Empire, one hundred and forty-four thousand pieces of gold, and one
hundred pieces of woven scarlet, as an inducement to make war upon the
Norman Duke, the Pope's friend. But the Romans feared Henry and sent
ambassadors to him, and on the twenty-first of March, being the Thursday
before Palm Sunday, the Lateran gate was opened for him to enter in
triumph. The city was divided against itself, the nobles were for
Hildebrand, the people were against him. The Emperor seized the Lateran
palace and all the bridges. The Pope fled to the Castle of Sant' Angelo,
an impregnable fortress in those times, ever ready and ever provisioned
for a siege. Of the nobles Henry required fifty hostages as earnest of
their neutrality. On the next day he threw his gold to the rabble and
they elected his Antipope Gilbert, who called himself Clement the Third,
and certain bishops from North Italy consecrated him in the Lateran on
Palm Sunday.
Meanwhile Hildebrand secretly sent swift riders to Apulia, calling on
Robert Guiscard for help, and still the nobles were faithful to him, and
though Henry held the bridges, they were strong in Trastevere and the
Borgo, which is the region between the Castle of Sant' Angelo and Saint
Peter's. So it turned out that when Henry tried to bring his Antipope in
solemn procession to enthrone him in the Pontifical chair, on Easter
day, he found mailed knights and footmen waiting for him, and had to
fight his way to the Vatican, and forty of his men were killed and
wounded in the fray, while the armed nobles lost not one. Yet he reached
the Vatican at last, and there he was crowned by the false Pope he had
made, with the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The chronicler apologizes
for calling him an emperor at all. Then he set to work to destroy the
dwellings of the faithful nobles, and laid siege to the wonderful
Septizonium of Severus, in which the true Pope's nephew had fortified
himself, and began to batter it down with catapults and battering-rams.
Presently came the message of vengeance, brought by one man outriding a
host, while the rabble were still building a great wall to encircle
Sant' Angelo and starve Hildebrand to death or submission, working day
and night like madmen, tearing down everything at hand to pile the great
stones one upon another. Swiftly came the terrible Norman from the
south, with his six thousand horse, Normans and Saracens, and thirty
thousand foot, forcing his march and hungry for the Emperor. But Henry
fled, making pretext of great affairs in Lombardy, promising great and
wonderful gifts to the Roman rabble, and entrusting to their care his
imperial city.
Like a destroying whirlwind of fire and steel Robert swept on to the
gates and into Rome, burning and slaying as he rode, and sparing neither
man, nor woman, nor child, till the red blood ran in rivers between
walls of yellow flame. And he took Hildebrand from Sant' Angelo, and
brought him back to the Lateran through the reeking ruins of the city in
grim and fearful triumph of carnage and destruction.
That was the end of the Roman Forum, and afterwards, when the
blood-soaked ashes and heaps of red-hot rubbish had sunk down and
hardened to a level surface, the place where the shepherd fathers of
Alba Longa had pastured their flocks was called the Campo Vaccino, the
Cattle Field, because it was turned into the market for beeves, and rows
of trees were planted, and on one side there was a walk where ropes were
made, even to our own time.
It became also the fighting ground of the Regions. Among the strangest
scenes in the story of the city are those regular encounters between the
Regions of Monti and Trastevere which for centuries took place on feast
days, by appointment, on the site of the Forum, or occasionally on the
wide ground before the Baths of Diocletian. They were battles fought
with stones, and far from bloodless. Monti was traditionally of the
Imperial or Ghibelline party; Trastevere was Guelph and for the Popes.
The enmity was natural and lasting, on a small scale, as it was
throughout Italy. The challenge to the fray was regularly sent out by
young boys as messengers, and the place and hour were named and the word
passed in secret from mouth to mouth. It was even determined by
agreement whether the stones were to be thrown by hand or whether the
more deadly sling was to be used.
At the appointed time, the combatants appear in the arena, sometimes as
many as a hundred on a side, and the tournament begins, as in Homeric
times, with taunts and abuse, which presently end in skirmishes between
the boys who have come to look on. Scouts are placed at distant points
to cry 'Fire' at the approach of the dreaded Bargello and his men, who
are the only representatives of order in the city and not, indeed,
anxious to face two hundred infuriated slingers for the sake of making
peace.
One boy throws a stone and runs away, followed by the rest, all
prudently retiring to a safe distance. The real combatants wrap their
long cloaks about their left arms, as the old Romans used their togas on
the same ground, to shield their heads from the blows; a sling whirls
half a dozen times like lightning, and a smooth round stone flies like a
bullet straight at an enemy's face, followed by a hundred more in a
deadly hail, thick and fast. Men fall, blood flows, short deep curses
ring through the sunny air, the fighters creep up to one another,
dodging behind trees and broken ruins, till they are at cruelly short
range; faster and faster fly the stones, and scores are lying prostrate,
bleeding, groaning and cursing. Strength, courage, fierce endurance and
luck have it at last, as in every battle. Down goes the leader of
Trastevere, half dead, with an eye gone, down goes the next man to him,
his teeth broken under his torn lips, down half a dozen more, dead or
wounded, and the day is lost. Trastevere flies towards the bridge,
pursued by Monti with hoots and yells and catcalls, and the thousands
who have seen the fight go howling after them, women and children
screaming, dogs racing and barking and biting at their heels. And far
behind on the deserted Campo Vaccino, as the sun goes down, women weep
and frightened children sob beside the young dead. But the next feast
day would come, and a counter-victory and vengeance.
That has always been the temper of the Romans; but few know how
fiercely it used to show itself in those days. It would have been
natural enough that men should meet in sudden anger and kill each other
with such weapons as they chanced to have or could pick up, clubs,
knives, stones, anything, when fighting was half the life of every grown
man. It is harder to understand the murderous stone throwing by
agreement and appointment. In principle, indeed, it approached the
tournament, and the combat of champions representing two parties is an
expression of the ancient instinct of the Latin peoples; so the Horatii
and Curiatii fought for Rome and Alba--so Francis the First of France
offered to fight the Emperor Charles the Fifth for settlement of all
quarrels between the Kingdom and the Empire--and so the modern Frenchman
and Italian are accustomed to settle their differences by an appeal to
what they still call 'arms,' for the sake of what modern society is
pleased to dignify by the name of 'honour.'
But in the stone-throwing combats of Campo Vaccino there was something
else. The games of the circus and the bloody shows of the amphitheatre
were not forgotten. As will be seen hereafter, bull-fighting was a
favourite sport in Rome as it is in Spain today, and the hand-to-hand
fights between champions of the Regions were as much more exciting and
delightful to the crowd as the blood of men is of more price than the
blood of beasts.
The habit of fighting for its own sake, with dangerous weapons, made the
Roman rabble terrible when the fray turned quite to earnest; the deadly
hail of stones, well aimed by sling and hand, was familiar to every
Roman from his childhood, and the sight of naked steel at arm's length
inspired no sudden, keen and unaccustomed terror, when men had little
but life to lose and set small value on that, throwing it into the
balance for a word, rising in arms for a name, doing deeds of blood and
flame for a handful of gold or a day of power.
Monti was both the battlefield of the Regions and also, in times early
and late, the scene of the most splendid pageants of Church and State.
There is a strange passage in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, a
pagan Roman of Greek birth, contemporary with Pope Damasus in the latter
part of the fourth century. Muratori quotes it, as showing what the
Bishopric of Rome meant even in those days. It is worth reading, for a
heathen's view of things under Valens and Valentinian, before the coming
of the Huns and the breaking up of the Roman Empire, and, indeed, before
the official disestablishment, as we should say, of the heathen
religion; while the High Priest of Jupiter still offered sacrifices on
the Capitol, and the six Vestal Virgins still guarded the Seven Holy
Things of Rome, and held their vast lands and dwelt in their splendid
palace in all freedom of high privilege, as of old.
'For my part,' says Ammianus, 'when I see the magnificence in which the
Bishops live in Rome, I am not surprised that those who covet the
dignity should use force and cunning to obtain it. For if they succeed,
they are sure of becoming enormously rich by the gifts of the devout
Roman matrons; they will drive about Rome in their carriages, as they
please, gorgeously dressed, and they will not only keep an abundant
table, but will give banquets so sumptuous as to outdo those of kings
and emperors. They do not see that they could be truly happy if instead
of making the greatness of Rome an excuse for their excesses, they would
live as some of the Bishops of the Provinces do, who are sparing and
frugal, poorly clad and modest, but who make the humility of their
manners and the purity of their lives at once acceptable to their God
and to their fellow worshippers.'
So much Ammianus says. And Saint Jerome tells how Praetextatus, Prefect
of the City, when Pope Damasus tried to convert him, answered with a
laugh, 'I will become a Christian if you will make me Bishop of Rome.'
Yet Damasus, famous for the good Latin and beautiful carving of the many
inscriptions he composed and set up, was undeniably also a good man in
the evil days which foreshadowed the great schism.
[Illustration: SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE]
And here, in the year 366, in the Region of Monti, in the church where
now stands Santa Maria Maggiore, a great and terrible name stands out
for the first time in history. Orsino, Deacon of the Holy Roman Catholic
and Apostolic Church, rouses a party of the people, declares the
election of Damasus invalid, proclaims himself Pope in his stead, and
officiates as Pontiff in the Basilica of Sicininus. Up from the deep
city comes the roaring crowd, furious and hungry for fight; the great
doors are closed and Orsino's followers gather round him as he stands on
the steps of the altar; but they are few, and those for Damasus are
many; down go the doors, burst inward with battering-rams, up shoot the
flames to the roof, and the short, wild fray lasts while one may count
five score, and is over. Orsino and a hundred and thirty-six of his men
lie dead on the pavement, the fire licks the rafters, the crowd press
outward, and the great roof falls crashing down into wide pools of
blood. And after that Damasus reigns eighteen years in peace and
splendour. No one knows whether the daring Deacon was of the race that
made and unmade popes afterwards, and held half Italy with its
fortresses, giving its daughters to kings and taking kings' daughters
for its sons, till Vittoria Accoramboni of bad memory began to bring
down a name that is yet great. But Orsino he was called, and he had in
him much of the lawless strength of those namesakes of his who outfought
all other barons but the Colonna, for centuries; and romance may well
make him one of them.
Three hundred years later, and a little nearer to us in the dim
perspective of the dark ages, another scene is enacted in the same
cathedral. Martin the First was afterwards canonized as Saint Martin for
the persecutions he suffered at the hands of Constans, who feared and
hated him and set up an antipope in his stead, and at last sent him
prisoner to die a miserable death in the Crimea. Olympius, Exarch of
Italy, was the chosen tool of the Emperor, sent again and again to Rome
to destroy the brave Bishop and make way for the impostor. At last, says
the greatest of Italian chroniclers, fearing the Roman people and their
soldiers, he attempted to murder the Pope foully, in hideous sacrilege.
To that end he pretended penitence, and begged to be allowed to receive
the Eucharist from the Pope himself at solemn high Mass, secretly
instructing one of his body-guards to stab the Bishop at the very moment
when he should present Olympius with the consecrated bread.
Up to the basilica they went, in grave and splendid procession. One may
guess the picture, with its deep colour, with the strong faces of those
men, the Eastern guards, the gorgeous robes, the gilded arms, the high
sunlight crossing the low nave and falling through the yellow clouds of
incense upon the venerable bearded head of the holy man whose death was
purposed in the sacred office. First, the measured tread of the Exarch's
band moving in order; then, the silence over all the kneeling throng,
and upon it the bursting unison of the 'Gloria in Excelsis' from the
choir. Chant upon chant as the Pontiff and his Ministers intone the
Epistle and the Gospel and are taken up by the singers in chorus at the
first words of the Creed. By and by, the Pope's voice alone, still clear
and brave in the Preface. 'Therefore with Angels and Archangels, and all
the company of Heaven,' he chants, and again the harmony of many voices
singing 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.' Silence then, at the
Consecration, and the dark-browed Exarch bowing to the pavement, beside
the paid murderer whose hand is already on his dagger's hilt. 'O Lamb of
God, that takest away the sins of the world,' sings the choir in its
sad, high chant, and Saint Martin bows, standing, over the altar,
himself communicating, while the Exarch holds his breath, and the slayer
fixes his small, keen eyes on the embroidered vestments and guesses how
they will look with a red splash upon them.
As the soldier looks, the sunlight falls more brightly on the gold, the
incense curls in mystic spiral wreaths, its strong perfume penetrates
and dims his senses; little by little, his thoughts wander till they are
strangely fixed on something far away, and he no longer sees Pope nor
altar nor altar-piece beyond, and is wrapped in a sort of waking sleep
that is blindness. Olympius kneels at the steps within the rail, and his
heart beats loud as the grand figure of the Bishop bends over him, and
the thin old hand with its strong blue veins offers the sacred bread to
his open lips. He trembles, and tries to glance sideways to his left
with downcast eyes, for the moment has come, and the blow must be struck
then or never. Not a breath, not a movement in the church, not the
faintest clink of all those gilded arms, as the Saint pronounces the few
solemn words, then gravely and slowly turns, with his deacons to right
and left of him, and ascends the altar steps once more, unhurt. A
miracle, says the chronicler. A miracle, says the amazed soldier, and
repeats it upon solemn oath. A miracle, says Olympius himself, penitent
and converted from error, and ready to save the Pope by all means he
has, as he was ready to slay him before. But he only, and the hired
assassin beside him, had known what was to be, and the people say that
the Exarch and the Pope were already reconciled and agreed against the
Emperor.
The vast church has had many names. It seems at one time to have been
known as the Basilica of Sicininus, for so Ammianus Marcellinus still
speaks of it. But just before that, there is the lovely legend of Pope
Liberius' dream. To him and to the Roman patrician, John, came the
Blessed Virgin in a dream, one night in high summer, commanding them to
build her a church wheresoever they should find snow on the morrow. And
together they found it, glistening in the morning sun, and they traced,
on the white, the plan of the foundation, and together built the first
church, calling it 'Our Lady of Snows,' for Damasus to burn when Orsino
seized it,--but the people spoke of it as the Basilica of Liberius. It
was called also 'Our Lady of the Manger,' from the relic held holy
there; and Sixtus the Third named it 'Our Lady, Mother of God'; and
under many popes it was rebuilt and grew, until at last, for its size,
it was called, as it is today, 'The Greater Saint Mary's.' At one time,
the popes lived near it, and in our own century, when the palace had
long been transferred to the Quirinal, a mile to northward of the
basilica, Papal Bulls were dated 'From Santa Maria Maggiore.'
It is too gorgeous now, too overladen, too rich; and yet it is imposing.
The first gold brought from South America gilds the profusely decorated
roof, the dark red polished porphyry pillars of the high altar gleam in
the warm haze of light, the endless marble columns rise in shining
ranks, all is gold, marble and colour.
Many dead lie there, great men and good; and one over whom a sort of
mystery hangs, for he was Bartolommeo Sacchi, Cardinal Platina,
historian of the Church, a chief member of the famous Roman Academy of
the fifteenth century, and a mediaeval pagan, accused with Pomponius
Letus and others of worshipping false gods; tried, acquitted for lack of
evidence; dead in the odour of sanctity; proved at last ten times a
heathen, and a bad one, today, by inscriptions found in the remotest
part of the Catacombs, where he and his companions met in darkest secret
to perform their extravagant rites. He lies beneath the chapel of Sixtus
the Fifth, but the stone that marked the spot is gone.
Strange survivals of ideas and customs cling to some places like ghosts,
and will not be driven away. The Esquiline was long ago the haunt of
witches, who chanted their nightly incantations over the shallow graves
where slaves were buried, and under the hideous crosses whereon dead
malefactors had groaned away their last hours of life. Maecenas cleared
the land and beautified it with gardens, but still the witches came by
stealth to their old haunts. The popes built churches and palaces on it,
but the dark memories never vanished in the light; and even in our own
days, on Saint John's Eve, which is the witches' night of the Latin
race, as the Eve of May-day is the Walpurgis of the Northmen, the people
went out in thousands, with torches and lights, and laughing tricks of
exorcism, to scare away the powers of evil for the year.
On that night the vast open spaces around the Lateran were thronged with
men and women and children; against the witches' dreaded influence they
carried each an onion, torn up by the roots with stalk and flower; all
about, on the outskirts of the place, were kitchen booths, set up with
boughs and bits of awnings, yellow with the glare of earthen and iron
oil lamps, where snails--great counter-charms against spells--were fried
and baked in oil, and sold with bread and wine, and eaten with more or
less appetite, according to the strength of men's stomachs. All night,
till the early summer dawn, the people came and went, and wandered round
and round, and in and out, in parties and by families, to go laughing
homeward at last, scarce knowing why they had gone there at all, unless
it were because their fathers and mothers had done as they did for
generations unnumbered.
[Illustration: BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN]
And the Lateran once had another half-heathen festival, on the Saturday
after Easter, in memory of the ancient Floralia of the Romans, which had
formerly been celebrated on the 28th of April. It was a most strange
festival, now long forgotten, in which Christianity and paganism were
blended together. Baracconi, from whom the following account is taken,
quotes three sober writers as authority for his description. Yet there
is a doubt about the very name of the feast, which is variously called
the 'Coromania' and the 'Cornomania.'
On the afternoon of the Saturday in Easter week, say these writers, the
priests of the eighteen principal 'deaconries'--an ecclesiastical
division of the city long ago abolished and now somewhat obscure--caused
the bells to be rung, and the people assembled at their parish churches,
where they were received by a 'mansionarius,'--probably meaning here 'a
visitor of houses,'--and a layman, who was arrayed in a tunic, and
crowned with the flowers of the cornel cherry. In his hand he carried a
concave musical instrument of copper, by which hung many little bells.
One of these mysterious personages, who evidently represented the pagan
element in the ceremony, preceded each parish procession, being followed
immediately by the parish priest, wearing the cope. From all parts of
the city they went up to the Lateran, and waited before the palace of
the Pope till all were assembled.
The Pope descended the steps to receive the homage of the people.
Immediately, those of each parish formed themselves into wide circles
round their respective 'visitors' and priests, and the strange rite
began. In the midst the priest stood still. Round and round him the lay
'visitor' moved in a solemn dance, striking his copper bells
rhythmically to his steps, while all the circle followed his gyrations,
chanting a barbarous invocation, half Latin and half Greek: 'Hail,
divinity of this spot! Receive our prayers in fortunate hour!' and many
verses more to the same purpose, and quite beyond being construed
grammatically.
The dance is over with the song. One of the parish priests mounts upon
an ass, backwards, facing the beast's tail, and a papal chamberlain
leads the animal, holding over its head a basin containing twenty pieces
of copper money. When they have passed three rows of benches--which
benches, by the bye?--the priest leans back, puts his hand behind him
into the basin, and pockets the coins.
Then all the priests lay garlands at the feet of the Pope. But the
priest of Santa Maria in Via Lata also lets a live fox out of a bag, and
the little creature suddenly let loose flies for its life, through the
parting crowd, out to the open country, seeking cover. It is like the
Hebrew scapegoat. In return each priest receives a golden coin from the
Pontiff's hand. The rite being finished, all return to their respective
parishes, the dancing 'visitor' still leading the procession. Each
priest is accompanied then by acolytes who bear holy water, branches of
laurel, and baskets of little rolls, or of those big, sweet wafers,
rolled into a cylinder and baked, which are called 'cialdoni,' and are
eaten to this day by Romans with ice cream. From house to house they go;
the priest blesses each dwelling, sprinkling water about with the
laurel, and then burning the branch on the hearth and giving some of the
rolls to the children. And all the time the dancer slowly dances and
chants the strange words made up of some Hebrew, a little Chaldean and a
leavening of nonsense.
Jaritan, jaritan, iarariasti
Raphaym, akrhoin, azariasti!
One may leave the interpretation of the jargon to curious scholars. As
for the rite itself, were it not attested by trustworthy writers, one
would be inclined to treat it as a mere invention, no more to be
believed than the legend of Pope Joan, who was supposed to have been
stoned to death near San Clemente, on the way to the Lateran.
An extraordinary number of traditions cling to the Region of Monti, and
considering that in later times a great part of this quarter was a
wilderness, the fact would seem strange. As for the 'Coromania' it seems
to have disappeared after the devastation of Monti by Robert Guiscard in
1084, and the general destruction of the city from the Lateran to the
Capitol is attributed to the Saracens who were with him. But a more
logical cause of depopulation is found in the disappearance of water
from the upper Region by the breaking of the aqueducts, from which alone
it was derived. The consequence of this, in the Middle Age, was that the
only obtainable water came from the river, and was naturally taken from
it up-stream, towards the Piazza del Popolo, in the neighbourhood of
which it was collected in tanks and kept until the mud sank to the
bottom and it was approximately fit to drink.