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Bible Dictionaries
Rome
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Any attempt to describe Rome in the middle of the 1st cent. could be made only by one alike endowed with sympathetic imagination and equipped with minute erudition. Such an attempt has been made, not altogether unsuccessfully, by F. W. Farrar in his Darkness and Dawn (London, 1891), as well as by other writers. In this article it has seemed best to mention one or two points in which Rome of that period differed from a modern great city, and to follow this up by giving some account of certain important buildings of the early Empire, whether they actually date from the later Republic or not. The writer has not rigidly excluded those that belong to a period somewhat later than Nero, but he has as far as possible confined his attention throughout to buildings of which actual remains exist. He has been indebted to standard works mentioned in the Literature, but has himself seen everything which he describes.
The population of Rome at the time St. Paul reached it, about a.d. 60, may be estimated roughly at from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000, of which a very large proportion were slaves. The streets of the city were for the most part narrow, and no vehicles were allowed inside the city walls except the wagons necessary for building purposes. The traveller who did not walk was conveyed in a sedan chair or on horseback to one of the city gates, where his carriage was awaiting him. The public buildings were magnificent, but many of the dwelling-houses, three or more stories high, were in a state of dangerous disrepair. Crassus, the great financier of the 1st cent. b. c., owned much of this property, and derived a large fortune from it. Martial and Juvenal, towards the end of the 1st and the beginning of the 2nd cent. a.d., describe the perils to the pedestrian from falling tiles, etc. The dangers to the health of slum dwellers were to some extent obviated by the open-air life commonly led, by the porticces which gave protection from sun and rain, by the theatre, amphitheatre, circus, etc. There was no proper lighting of the streets at night. Active life was supposed to end at sunset, and those who were abroad after dark were accompanied by torch-bearers, as the Londoners of the 18th cent. by link-boys. Not till the time of Augustus was there any police in Rome, but the riots of the 1st cent. b.c. had shown the necessity, and Augustus divided the city into wards (regiones), and established an excellent police system, of which archaeological remains have been found.
Palatine Hill.-There is a general consensus of opinion that the original Rome, Roma Quadrata (‘Square Rome’), was on the Palatine Hill only-the hill of Pales, the shepherds’ god. It is with the S.W. angle that the earliest legends of Rome are mostly associated. It was there that the basket was found containing the twins Romulus and Remus, after it had been washed ashore by the Tiber. There also was the lair of the she-wolf that suckled the twins, etc. The Palatine Hill is kept for the most part sacred from modern buildings, and is almost entirely covered by ruins of buildings belonging to various epochs. Excavation is still going on, but seemingly no attempt is made to check the growth of vegetation. In the Republican period the Palatine became a fashionable residential quarter. Here was the house of Cicero. On his exile in 58 b.c. the house was destroyed and the site confiscated, but in the next year it was restored to him. The Emperor Augustus was born near the N.E. corner, and various rooms of a house belonging to his wife Livia are still shown on the hill, with the frescces on the inside walls. Under the Empire practically the whole of the hill was converted into a huge Imperial residence. The process was begun by Augustus, who acquired a valuable property which had once belonged to the orator Hortensius, and added to it by the purchase of adjoining properties. There the Imperial palace was built. Fire and destruction worked upon this and other buildings, and we cannot with certainty identify remains on the hill as belonging to buildings of a particular date. What one sees is great masses of brickwork, with arched roofs. The bricks are square, and very thin as compared with those of to-day. The surviving edifices impress one greatly by their size and strength, but by nothing else. The whole looks excessively shabby. The explanation is that what we are now looking on is only the inner core of the building proper. In the heyday of their existence all these shabby brick buildings were encased in marble. The marble, in the course of ages, has been stripped off, partly in the interests of the decoration of Christian churches, and partly to be pounded down and made into lime. There is a well-known saying of Augustus that he found Rome built of brick and left it made of marble. On seeing these ruins it occurred to the present writer that what was meant by this saying was simply that he had covered brick buildings with marble. The Imperial palace on the Palatine was successively altered or enlarged, as the tastes or requirements of successive Emperors demanded. One most important building must be mentioned before we leave this hill, or mountain, as the Romans called it (see Roman Empire), namely, the temple and precinct of Apollo on the N. E. part of the hill. The decoration of the temple was magnificent. In a double colonnade connected with it were statues of each of the fifty fabled daughters of Danaus, and there also were the Imperial libraries of Greek and Roman literature, one of the earliest public libraries in Italy, splendidly equipped by Augustus not only with manuscript books but also with busts of the great authors.
Capitol.-In modern times the Capitoline Hill is disfigured on the southern side by a hideous barrack-like erection with a campanile, called the Campidoglio, and on the other peak, the Arx, there is being erected an enormous monument to commemorate united Italy. The great ornament of the Capitoline in ancient times was the temple of Jupiter, Best and Greatest (the god whom the Latin allies worshipped on the Alban Mount), together with Juno and Minerva. It was to this great temple that all the triumphal processions of Rome made their way. It was approached immediately by the Cliuus Capitolinus, ‘Capitoline slope,’ from the Forum. The temple measured about 204 ft. by 188 ft. At the angle of the hill nearest the Tiber was the Tarpeian Rock, from which criminals were hurled. The sheer cliff may be seen from various points. One of the most prominent ancient features on the Capitoline Hill to-day is the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, placed there in 1538, probably under the direction of Michael Angelo, who was commissioned to lay out this site in as worthy a manner as possible. The statue owes its preservation to the belief that it was supposed to represent the earliest Christian Emperor, whereas, as a matter of fact, Marcus was one of the greatest persecutors of the Church. It is the only equestrian statue of an Emperor that has survived. The Arx was in ancient times for the most part not built on: it was from the ground there that heralds got the sacred plants which played a part in the conclusion of treaties with foreign powers. The plant (uerbena sagmina) symbolized the soil of Rome. The temple of Iuno Moneta was on this height; it was the seat of the Mint.
Forum.-Both these hills flank the Forum, to which most of our space must be devoted. Standing near the Cliuus Capitolinus, one looks straight down the Forum, and there must have been a lovely view of the Alban mountains in the distance, before the enormous Flavian amphitheatre, commonly called the Colosseum, shut it off. We must try to touch briefly on each of the more important buildings of which there are traces in the Forum. Like the Palatine, it is shut off from modern intrusions. The Forum was the centre of the throbbing life of the ancient city-the life social, commercial, legal, and political. Occupying a central position in the hollow surrounded by the various heights, it was the natural meeting-place of the communities on the hills above, and this it continued to be as long as ancient Rome lasted. It was flanked by all sorts of shops, those of the money-changers or bankers included. Military processions passed through it. The people were addressed there. Funeral processions stopped there for the funeral oration to be pronounced. In the adjoining buildings law-cases were tried. An enumeration of the buildings, proceeding from N. to S., will serve to give some notion of the comprehensiveness of the life of the Forum.
The Tabularium or Record Office was situated at the foot of the Capitol, and was built in 78 b.c. Its lower courses, on which mediaeval work is now superimposed, are the most splendid specimens of Republican masonry surviving.
In front of this was the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, erected in a.d. 80. Three columns are still standing. There is also a richly decorated frieze and cornice. An inscription records that the temple was restored by Septimius Severus and Caracalla.
To the left of this was the Temple of Concord. This temple with concrete foundations, built by M. Furius Camillus in 366 b.c., was restored by Opimius in 121 b.c., and again rebuilt by Tiberius in a.d. 7-10. Only the threshold is preserved, but some parts of the columns are to be found in museums.
Beyond this are the remains of the Mamertine Prison, where the Catilinarian conspirators Lentulus and Cethegus were strangled by order of the consul Cicero. The tradition that St. Paul was confined there is valueless.
To return to the other side, we come to the Temple of Saturn. Of this great temple the lofty sub-structures are preserved. The eight columns of red and grey granite belong to a late restoration. This restoration was irregular and carelessly carried out. The temple was originally built about 500 b.c. In its vaults was stored the public treasure of Rome. Julius Caesar, after crossing the Rubicon and thus declaring civil war, forced his way in and seized £300,000 of coined money, as well as 15,000 gold and 30,000 silver ingots.
Right over on the other side is the Arch of Severus. This was built in a.d. 203 as a memorial of the victorious campaigns of the Emperor Septimius Severus in the East. In ancient times it was reached by steps, being above the level of the Forum, and now that the ground has been cleared away, that is again true. The middle archway is 40 ft. 4 ins. in height and 22 ft. 11 ins. wide; the side archways are exactly as high as the large one is wide, but they are only 9 ft. 10 ins. wide. There are four columns on each façade standing on high bases. The bas-reliefs are the most interesting part. Some represent legionary soldiers leading prisoners from the East in chains. Another figures Rome receiving the homage of conquered Oriental peoples. The great majority depict detailed scenes of the various stages of war.
In front of this arch lie some of the most antique remains yet discovered in Rome-the Lapis Niger, etc. At this place there was probably a grave or an ill-omened place of some sort. The most interesting part is a rectangular column covered with inscriptions on all four faces. The writing goes from the top down and from the bottom up. The letters show a great resemblance to those of the Greek alphabet, from which the Latin alphabet is admittedly derived. The date is not later than the 5th cent. b.c. The sense cannot be made out. All we can say is that there is mention of a rex, of iouxmenta, ‘beasts of burden,’ and of a kalator, ‘public servant’; the words sakros esed (= sacer sit, ‘let so-and-so be sacred’) occur also. It is probably a portion of a religious law that we have here.
Beyond the Black Stone lies all that remains of the Comitium, the voting-place of the Republic.
Beyond this again lies the Church of S. Adriano, which corresponds to the main room of the Senate House of the Empire. It was constructed by Julius Caesar. The situation of the smaller committee room is also known. The level of the ground round about has been gradually raised in the period intervening between the original date of the building and the present day.
If we turn back again to get to the other side we come to the remains of three large oblong erections parallel with one another, all much larger than any with which we have yet had to do. The first is the Basilica aemilia. It is only recently that this has been thoroughly excavated. The original building on this site goes back to the year 179 b.c., when its construction was completed by two censors. Lucius aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Perseus of Macedon, seems to have decorated it, as an inscription in his honour has lately been found among the ruins. The building was restored by another aemilius, consul in 78 b.c. A coin of 61 b.c. shows the building as a two-storied portico. In 54 b.c. it was again restored by yet another aemilius-it was a sort of monument of this family-with Julius Caesar’s approval and at his expense. The building was restored again after a fire in 14 b.c. at the expense of the Emperor Augustus. The next restoration took place in a.d. 22 in the reign of Tiberius. Of the Republican building only foundations remain. The entrance opens into six rooms which served for banking business, etc. A staircase led to the upper story, which was similarly arranged. The main room was 95 ft. wide and about 228 ft. long. The galleries above the side aisles were supported by columns. A considerable number of these have been found lying among the other ruins, in all cases broken, but in some cases more so than in others. These are like Peterhead granite, and form part of the 5th cent. reconstruction, which was very thorough.
Next comes the Forum Romanum proper-an open space. At the end nearest to the site of the later Arch of Severus stood the Rostra of the Republic. This was a raised platform decorated with the prows of ships captured in the First Carthaginian War in 260 b.c., under Duillius: hence the name. From this platform many a historic speech, many a funeral oration, including that of Mark Antony on Julius Caesar, was delivered. Another interesting feature of the Forum, of which only the basis now survives, was a bronze equestrian statue of the Emperor Domitian, raised towards the end of the 1st cent. a.d. and described in detail by Statius in the first of his miscellaneous pcems called Siluae.
Leaving the Forum proper, we cross the Sacra Via (the pcet Horace [Sat. I. ix. 1] by the requirements of his metre said uia sacra, but to the ordinary Roman it would have been as absurd to say Via Sacra as to say ‘Street Oxford’ or ‘Street Princes’ to-day). This Sacred Way was one of the oldest streets in Rome. Its exact course through the Forum is uncertain, but it would appear that it passed between the Forum proper and the Basilica Iulia, that it then went N.E. and ran along the east side of the Forum, turning southwards eventually and passing under what is now the Arch of Titus. It was the thoroughfare through the Forum, and was connected with almost every movement of importance, sacred and secular, throughout the whole of Roman history.
Crossing it, we come to what was by far the largest edifice in the Forum, the Basilica Iulia. Nothing but the pavement and the basis of some of the columns now remains. It was begun in the year 54 b.c. and was dedicated, though not yet finished, by the dictator Julius Caesar on the day of the celebration of the victory over his Pompeian enemies at Thapsus in 46 b.c. Augustus completed it. On its destruction by fire, he built a much larger building, which retained the original name. It consisted of three parts-a vestibule on the Sacra Via side, the main hall with the galleries surrounding it, and the separated rooms situated behind it. The main hall, used as a law-court, etc., was 328 ft. long and 118 ft. wide (central nave 271 ft. by 59 ft.). Thirty-six pillars of brick covered with marble surrounded the central nave, and into this nave the galleries in the upper story opened. The roof above the central nave was constructed with a clerestory. Much timber was used in making the roof. Four tribunals could try cases at once in this large hall, so that there must have been partitions between them. It is on record that an orator with a specially powerful voice who was pleading before one tribunal received applause from the crowds attending in all four courts. Such buildings have a special interest for us, as it was on them that one at least of the earliest types of Christian church was modelled, and from them that it received the name Basilica, which is still current.
Crossing the Vicus Tuscus or Etrurian Street, which went at right angles to the Sacra Via, we come to the great Temple of Castor or the Castors. The three columns which still stand are at once one of the most conspicuous and one of the most beautiful monuments remaining in the Forum. The temple itself was one of the most ancient of Roman foundations, going back to about 500 b.c. The legend of the help given by the twin-brother gods to the Romans when in straits at the battle of Regillus is familiar to all. The temple was the repayment of a vow. Frequently reconstructed as it was, the remains we now know date from the beginning of the 2nd cent. a.d. under Trajan and Hadrian. It is quite a steep climb to get to the floor of the temple. This is of black and white mosaic laid in Tiberius’ time, and covered a century later with slabs of variegated marble. The testing of weights and measures was carried on in this temple.
We come next to the Lacus Iuturnae. At the foot of the Palatine the goddess who presided over the springs which bubble forth there was worshipped as Juturna, she who appears in Virgil’s aeneid as the sister of Turnus, the king of the Rutulians. The pool is about 6½ ft. deep and about 16 ft. 9 ins. square. It is fed by two springs. Various ornaments and other interesting objects have been dug out there.
In this neighbourhood are three (or rather two) connected buildings, all belonging to the same cult, that of Vesta. They are respectively the circular aedes Vestae and the Atrium Vestae, with the Domus Virginum Vestalium. The worship of Vesta was the worship of fire and the hearth. Fire is to the house a continual necessity, whether for the cooking of food or for the external warmth of the body, and it has for the city’s house the same importance as for the private house. Just as there were a fire and a hearth in every private house, so there were a fire and a hearth in the central part of every Latin town, belonging to the people itself. In the primitive community it was important that there should be a central fire belonging equally to all the citizens, where fire could be obtained for their houses, if their own fire had gone out. It must never be allowed to go out. Six noble ladies in Rome, vowed to single life, were appointed to guard this fire. Their connexion with the town religion, as well as their high birth, made them a power in Rome, and they were universally respected. The importance of this cult is reflected in the ruins surviving in the Forum. The Temple of Vesta was round, a less common shape than the square or rectangular, and the foundations alone survive. It stood upon a circular substructure 46 ft. in diameter and was ornamented by pilasters. The entrance faced exactly east. The altar was not quite in the middle. The other two buildings ought strictly to be regarded as one, the central Atrium Vestae, which was very large, being flanked on both sides by the living-rooms of the Vestals’ house. This house was roomy and splendid, but shut in like a cloister. The central part of the Atrium seems to have been laid out as a garden. There is much of interest about this place that must be passed over.
Right at the other side is the Temple of the god Antoninus and the goddess Faustina. On the death of the Empress Faustina in a.d. 141, the Senate, at the instance of her husband, who had been passionately devoted to her, elevated her among the gods, and vowed her a temple, the construction of which was begun almost at once. The name of Antoninus himself was added to that of his wife at his own death. The vestibule of the temple has six unfluted columns of EubCEan marble, 55 ft. 9 ins. high and 4 ft. 9 ins. in diameter. The shafts of the columns have numerous inscriptions on them. A church was built into this temple before the 12th century.
At the southern end of the Forum, on higher ground at the top of the Sacra Via, stands the Arch of Titus. This noble structure was decreed by the Senate and people to the Emperor Titus after the triumphant end of the war with Judaea and the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, but was not completed till after the end of his reign (a.d. 81). Piers at the sides, having been seriously injured in the course of repeated misuse of the building in the Middle Ages, were skilfully renewed in 1821. The chief features of the arch are the numerous reliefs with which it is adorned. One shows the Emperor in a chariot crowned by the goddess of Victory. Here also are the lictors carrying the bundles of rods. The most notable relief represents a section of the triumphal procession, where the treasures of the Temple at Jerusalem are being carried on litters; on the first the table of the shewbread and the trumpets of the year of Jubilee, on the second the seven-branched candlestick.
Such is a cursory review of the most notable surviving ruins in the Forum, belonging to the period of the Republic and the early Empire. The area is about 430 by 110 yards. If the grandeur of the ruins impresses one, the impression of decay, perhaps even shabbiness, is also vivid. But the setting in which the remains appear adds glory to them. Vegetation is not seriously interfered with, and in early April one may see growing wild there clover, vetch, cranesbill, geranium, violet, pink, cyclamen, periwinkle, borage, blue anemone, wallflower, birdsfoot trefoil, etc. On some of the ruined walls you will find, five weeks before English time, the wistaria, surely the most exquisitely delicate of all creepers. In the warm period of the day the lizards scurry hither and thither. Above, on the Palatine, wild mignonette abounds.
Beyond the Forum to the south is the Flavian Amphitheatre (commonly called the Colosseum). It is one of the most wonderful ruined structures in the world. In this vast edifice, where many a victim bestial and human was ‘butchered to make a Roman holiday,’ there was room for very many thousands of spectators. The building is a beautiful oval in shape. It is upwards of 180 ft. in height and one-third of a mile in circumference. The exterior is ornamented by three styles of columns-the Doric on the lowest range, the Ionic in the middle, and the Corinthian above. The inside sloping part, where stone seats rose in tiers, was built by the most skilful use of the arch. Beneath the arena there is a vast number of rooms, and certain of these may have been used to house the victims till they were required for exhibition. The nearest modern analogy to the Roman amphitheatre is the Spanish bull-ring (plaza de toros) built on the same model. In both, the system of entrances and exits to the various parts of the house is admirably efficient. In both the sunlight has to be reckoned with, and on occasion in Rome a silk awning was drawn over the top. Towards the end of the 1st cent. of the Empire, tickets (nomismata) were often showered upon the populace from above (Stat. Sliuae, i. 6; Martial, passim). Each ticket bore on it the indication of a prize which the lucky catcher obtained on presenting it at an office in the city.
Law-courts.-Leaving this quarter of the city, we can now return to the northern end of the Forum. As the volume of legal business increased with the settled state of the Empire, now free from the curse of civil war, additional law-courts became necessary, and Emperors vied with one another in building them. North of the northern end of the Forum proper was built the Julian Forum, north of that the Augustan, and west of that the huge square forum of Trajan with double apses, bounded on its west side by the Basilica Ulpia. Yet this does not exhaust the number of these buildings. Behind the place where the temple of Antoninus and Faustina afterwards stood, was Vespasian’s Forum with the Temple of Peace. To connect this with the Augustan Forum just mentioned, Nerva built one which was called after him, but also called ‘Transitorium’ (the connecting Forum). Of all this wonderful group of glorious buildings very little remains.
On the north side of the Augustan Forum was the Temple of Mars Ultor. The three columns and architrave of this building, vowed by Augustus on the battle-field of Philippi and dedicated in 2 b.c., are all that remain to show how splendid a structure it was. The only portion of the Forum Transitorium that remains visible is a fragment of the eastern enclosing wall of the forum with two columns belonging to the colonnade half buried in the ground. The cornice and attic of the wall project above and behind these columns. On the attic is a figure of Minerva in relief. Trajan, in order to build his forum, had to cut away the S.W. spur which connects the Quirinal Hill with the Capitoline Mount. The earth was carted away and used to cover up an old cemetery.
Of all Trajan’s magnificent buildings nothing remains uncovered but the central portion-about half the area-of the Basilica Ulpia, with the Column of Trajan in a rectangular court at the further side of the Basilica. The column, which had a statue of Trajan on the top, is over 100 ft. high, and is said to be exactly the height of the spur of the hill which was cut away. It is notable as having a series of reliefs arranged spirally from the basis to the capital-namely, twenty-three blocks of Parian marble. The Senate and people of Rome erected the column in the year 113. The reliefs are of immense interest as depicting many scenes in the wars carried on by Trajan against the Dacians. This people lived in modern Transylvania and also south of the Carpathians in Wallachia and part of Roumania. In the time of the Flavian Emperors they became a serious menace to the Empire. By Trajan’s time their king had established a great military power. The second of Trajan’s wars with them resulted in the conquest of Dacia (105-106) and the reduction of it to the status of a Roman province. The reliefs are a contemporary historical document of value unsurpassed in the whole of Roman history. Apart from its historical value, the monument has been described as ‘the most important example of an attempt to create a purely Roman art filled with the Roman spirit.’
Of further ancient monuments one must simply select one or two for mention. Near the Tiber the vaulted channel of the Cloaca Maxima (Great Drain) can be observed. This construction first made habitable the marshy ground of the Forum and the land between the Capitoline and the Palatine. Near this is a circular building, once perhaps the Temple of Mater Matuta, now the Church of S. Maria del Sole. The superstructure is solid marble, and had a peristyle of twenty Corinthian columns, of which one is now lost. Some considerable distance N. of this, in what was once the Campus Martins, is the Pantheon, the most complete and the most impressive surviving monument of the earliest Imperial period. The original building, erected in 27 b.c., was burned in a.d. 80, restored by Domitian, struck by lightning and again burned in 110, and finally restored by Hadrian (120-124). It is his building we now see. It is a huge rotunda of the simplest proportions. The height of the cupola is the same as that of the drum upon which it rests, and the total height of the building is therefore the same as the diameter of the pavement. The dome is not solid concrete throughout. There are the beginnings of an articulated system of supports between which the weight is distributed. On either side of the vestibule are niches in which colossal statues of Agrippa (the builder) and Augustus once stood. The one opening in the roof admits sufficient light. The building, originally erected to all the divine protectors of the Julian house, has since a.d. 609 been used mostly as a church. What the Church, the great destroyer of Roman pagan buildings, did not ruin, it modified and used for its own purposes.
Literature.-The most minute works on the topography of ancient Rome are H. Jordan and C. Huelsen, Topographie der Stadt Romans , 2 vols., Berlin, 1871-1907; O. Richter, Topographic der Stadt Romans 2 (in Iwan von Müller’s Handbuch), Munich, 1901. The best work on the Forum is C. Huelsen, The Roman Forum, Eng. translation , Rome, 1906, 21909 (cf. his I più recenti scavi nel Foro Romano, Rome, 1910). Other works of value and interest are T. Ashby, in A Companion to Latin Studies, ed. Sandys, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 35-47, and W. Ramsay and R. A. Lanciani, A Manual of Roman Antiquities15, London, 1894 (especially as introductions); H. S. Jones, Classical Rome, do., 1910, and the fascinating works by R. A. Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, do., 1889, Pagan and Christian Rome, do., 1892, and Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, do., 1897. The most convenient and up-to-date maps are in H. Kiepert and C. Huelsen, Formae Urbis Romae Antiquae: accedit Nomenclator Topographicus, Berlin, 1896, 21912.
A. Souter.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Rome'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/r/rome.html. 1906-1918.
