Thousands and thousands and thousands of people. People inhabit the walls and the stones, people who's lives we can't even begin to imagine. City states at war with each other, century after century, marching their tired armies over the same vineyards and olive groves, over and over again. Mighty buildings, five, six storeys high, built maybe five, six, maybe seven hundred years ago; still standing. Still lived in. And half of Siena's magnificent cathedral, uncomplete since the middle ages, construction halted at the recession brought on by the arrival of the bubonic plague. Half built walls still standing, now a tourist feature in their own right.
And how tiny a pinprick in all this history are we?
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