The Closing Years of St. Paul's Life in Rome II

THE

CLOSING YEARS OF ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. BY COL. R. M. BRYCE THOMAS, AUTHOR OP "MY REASONS FOR LEAV- ING THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. " II. Another mile brought the travelers to the village of Lemo- nium, where Seneca, the great rhetorician, had his villa. Seneca was of Spanish birth, having been born in Corduba (Cordova) in B. C. 61. His son L. Annaeus Seneca, the philosopher, became tutor in A. D. 49 to the young Domitius, afterwards known as the Emperor Nero, who donned the purple in A. D. 54. After a while he be- came irksome to the emperor, and was put out of the way by his orders, in A.D. 65, by suffocation in a vapor bath in his own villa, because he tried to use his influence to check the vicious propen- sities of Nero, and also, it is said, because the emperor's cupidity was aroused by the wealth of the great philosopher. Seneca's tomb, which was erected in A. D. 65, is still standing near the fourth mile from the city. To the right could be seen the great aqueduct of Claudia, constructed by the Emperor Caligula and his successor Claudius, A. D. 38-52. Its total length was forty- six miles, of which thirty-six were underground, and the rest upon arches, some of which were extremely lofty. There were nine such aqueducts in all around Rome, besides some minor channels for bringing water into the city. Professor Ramsay, in his book, A Manual of Roman An- tiquities, says that the water that passed through these channels (as well as the aqueducts themselves) was distinguished in each case either by the name of the person by whom it was introduced,

454 IMPROVEMENT ERA. as for instance, "Aqua Appia," "Aqua Marcia, " "Aqua Clau- dia," etc., or from the source fi om which it was derived, as "Aqua Alsietina,'' "Anio Vetus," etc., or finally, from some legend con- nected with its history, as "Aqua Virgo," etc. The Aqua Claudia and ' 'Anio Novus, " which was also an aqueduct made by Claudius, conducting water into the city from a distance of fifty- eight miles, were two of the grandest and costliest works of their class, and, being more elevated than the rest, furnished supplies of water to the highest parts of the city. Some of the arches of the last named aqueduct are said to be over one hundred and nine feet high. It is interesting to note that each of the streams brought by the nine aqueducts entered the city all at different levels from the rest. There existed reservoirs and fountains all over Rome, necessitating the use of great volumes of water, and this is some- what the case at the present time also. Nothwithstanding that the population of Rome is about one-twelth that of London, it is said that the amount of water that now passes through the for- mer exceeds by eight times that which passes through the latter. At the third mile would be seen the tomb of Caecilia Metella, which is generally acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful sepulchral monuments of the world, and the best preserved of those along the Appian way. It consists of a round tower sixty-five feet in diameter, formed of stupendous blocks of tiburtine stone fixed together without cement, and adorned with a Doric frieze of marble, on which are sculptured the heads of oxen festooned with garlands and flowers, from which it is commonly called in Italian Capo di bove (head of the ox.) From the inscription in large letters below the frieze— Ccecilia Q. Cretici Filioz Metella Crassi—it is evident that Csecilla Metella was the daughter of Q. Csecilius Metellus Creticus, who was consul in B. C. 69, and the subduer of Crete to the Roman yoke, and that she was the wife of the triumvir M. Licinius Crassus, surnamed Dwes, whose ruling passion was the love of money. He permitted no scruples to in- terfere in adding to his wealth, and was the meanest while he was the wealthiest of all the Romans of his time. He, however, found no illustrious sepulchre at his death, for after having been defeated in his unsuccessful expedition against the Parthians in the plains of Mesopotamia, near Carrhse (the Haran of Scripture), he was slain in

ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 455 his interview with the Parthian general. Dr. Smith tells us further that his head was cut off and sent to Orodes, who caused molten gold to be poured into his mouth, saying, "Sate thyself now with that metal of which in life thou wert so greedy." This mausoleum of Caecilia Metella was erected to her memory by her father, and contained a large and most beautiful sarcophagus of white marble, which Pope Pius III of the Farnese family caused to be removed to the court of the Farnese palace, where it is now to be seen. A mile from the imperial city Paul and his companions would pass through the arch of Drusus, which was erected in about A. D. 20. Drusus was the younger brother of the Emperor Tiberius, and the father of Germanicus, and was born in B. C. 38. Youthful as he was, he carried out four very successful campaigns against the Germans (B. C. 12-9), consequently the Roman senate decreed him various honors, erecting him a marble arch and trophies on the Appian way, and granting him and his descendants the cognomen of Germanicus. (Suetonius, "Claudius," I.) On thejeturn of his army from the Elb to the Rhine, Drusus accidentally fell from his horse and broke his leg, the accident resulting shortly afterwards in his death in B. C. 9, at the early age of twenty-nine years. The arch is now somewhat mutilated, and originally terminated in a pedi- ment, but an aqueduct was led over it by the Emperor Caracalla, so as to obtain a supply of water for his great public baths in the city, the broken remains of which seriously impair its appearance. Close by on the right were the various columbaria or sepul- chral chambers of the freedmen of the imperial family of Rome. They are called columbaria from the supposed similarity of the niches which contain the ashes of the dead to pigeon holes (the Latin name of a pigeon being columba.) The names of the deceased were painted on plaster or carved on marble tablets, and placed above or below the niches, which ran in uninterrupted rows round the chamber, each niche containing one to four cinerary urns. Here we can be said to look on the ashes of some of the early Christian converts of the imperial house, perhaps of some whom Paul during his stay in Rome brought to the knowledge of the gospel. We recall the salutation of Paul to the Philippians (chap. 4: 22), written from Rome: "All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household;" and we also find in