Pagan and Christian Rome. Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani
The tenant must give an assignment of his goods to the keeper-in-chief, who shall not be held responsible for the safe-keeping of merchandise or valuables which have not been duly declared. The tenant must claim a receipt for the said assignment and for the payment of his rental."31
The granaries of the Church were intended only for the storage of corn. The landed estates which the Church owned in Africa and Sicily were administered by deputies, whose special duty it was to ship the produce of the harvest to Rome. During the first siege of Totila, in 546, Pope Vigilius, then on his way to Constantinople, despatched from the coast of Sicily a fleet of grain-laden vessels, under the care of Valentine, bishop of Silva Candida. The attempt to relieve the city of the famine proved useless, and the vessels were seized by the besiegers on their landing at Porto. In 589 an inundation of the Tiber, described by Gregoire de Tours, carried away several thousand bushels of grain, which had been stored in the horrea ecclesiæ, and the granaries themselves were totally destroyed.
The "Liber Pontificalis," vol. i. p. 315, describes the calamities which befell the city of Rome in the year 605; King Agilulf trying to enter the city by violence; heavy frosts killing the vines; rats destroying the harvest, etc. However, as soon as the barbarians were induced to retire by an offer of twelve thousand solidi, Pope Sabinianus, who was then the head of the Church, iussit aperiri horrea ecclesiæ (threw open the granaries), and offered their contents at auction, at a valuation of one solidus for thirty modii.
A Granary of Ostia.
The grain was not intended to be sold, but to be distributed among the needy; the act of Sabinianus was, therefore, strongly censured, as being in strong contrast to the generosity of Gregory the Great. A legend on this subject is related by Paulus Diaconus in chapter xxix. of the Life of Gregory. He says that Gregory appeared thrice to Sabinianus, in a vision, entreating him to be more generous; and having failed to move him by friendly advice, he struck him dead. The price of one solidus for thirty modii is almost exorbitant; grain cost exactly one half this at the time of Theodoric.
The institution has outlived all the vicissitudes of the Middle Ages. Gregory XIII., in 1566, Paul V., in 1609, Clement XI., in 1705, re-opened the horrea ecclesiæ in the ruined halls of the Baths of Diocletian; and Clement XIII. added a wing to them, for the storage of oil. These buildings are still in existence around the Piazza di Termini, although devoted to other purposes.
It would be impossible to follow in all its manifestations the material and moral transformation of Rome from the third to the sixth centuries, without going beyond the limits of a single chapter.
The customs and practices of the classical age were so deeply rooted among the citizens that even now, after a lapse of sixteen centuries, they are noticeable to a great extent. When we read, for instance, of Popes elected by the people assembled at the Rostra,32 such as Stephen III., in 768, we must regard the circumstance as caused by a remembrance of past ages. Under the pontificate of Innocent II. (1130), of Eugenius III. (1145-1150), and of Lucius III. (1181-1185) the senators, or municipal magistrates, used to sit and administer justice in S. Martina and S. Adriano, that is, in the classic Roman Curia. Many other details will be incidentally described in the following chapters. I close the present one by referring to a graceful custom, borrowed likewise from the classic world,—the use of roses in church or funeral ceremonies and in social life.
The ancients celebrated, in the month of May, a feast called rosaria, in which sepulchres were profusely decorated with the favorite flower of the season. Roses were also used on occasions of public rejoicing. A Greek inscription, discovered by Fränkel at Pergamon, mentions, among the honors shown to the emperor Hadrian, the Rhodismos, which is interpreted as a scattering of roses. Traces of the custom are found in more recent times. In the Illyrian peninsula, and on the banks of the Danube, the country people, still feeling the influence of Roman civilization, celebrated feasts of flowers in spring and summer, under the name of rousalia. In the sixth century, when the Slavs were vacillating between the influence of the past and the present, the celebration of the Pentecost was mixed up with that of the half-pagan, half-barbarous rousalia. Southern Russians believe in supernatural female beings, called Rusalky, who bring prosperity to the fields and forests, which they have inhabited as flowers.
The early Christians decorated the sepulchres of martyrs and confessors, on the anniversary of their interment, with roses, violets, amaranths, and evergreens; and they celebrated the rosationes on the name-days of churches and sanctuaries. Wreaths and crowns of roses are often engraved on tombstones, hanging from the bills of mystic doves. The symbol refers more to the joys of the just in the future life than to the fleeting pleasures of the earth. The Acts of Perpetua relate a legend on this subject; that Saturus had a vision in the dungeon in which he was awaiting his martyrdom, in which he saw himself transported with Perpetua to a heavenly garden, fragrant with roses, and turning to his fair companion, he exclaimed: "Here we are in possession of that which our Lord promised!"
Roses and other flowers are painted on the walls of historical cubiculi. In a fresco of the crypts of Lucina, in the Catacombs of Callixtus, are painted birds, symbolizing souls who have been separated from their bodies, and are playing in fields of roses around the Tree of Life. As the word Paradeisos signifies a garden, so its mystic representation always takes the form of a delightful field of flowers and fruit. Dante gives to the seat of the blessed the shape of a fair rose, inside of which a crowd of angels with golden wings descend and return to the Lord:—
"Nel gran fior discendeva, che s'adorna
Di tante foglie: e quindi risaliva,
Là dove lo suo amor sempre soggiorna."33
Possibly it is from this allegory of paradise that the rite of the "golden rose" which the Pope blesses on Quadragesima Sunday is derived. The ceremony is very ancient, although the first mention of it appears only in the life of Leo IX. (1049-1055); and I may mention, as a curious coincidence, that the kings and queens of Navarre, their sons, and the dukes and peers of the realm, were bound to offer roses to the Parliament at the return of spring.
Roses played such an important part in church ceremonies that we find a fundus rosarius given as a present by Constantine to Pope Mark. The rosaria outlived the suppression of pagan superstitions, and by and by assumed its Christian form in the feast of Pentecost, which falls in the month of May. In that day roses were thrown from the roofs of churches on the worshipers below. The Pentecost is still called by the Italians Pasqua rosa.
CHAPTER II.
PAGAN SHRINES AND TEMPLES
Ancient temples as galleries of art.—The adornment of statues with jewelry, etc.—Offerings and sacrifices by individuals.—Stores of ex-votos found in the favissæ or vaults of temples.—Instances of these brought to light within recent years.—Remarkable wealth of one at Veii.—The altars of ancient Rome.—The ara maxima Herculis.—The Roma Quadrata.—The altar of Aius Locutius.—That of Dis and Proserpina.—Its connection with the Sæcular Games.—The discovery of the inscription describing these, in 1890.—The ara pacis Augustæ.—The ara incendii Neroniani.—Temples excavated in my time.—That of Jupiter Capitolinus.—History of its ruins.—The Capitol as a place for posting official announcements.—The Temple of Isis and Serapis.—The number of sculptures discovered on its site.—The Temple of Neptune.—Its remains in the Piazza di Pietra.—The Temple of Augustus.—The Sacellum Sanci.
Ancient guide-books of Rome, published in the middle of the fourth century,34 mention four hundred and twenty-four temples, three hundred and four shrines, eighty statues of gods, of precious metal, sixty-four of ivory, and three thousand seven hundred and eighty-five miscellaneous bronze statues. The number of marble statues is not given. It has been said, however, that Rome had two populations of equal
See Gaetano Marini:
The place was called
"Sank into the great flower, that is adorned
With leaves so many, and thence reascended
To where its love abideth evermore."
On the almanacs (