ROME—ANCIENT AND MODERN.
The Mother of Empires—Weeps and Will not be Comforted—Nero’s Golden
Palace—Ruined Greatness—Time, the Tomb-Builder—Papal Rome—The
Last Siege—Self-Congratulations—Better Out-Look—The Seven-Hilled
City—Vanity of Vanities—The Pantheon—Nature Slew Him—The Shrine of
All Saints.
CAESER and Cicero, Horace and Hadrian Claudius and Cataline, have all
passed away, but “the mother of empires” is still enthroned upon her
seven hill. “Still enthroned?” Yes, but her regal brow is no longer
crowned with glory. From her right hand has fallen that golden scepter
which once ruled the world, and from her left, the palm branch of
victory which she once proudly waved on high. The luster has faded from
her eyes. She sits to-day upon her seven hills, not as a queen, but as
a mourner. She is as a widow in her weeds, as a mother broken-hearted
and sad. Like Rachel of old she weeps for her children, she weeps and
will not be comforted, for they are not.
No, “they are not.” In vain the traveler searches for Julius Caesar and
Augustus. He finds where the one fell at the base of Pompey’s statue,
and where the ashes of the other were laid to rest in that splendid
mausoleum. Nothing more. Only enough of that precious metal was
rescued from “Nero’s golden palace” to gild one page of history; that
is all.
Modern Rome, compared with the imperial city, is nothing but a confused
mass of “ruined greatness” thrown into the deep, dark chasm lying
between the past and the present. “If we consider the present city
as at all connected with the famous one of old,” says Hawthorne, “it
is only because it is built over its grave.” Imperial Rome was a
corpse that no survivor was mighty enough to bury. But Time—“Time the
tomb-builder”—did not despair. Age after age passed by, each shaking
the dust of his feet upon the ruined city, until now the “Rome of
ancient days” is thirty feet below surface. Time silently boasts of
his triumphs, but the day is coming when even Time himself will be
swallowed up by eternity!
Gibbon can tell you more about ancient Rome than I can. I shall
therefore deal with the past only in so far as “the very dust of Rome
is historic,” and that dust inevitably settles down upon my page and
mixes with my ink.
Until seventeen years ago Rome was an independent city; it belonged to
no government and formed a part of no country; it was “Papal Rome.” In
other words, it wholly belonged to, and was entirely controlled by, the
Pope of Rome—the spiritual head—I had almost said the “spiritless
head”—of the Catholic church. Thirty thousand French soldiers were
stationed in Rome to protect the Pope and defend the city. When, in
1870, the Franco-German war broke out Napoleon the Third was compelled
to recall his troops from Rome, that they might join the army against
Germany. As soon as the French withdrew, Victor Emmanuel, King of
Italy, marched an army against the Papal city, saying, “Again, I swear
the Eternal City shall be free!”
[Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM, ROME.]
Resistance was of short duration. The national flag was soon unfurled
from the dome of the Pantheon and from that day Rome has been the home
of the king, the capital of United Italy. The Rome of that period
(1870) was described as a city of “sunless alleys,” and “a thousand
evil smells mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, diffused from as
many censers; everywhere a cross, and nastiness at the foot of it.”
“The city is filled,” the writer continues, “with a gloom and languor
that depress it beyond any depth of melancholic sentiment that can
elsewhere be known.” One-seventh of the city was occupied by convents
and monasteries. Rome at that time had a population of 216,000 souls,
more than half of whom could neither read nor write! This, then, is
Catholicism—ignorance clothed in rags, living in poverty, walking in
filth, praying to saints and bowing to an ambitious Pope! If this be
religion, the less I have of it the more I congratulate myself. For
centuries the city belonged to the church, and it is natural to suppose
that Popery created for itself an atmosphere that was most congenial
to its own spirit. Ignorance is the handmaid of Popery. Indeed, a man
to be a good Catholic must be ignorant. He may, perchance, be legally
learned, he may be thoroughly versed in the laws of logic and language;
but to be a devout Romanist he must at least be ignorant of the Bible.
As civilization advances, as the light of God’s truth becomes more
widely diffused and the warmth of His Spirit more generally felt,
darkness will flee away, truth will be revealed in its purity, and
Christ, Christ the Lord, will be elevated to the position which the
Papal world of to-day assigns to Peter.
Great changes have been wrought in Rome within the last seventeen
years. A number of the streets have been broadened and straightened and
others are being worked on. Most of them now, though still narrow, are
well paved and clean. The population has increased to 350,000, sixty
schools have been established with 550 teachers and 25,000 pupils. Most
of the improvements and inventions of the age have been introduced into
the city, a healthy trade with the outside world has been established,
and last, and greatest, the gospel of Christ has again been brought to
these people. The populace welcome these changes.
Victor Emmanuel, who died ten years ago, is called the father of his
country; and his son, the present king, is the idol of Italy. The Pope
and the king are at enmity. Each is jealous of the other. The king is
fast gaining favor. Papacy must go.
Now, turning from the moral, I must tell you something about the
physical appearance of the city at present. Of course every one knows
that Rome is situated on seven hills, that it is divided into two parts
by the river Tiber and that it is surrounded by a massive wall thirty
feet high and sixteen miles long.
Let us now go into the midst of the city and take our stand on the
Capitoline Hill. From there we can easily “view the landscape o’er.”
Beneath us, as we stand on this elevation, the city spreads wide away
in all directions. We look out over a sea of red-tile roofs, above
which rise hundreds of imposing palaces, of tall and stately mansions.
Of church spires and cathedral towers there is no end. Yonder to the
south is the Mausoleum of Augustus, a huge circular building with a
low, flat dome of glass. After death the emperor was burnt. His ashes,
which were here laid to rest, have long since been scattered to the
four winds of heaven and the mausoleum is now used as a theatre. There,
too, in the same direction, but beyond the Tiber, is the tomb of
Hadrian, looking like an old castle perched high upon an uplifted rock.
The unscrupulous Italians of the present have no respect for the dead
of ancient days. Their desecrating hands have turned this tomb into a
military stronghold—a citadel. What is fame? Once upon a time Augustus
ruled the world. To-day the populace assemble in his mausoleum; there
they wildly clap their hands, and, stretching their mouths from ear to
ear, they shout aloud and grin like apes as they see the vile actor
dancing over Caesar’s ashes. Hadrian, once adored as a God, is no
longer respected. The half-paid soldiers of to-day have entered his
very tomb; there they fight, drink and curse and play cards. If they
could find it they would use his skull as a soup-dish or a billiard
ball, and his thigh bones they would use for drum-sticks or as mallets
to crack nuts! “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”
Turning our eyes in a northwest direction, we see the Antonine column
rising majestically above the red roofs. In close proximity to this
column, we see the circular dome of that world-renowned Pantheon
“looking heavenward with its ever open eye.” We leave the Capitoline
Hill for a few minutes while we go to visit the Pantheon. It commands
our respect. It was built almost a half century before the angel host
visited the shepherds upon the plains of Bethlehem, and yet it is as
perfect to-day as though it had been finished yesterday. It looks as if
it might stand until Gabriel comes. It is the noblest structure that
the old Romans bequeathed to posterity. Its massive walls and solid,
which are twenty feet thick, rise to an immense height, and yet the
dome, broad as it is high, towers 140 feet above the walls.
The portico (110 feet wide and 45 feet deep) is borne by sixteen
Corinthian columns of granite, thirteen feet in circumference and forty
feet high.
The spacious interior, lighted by a single aperture in the centre of
the dome, produces in the beholder a most pleasing sensation. Indeed,
it is by some supposed that the beautiful effect produced upon the
interior by the light streaming in through this one opening, is what
first suggested the name of Pantheon—a resemblance to the blue vault
of heaven. But of course the current belief is that the purpose for
which the building was used determined its name—_Pantheon_ (Pan, all,
and Theos, god)—a temple dedicated to all gods. The smooth surface
of the walls is broken by seven niches, in which stood marble statues
of Roman divinities, among which may be mentioned Mars and Venus. And
after his assassination, Caesar himself was elevated to the dignity
of a god. His statue graced one of the niches, and was, no doubt,
worshiped by the same fickle multitude who rejoiced when the dagger
drank his blood.
This splendid edifice, built by the ancients, and dedicated two
thousand years ago to the worship of heathen gods, is now used as a
Christian Church. To the left of the door as we enter is the tomb of
Raphael, the greatest of all painters. In accordance with his will, a
marble statue of Madonna has been placed above his splendid tomb. The
following beautiful inscription shows the high esteem Italians have for
this divinely gifted artist:
“Beneath this stone rest the ashes of Raphael,
the greatest of all painters.
Nature, becoming jealous of him
lest he should surpass her,
Slew him while he was yet young.”
Victor Emmanuel, and many other men of renown, are also buried within
these time-honored walls. Of the Pantheon Lord Byron says:
“Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime—
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,
From Jove to Jesus—spared and blest by time;
Looking tranquillity while falls and nods
Arch empire each thing round thee and man plods
His way through thorns to ashes—glorious dome!
Shalt thou not last? Time’s scythe and tyrants’ rods
Shiver upon thee—sanctuary and home
Of art and piety—Pantheon!—pride of Rome!
Relic of nobler days and noblest arts!
Despoiled, yet perfect, with thy circle spreads
A holiness appealing to all hearts—To
art a model; and to him who treads
Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds
Her light through thy sole aperture; to those
Who worship, here are altars for their beads;
And they who feel for genius may repose
Their eyes on honored forms, whose busts around the close.”