Appreciating the Riace Warriors

Reminiscing about my first trip to Italy, I think about my brief, hot stay in Reggio di Calabria one August. I am making my way by train from Sicily back up to Rome to meet a friend, but I have a few days open, so why not stop? I soon learn that a prime attraction in this town is these unusual bronzes, statues of Greek warriors that were discovered in the ocean by someone snorkeling off the coast of Riace in 1972.

What I also soon learn is that I’m not so good at reading Italian when an English translation isn’t right next to it. I loved being able to see these B.C.E. sculptures but couldn’t learn enough about them because, at that time, before smartphones and the Internet and e-readers, all of the signs in the museum were in Italian. All I really learned was that they were found in the water, that they are Greek, not Roman, and that no one really knows who they are. So I just gaze.

—Lori Tripoli