Pagan and Christian Rome | Page 3

the transformation of Rome.--The significance of the inscription on the
Arch of Constantine.--The readiness of the early Church to adopt pagan
customs and even myths.--The curious mixture of pagan and Christian
conceptions which grew out of this.--Churches became repositories for
classical works of art, for which new interpretations were
invented.--The desire of the early Christians to make their churches as
beautiful as possible.--The substitution of Christian shrines for the old
pagan altars at street corners.--Examples of both.--The bathing
accommodations of the pagan temples adopted by the Church.--Also
the custom of providing public standards of weights and
measures.--These set up in the basilicas.--How their significance
became perverted in the Dark Ages.--The adoption of funerary
banquets and their degeneration.--The public store-houses of the
emperors and those of the popes.--Pagan rose-festivals and their
conversion into a Christian institution.
It has been contended, and many still believe, that in ancient Rome the
doctrines of Christ found no proselytes, except among the lower and
poorer classes of citizens. That is certainly a noble picture which
represents the new faith as searching among the haunts of poverty and
slavery, seeking to inspire faith, hope, and charity in their occupants; to
transform them from things into human beings; to make them believe
in the happiness of a future life; to alleviate their present sufferings; to
redeem their children from shame and servitude; to proclaim them
equal to their masters. But the gospel found its way also to the
mansions of the masters, nay, even to the palace of the Cæsars. The
discoveries lately made on this subject are startling, and constitute a
new chapter in the history of imperial Rome. We have been used to
consider early Christian history and primitive Christian art as matters of
secondary importance, and hardly worthy the attention of the classical
student. Thus, none of the four or five hundred volumes on the
topography of ancient Rome speaks of the basilicas raised by

Constantine; of the church of S. Maria Antiqua, built side by side with
the Temple of Vesta, the two worships dwelling together as it were, for
nearly a century; of the Christian burial-grounds; of the imperial
mausoleum near S. Peter's; of the porticoes, several miles in length,
which led from the centre of the city to the churches of S. Peter, S. Paul,
and S. Lorenzo; of the palace of the Cæsars transformed into the
residence of the Popes. Why should these constructions of monumental
and historical character be expelled from the list of classical buildings?
and why should we overlook the fact that many great names in the
annals of the empire are those of members of the Church, especially
when the knowledge of their conversion enables us to explain events
that had been, up to the latest discoveries, shrouded in mystery?
It is a remarkable fact that the record of some of these events should be
found, not in church annals, calendars, or itineraries, but in passages in
the writings of pagan annalists and historians. Thus, in ecclesiastical
documents no mention is made of the conversion of the two Domitillæ,
or Flavius Clemens, or Petronilla, all of whom were relatives of the
Flavian emperors; and of the Acilii Glabriones, the noblest among the
noble, as Herodianus calls them (2, 3). Their fortunes and death are
described only by the Roman historians and biographers of the time of
Domitian. It seems that when the official feriale, or calendar, was
resumed, after the end of the persecutions, preference was given to
names of those confessors and martyrs whose deeds were still fresh in
the memory of the living, and of necessity little attention was paid to
those of the first and second centuries, whose acts either had not been
written down, or had been lost during the persecutions.
As the crypt of the Acilii Glabriones on the Via Salaria has become one
of the chief places of attraction, since its re-discovery in 1888, I cannot
begin this volume under better auspices than by giving an account of
this important event.[2]
In exploring that portion of the Catacombs of Priscilla which lies under
the Monte delle Gioie, near the entrance from the Via Salaria, de Rossi
observed that the labyrinth of the galleries converged towards an
original crypt, shaped like a Greek [Greek: G] (Gamma), and decorated

with frescoes. The desire of finding the name and the history of the first
occupants of this noble tomb, whose memory seems to have been so
dear to the faithful, led the explorers to carefully sift the earth which
filled the place; and their pains were rewarded by the discovery of a
fragment of a marble coffin, inscribed with the letters: ACILIO
GLABRIONI FILIO.
[Illustration: Tablet of Acilius Glabrio.]
Did this fragment really belong to the [Greek: G] crypt, or had it been
thrown there