Pagan and Christian Rome | Page 9

was an exceedingly mild one, the transformation almost imperceptible. No violence was resorted to, and the tolerance and mutual benevolence so characteristic of the Italian race was adopted as the fundamental policy of State and Church.
The transformation may be followed stage by stage in both its moral and material aspect. There is not a ruin of ancient Rome that does not bear evidence of the great change. Many institutions and customs still flourishing in our days are of classical origin, and were adopted, or tolerated, because they were not in opposition to Christian principles. Beginning with the material side of the question, the first monument to which I have to refer is the Arch of Constantine, raised in 315 at the foot of the Palatine, where the Via Triumphalis diverges from the Sacra Via.
The importance of this arch, from the point of view of the question treated in this chapter, rests not on its sculptured panels and medallions,--spoils taken at random from older structures, from which the arch has received the nickname of ?sop's crow (la cornacchia di Esopo),--but on the inscription engraved on each side of the attic. "The S. P. Q. R. have dedicated this triumphal arch to Constantine, because instinctu divinitatis (by the will of God), and by his own virtue, etc., he has liberated the country from the tyrant [Maxentius] and his faction." The opinion long prevailed among arch?ologists that the words instinctu divinitatis were not original, but added after Constantine's conversion. Cardinal Mai thought that the original formula was diis faventibus, "by the help of the gods," while Henzen suggested nutu Iovis optimi maximi, "by the will of Jupiter." Cavedoni was the first to declare that the inscription had never been altered, and that the two memorable words--the first proclaiming officially the name of the true God in the face of imperial Rome--belonged to the original text, sanctioned by the Senate. The controversy was settled in 1863, when Napoleon III. obtained from the Pope the permission to make a plaster cast of the arch. With the help of the scaffolding, the scholars of the time examined the inscription, the shape of each letter, the holes of the bolts by which the gilt-bronze letters were fastened, the joints of the marble blocks, the color and quality of the marble, and decided unanimously that the inscription had never been tampered with, and that none of its letters had been changed.
[Illustration: ARCH OF CONSTANTINE]
The arch was raised in 315. Was Constantine openly professing his faith at that time? Opinions are divided. Some think he must have waited until the defeat of Licinius in 323; others suggest the year 311 as a more probable date of his profession. The supporters of the first theory quote in its favor the fact that the pagan symbols and images of gods appear on coins struck by Constantine and his sons; but this fact is easily explained, when we consider that the coinage of bronze was a privilege of the Senate, and that the Senate was pagan by a large majority. Many of Constantine's constitutions and official letters speak in favor of an early declaration of faith. When the Donatists appealed to him from the verdict of the councils of Arles and Rome, he wrote to the bishops: Meum judicium postulant, qui ipse judicium Christi expecto: "They appeal to me, when I myself must be judged by Christ." The verdict of the council of Rome against the sectarians was rendered on October 2, 313, in the "palace of Fausta in the Lateran;" the imperial palace of the Lateran, therefore, had already been handed over to the bishop of Rome, and a portion of it turned into a place of worship. The basilica of the Lateran still retains its title of "Mother and head of all churches of Rome, and of the world," ranking above those of S. Peter and S. Paul in respect to age.
Such being the state of affairs when the triumphal arch was erected, nothing prevents us from believing those two words to be original, and to express the relations then existing between the first Christian emperor and the old pagan Senate. At all events, nothing is more uncompromising than these two words, because the titles of Deus summus, Deus altissimus, magnus, ?ternus, are constantly found on monuments pertaining to the worship of Atys and Mithras. "These words," concludes de Rossi, "far from being a profession of Christianity engraved on the arch at a later period, are simply a 'moyen terme,' a compromise, between the feelings of the Senate and those of the emperor."[15]
Many facts related by contemporary documents prove that the change of religion was, at the beginning, a personal affair with the emperor, and not a question of state; the emperor was a Christian, but the old rules of