recalled many of
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them under arms. Dunmore later said an angry crowd had
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gathered on the green in front of the stately Palace,
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making continual threats to my house. He was sure they
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intended to seize upon or massacre me and every person
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found giving me assistance if I refused to deliver the
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powder immediately into their custody. Randolph and other town leaders
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quieted the furious mob, knocked on the palace door and
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humbly presented Dunmore with a petition asking that the gun
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power be returned. The governor argued that he had removed
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the ammunition because of intelligence that enslaved Africans, who made
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up nearly half the colony's residence, planned to seize the
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powder to launch an insurrection. His goal, he claimed, had
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been to protect the colonists, not to disarm them, given
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recent rumors that those in bondage intended to rebel. The
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delegation accepted his explanation Withdrew and convinced the waiting crowd
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outside to disperse. The crisis seemed to have passed. Dunmore's
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suspicion of the colonists, on the other hand, had not.
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The next morning, he told Pasteur that two of his
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officers had been threatened by town residents the previous day,
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and swore that if any injury befell them or his family,
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he would declare freedom to the slaves and reduce the
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city of Williamsburg to ashes. With no British troops on hand,
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Dunmore saw this threat as his only option to avert violence.
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Yet the move only incensed white colonists throughout the colonies.
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One angry Virginian accused Dunmore of stirring up the Negroes
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to rebellion, while a Charleston newspaper fulminated over the monstrous
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absurdity that the governor can deprive the people of the
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necessary means of defense against their human chattel. As news
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of the affair spread, hundreds of Patriot Militia members gathered
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in Fredericksburg, a tobacco port typically two days ride north
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of the capital, to show zeal in the grand cause
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by marching to Williamsburg. They sent an urgent letter to
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George Washington asking for his blessing, as well as men
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and ammunition to launch their assault. Yet the man recognized
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as the foremost military expert in the colony, never responded
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to repeated messages from the Fredericksburg Militia. During what was
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arguably the most consequential month in American history, Washington remained
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silent at Mount Vernon. That reticence had to do with
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real estate. To avoid an expensive war with Native Americans,
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Britain had forbidden colonists from claiming tribal lands on the
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western side of the Appalachian Mountains. Members of Virginia's gentry
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chafed at this ban, and Washington had spent years lobbying
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Dunmore to use his influence to reverse this restriction. In
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April seventeen seventy five, he was still pleading his case
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an attack on Williamsburg and his patron would be sure
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to derail his dreams of greater wealth in the West.
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When Dunmore learned of the Patriot march, he reiterated his
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threat to free and arm enslaved Virginians. Ran president of
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the Continental Congress, faced the prospect of war breaking out
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virtually on his doorstep, he sent a letter to Fredericksburg,
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fudging the truth, insisting that the governor had promised that
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the powder shall be returned to the magazine, though he
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has not condescended to fix the day for its return.
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He urged the militia to stand down, warning that violent
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measures may produce effects which God only knows the consequence of.
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Just before Randolph's letter arrived, a despatch about the Massachusetts
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battles had reached the militia encampment. Emboldened by the news
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from Lexington and Concord, the assembled officers were eagerly preparing
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for the offensive. They read Randolph's letter aloud, and only
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after a stormy debate did they grudgingly agree to disperse
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the troops to avert the horrors of a civil war.
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What was for Randolph a crisis to defuse, and for
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Washington one to avoid. Was for Patrick Henry an opportunity.
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The country lawyer saw a chance to engage Virginia's small
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farmers and tenants, most of whom remained loyal to the
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king and largely indifferent to tensions with Britain. Unlike their
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New England counterparts, these men had not suffered from the
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presence of British troops, cared little about tariffs, and preferred
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cider to tea, but they did care about their muskets,
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rifles and gunpowder. You may, in vain mention the duties
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to the people upon tea, et cetera. Henry explained to
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a friend that month these things will not affect them.
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They depend on principles too abstracted for their apprehension and feeling.
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But tell them of the robbery of the magazine, and
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that the next step will be to disarm them. He added,
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You bring the subject home to their bosoms, and they
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will be ready to fly to arms to defend themselves.
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Henry's claim that the British intended to seize weapons owned
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by Virginians was patently false, but it proved effective, and
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the idea swept the colony. Dunmore, another patriot, reported designed
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by disarming the people to weaken the means of opposing
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an insurrection of the slaves. A constant paranoia, guns were
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essential for white owners to control the enslaved population, and
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white Virginians feared such an uprising more than a British invasion.
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The powder incident gave Henry the means to energize previously
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uncommitted colonists. A few days after the militia in Fredericksburg
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had disbanded, Henry assembled his own small army and gave
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a rousing speech. The famous orator won biographer reports, showed
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them that the recent plunder of the magazine in Williamsburg
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was nothing more than a part of the general system
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of subjugation. On the fine spring morning of May third,
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Henry led more than one hundred armed men, singing patriotic
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songs on the road to Williamsburg, halting that evening only
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sixteen miles shy of the capital. A panicked Dunmore, with
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little time to muster a defense, sent a delegate to
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negotiate a deal. If Henry's men would depart, the governor
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would pay for the powder impounded on the warship. After
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tense talks that lasted until nearly dawn. Henry agreed to
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the compromise and wrote a note declaring the powder affair
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was now settled. He mounted his horse and headed to
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Philadelphia to join Randolph and Washington for the Second Continental Congress,
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but the incident was far from over. Dunmore's threat to
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emancipate enslaved Africans twice kept the rebels at bay, but
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in June, amid fears of a kidnapping or assassination plot,
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he fled Williamsburg, later settling in the coastal port of Norfolk.
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In late October, as hundreds of enslaved people flocked to
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British lines for refuge, Henry's Patriot army marched on Norfolk
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and outnumber Dunmore published the continent's first emancipation proclamation, granting
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freedom to those enslaved by Patriots if those freedmen would
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then fight for the king. Lacking British troops to defend
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his position, he gave the freedmen guns and training and
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sent them into battle, sometimes against their former owners. After
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Dunmoris proclamation, even his erstwhile friend Washington, now in charge
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of the Continental Army, lost some of his enslaved workers
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to Dunmore's camp. He railed against the governor as that
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arch traitor to the rights of humanity. Meanwhile, frightened Southern planters,
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those reluctant revolutionaries threw in with their radical New England cousins.
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By May seventeen seventy six, Virginia's Patriot leaders voted unanimously
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to separate from Britain and urged the Continental Congress to
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do the same. That key decision broke the deadlock among
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the squabbling colonies, paving the way for adoption of Thomas
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Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Soon after, Dunmore and his multi
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racial troops were driven from Virginia, but his decision to
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arm men of color forced Washington to accept freedmen into
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the Continental Army, where they fought for American liberty until
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the final battle at Yorktown and nearly a century later.
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The decree published by Washington's nemesis, would serve as the
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model for a more famous document, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation
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Procae and accompanying that article, how an American merchant, a
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French official, and a pioneering chemist smuggled much needed gunpowder
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to the Continental Army. The trio's scheming became a crucial
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element of the fledgling nation's success in the Revolutionary War
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by Mike Riggs. Shortly after taking command of the Continental
24:27
Army in July seventeen seventy five, General George Washington ordered
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an accounting of the Patriot's gunpowder stores. When he learned
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that the total available was a measly ninety barrels, an
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eye witness claimed Washington did not utter a word for
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half an hour. Things were not much better by January
24:48
seventeen seventy six, when Washington wrote a letter to a
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trusted officer bemoaning the lack of supplies. We are now
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without any money in our treasury, powder in our mass
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magazine's arms, in our stores. But help was on the way.
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In March seventeen seventy six, Congress's Committee of Secret Correspondence
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dispatched Connecticut politician and merchant Sideless Dean on a mission
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to France, where he covertly met with Pierre Augustine Caron
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de Beaumarche, a confidante of Louis the sixteenth Beaumarche, who
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described himself in a letter to Congress as an ardent
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supporter of the American rebels, established a front organization rot Rigue,
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Orteller and Company to smuggle French, Dutch, and Spanish guns, clothing,
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and other supplies to the colonists directly and via the
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West Indies. He also provisioned Washington's troops with gunpowder made
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by Antoine Lavoisier, France's gunpowder guru. In seventeen seventy five,
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Lavoisier had assumed control of France's na national gunpowder production.
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Considered the founder of the chemical revolution, he brought exacting
26:07
standards and new refining techniques to what had previously been
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a simple but inexact process of mixing three simple ingredients.
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After extensive tests, Levosier eventually settled on a ratio of
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seventy five percent saltpeter, twelve point five percent percent charcoal,
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and twelve point five percent sulfur. He later declared the
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resulting French gunpowder the best in Europe. More important than
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its quality was its availability. The colonies lacked the industrial
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capacity to make powder and guns, so they didn't need
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the best, They just needed any at all. Thanks to
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beau Marche and other sympathizers that got them by the
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end of seventeen seventy seven, France had smuggled roughly two
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million pounds of gunpowder and sixty thousand French arms into
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the colonies, roughly won for every soldier in the Continental Army.
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These shipments led to the American victory at Saratoga in
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October seventeen seventy seven, a decisive moment for independence. Finally,
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Letters to the editor Appreciation for a Pioneer from Brian Crook, Ottawa,
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Major Barbara's War March twenty twenty five brought to mind
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my father. He was a Northern Irish Canadian surgeon and
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oncologist who served with the British Royal Army Medical Corps
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in North Africa during World War II. During that time,
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he operated on wounded American tank crews. Later, his field
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hospital was shelled during the Battle of Sangro in Italy.
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He was badly wounded. For surgeons wanted to amputate his leg.
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He knew Doctor Stimpson was a highly competent surgeon. He
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opted to be evacuated to North Africa and have her
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carry out the operation. It was a success. She saved
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his leg. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine for
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to day your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you
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for listening and have a great day.