The Closing Years of St. Paul’s Life in Rome. III

" THE CLOSING YEARS OF ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. BY COL. R. M. BRYCE THOMAS, AUTHOR OF "mY REASONS FOR LEAV- ING THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. III. . The next place of interest to which the apostle and his party would come would be the burial place of the Scipios, the cemetery of a long line of honorable republican heroes and patriots, the earliest member of the family who was buried here being L. Cor- nelius Scipio Barbatus. He was consul in B. C. 298. This is one of the most memorable of such monuments, both because of its great antiquity, and also because it is the sepulchre of a family to which Rome owes the conquest of Carthage. (Nibby, p. 340) The usual Roman custom of disposing of the bodies of the dead was to incinerate them, but Pliny, the historian, tells us that the Scipios had the singular custom of burying instead of burning their dead. On the opposite side of the road would be seen the sepulchre of the Maniglia family, as ascertained by inscriptions found within it. In Easton's Rome in the Nineteenth Century, it is stated that Roman tombs were either circular, square or of a pyramidal form without windows, and with an entrance on the side furthest from the public road. Sometimes they were places for family in- terment like those of the Scipios and of the Maniglias, sometimes solitary tombs like those of Cecelia Metella and Caius Cestes, or else great mausolea like that of Augustus, capable of containing all the various branches of a family to the latest generation. That of the Emperor Hadrian, although similar in form, was intended for himself alone.

ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 527 Close by here stands at present the little church of Domine quo vadis. The Roman Catholic legend has it that the church stands on the very spot where our Savior, bearing a cross, ap- peared to Peter. Peter when in Rome is said to have lived first of all on the Aventine hill in the house of Aquila and Priscilla. Two years ago, I had the opportunity of entering what is said to be one of the rooms of that house, and over which the church of Santa Piisca now stands. Excavations are now in progress close by, and many interesting remains of the old buildings are being discovered. Peter subsequently resided in the house of the Roman senator, Pudens, where he converted the senator's two daughters, Praxedes and Pudentina, to Christianity. The legend runs that St. Peter on a certain occasion left the house of Pudens and fled out of the city in order to escape the bitter persecution to which Christians were being subjected under the Emperor Nero, and, ac- cording to St. Ambrose, soon after leaving the city by the Porta Capena (one of the gates of Rome), he met our Lord on the Ap- pian way coming towards him bearing a cross. Peter exclaimed, Domine quo vadis? (Lord, whither goest thou?) To which our Lord replied, "I go to Rome to be crucified a second time." Peter said,"Lord, wilt thou be crucified afresh?" and the Lord replied again, "Yes, I shall be crucified afresh." Upon which Peter ex- pressed his determination to turn back and follow him. The story goes that our Savior was at once taken up to heaven, and that Peter immediately understood that it was of his own sufferings of which the Lord had spoken to him, and that Christ was to suffer afresh in his (Peter's) person, for so does he suffer in all the chosen by the compassion of his mercy, and the power of his glory. And Peter turned back and re-entered the city with joy, glorifying God, and telling the brethren how that Christ had met him, and had declared to him that he was in him about to be cruci- fied a second time. Good Roman Catholics believe that an impres- sion on a stone in the church is a footprint left by the Savior at the time that he met and conversed with Peter. The Apostle Paul and his company would here cross the brook Almo, and after passing the temple of Minerva, as well as that of Tempestes, built by L. Cornelius Scipio, would arrive at the tem- ple and grove of the Camenoe, or prophetic nymphs. In the hoi-

528 IMPROVEMENT ERA. * low they would see the grotto and fountain 'Delia Cafferella," which is understood to be that consecrated to the nymph ^geria, or Egeria, from whom the Sabine king, Numa Pompilius, the suc- cessor of Romulus, claimed to have received his instructions. He contrived to make the Roman people accept his new religious laws, by declaring that they had been brought down from heaven by a nymph called Egeria, and delivered to him in a grotto not far from the city. This legend takes us back to a very early period of Roman history, inasmuch as the forty-two years' reign of Numa Pompilius commenced in B. C. 715. The travelers would now be nearing one of the ancient gates of the old Servian wall of Rome called "Porta Capena," situated in the hollow between the Csetian and the Aventine hills. From that gate issued not ony the Via Appia along which Paul and his party had just passed, but also the Via Latina, which branched off to the left, and after passing through Ferentinum, Aquinum, Ca- sinum, and Venafrum, again joined the Via Appia at Beneventum. Prof. Ramsay tells us that the t^-iangular space made by the Via Appia, the Via Satina, and the brook Almo, was the most favorite of all the Roman cemeteries, and that in that space were found the Hypogoeum of the Scipios, the Columbaria of the Pompeii, of the Pomponii, and of the imperial f reedmen of Drusus and Tiberius, and more than two thousand funeral stones besides. Proceeding on their way, Paul and those w ith him would come almost immediately to the temple of Mars, and to the twin temples of Honos et Virtus (Honor and Virtue). That of Honos was erected by Q. Fabius Verrucosus, and repaired in B. C. 212 by M. Marcellus, who attached to it a temple of Virtue, and decorated the twin shrines with Grecian pictures, statues, and masterpieces of art, ruthlessly plundered by him from the Syracusans after his capture of their city. The twelve priests attached to the temple of Mars were called "Salii," on account of their habit of dancing and leaping. Every year on the calends of March and for several days following, they used to parade the streets of Rome bearing the twelve holy shields called "Ancili a" (one of which was said to have fallen from heaven), and dancing their sacred war dances. Both Cicero and Horace have commemorated the splendor of the banquets which termi-

ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 529 nated these annual solemnities. From these three temples a proces- sion of Roman equites or knights to the capitol took place on July 15th of each year, in honor of Castor and Pollux, whose fight on behalf of the Romans at the battle of lake Regillus is familiar to all readers of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. Prof. Ramsay, in his Manual oj Roman Antiquities, tells us that beside the temple of Mars stood a sacred stone, the lapis manalis, which was dragged into the city with certain cerenlonies during periods of excessive drought in order to procure a fall of rain. The long and trying journey of Julius and his prisoners was now drawing to a close as they reached the city walls, and entered imperial Rome by the ancient Porta Capena in March, A. D. 61, in the seventh year of Nero's reign and the twenty- fourth of his life; and Paul's longing desire to visit the great capi- tal of the empire was at length fulfilled. He had mentioned this desire on more than one previous occasion: "I must also see Rome."' (Acts xix: 12). "Having a great desire these many years to come to you." (Romans xv: 23 et seq.) "For I long to see you." (Romans i: 10-15). The words of the Lord also must often have come back to him: "Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." (Acts xxiii: 11). But it was within the imperial city itself that Paul and his companions were to look upon public works of greater magnitude, and edifices of architectural grandeur and beauty even still more attractive than the monuments, temples, villas, and the innumer- able statues of the Dei Viales, or Dsities of the road, which they had passed as they journeyed along the Appian way. On en- tering Rome by the Porta Capena, they would pass on the left the Circus Maximus, or great race course of Rome, formed in the hol- low between the Aventine and Palatine hills, and able to accom- modate, according to the Notitia, four hundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. It was on this very spot that some eighteen hundred years previously the rape of the Sabine women by the Roman youths took place. Proceeding along the Via Triumphalis, with the Palatine on their left surrounded by the magnificent palaces of the Caesars, they would enter the Via Sacra, and reach- ing the velia or low ridge at the slope of the Palatine, would ob-

30 IMPROVEMENT ERA. tain the first view of the renowned Forum, now the most classical pface of old Rome, and at that time the chief place of general resort of the mightiest metropolis of the ancient world. Here it was that the constitutional congress of the patricians, the Comi- tia Curiata, took place, as also the meetings of the senate and the Roman people; it was here that justice was administered, and it was here that magnificent basilicas, porticos, triumphal arches, courts of justice, and other ornamental buildings, eminently befitting the capital of so dominant an empire, were to be found. Immediately facing him, Paul would see not only the Tabu- larium, in which all the public documents were deposited for record and safety, its many arched niches being filled with fine marble statues, but also the great temple of Jupiter, Optimus Maximus crowning the Capitoline hill, and the beautiful temple of Concord, built in B. C. 367, and now a complete ruin. He would further see the "Rostra," or stage from which orations were made to the people, and the **Comitium," or polling place of the Roman burghers. The word "Rostra" means the beaks of ships, and the stage was so called because it was ornamented with the beaks of ships taken by Camillus from the Volscians, somewhere about B. C. 350. To the left, and at the further end of the Forum, would be seen the temple of Saturn, a relic of very early worship. It was dedicated in B. C. 498 or 497, but it is said to have been erected by Tullus Hostilius, the Roman king, somewhere about B. C. 650. Prof. Ramsay tells us that during the Republic it was employed as the state treasury (Aerarium), and that here not only the public money, but also the military ^.tandards, the decrees of (,he senate, and all Dublic documents were deposited until after the erection of the Tabularium. Of this building, only eight Ionic columns with their capitals and architraves are now left standing. Near this temple stood the arch of Tiberius, erected by Germanicus in A. D. 17 to commemorate the recovery of the flags which had formerly been lost to the nation by Varus. A little nearer would be seen the splendid "Basilica Julia," commenced by Julius Csesar and completed by Augustus, and dedi- cated in B. C. 46. It was of great size, composed of a nave sur- rounded by a double portico of square pillars, and capable of ac- commodating four courts of law, consisting altogether of one

; SI. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 581 hundred and eighty judices, or jurymen, besides an immense con- course of spectators. Its floor is in a good state of preservation, and looks, as Zola says, like an architect's ground plan. Paris, France. [to be continued.] MY PRAYER. (For the improvement Era.) my Father, thou that lovest, All thy children here on earth, Thou dost guide U3 by thy Spirit, Even from our time of birth. Let thine angels watch around us, Guide us in the path of right, Help us to resist temptation Help us, Lord, to win the fight. We are weak and mortal creatures. In this school so far below; We are striving to be greater, And in light and knowledge grow. Evil paths are always open, Satan watchinp' by the way, He is anxious to beguile us, Seeking hard to lead astray. Grant us light and revelation, That the narrow path we keep, That we do thy bidding always, And thy choicest blessings reap. Guide us on in paths of safety. To thy mansions far above, Where we'll dwell throughout all ages With our Father whom we love. what joy will fill our bosoms As we sing thy holy praise, With thy presence shining 'round us, Like the sunlight's brightest rays. Earthly trials are all forgotten In this high and holy land, Where we'll dwell in love and union With the true and chosen band. Charles H. White. Payson, Utah.