In the time of the Emperors, after a long period ofpeace and prosperity, the population of Rome hadreached the impressive figure of one million people. Atiny minority of these lived in tranquil, spacious villas,while the most of the common people had to put upwith living in apartment blocks known as insulae or"islands". These were several stories high, built withlow-quality materials, and crowded together, so that amap of the city consisted of a dense tangle of streetsand alleyways.

Rome in those days benefited from considerableadvances such as drainage, thermal baths, andaqueducts. But to get an idea of the conditions inwhich people lived, it has to be borne in mind that theapartments were extremely small, very often consistingof one room per family; there was no hot water, nocentral heating, and no glass in the windows; and thenarrowness of the streets, among other things, veryoften meant that when fires broke out, whole districtswere burned down.

The Romans mitigated the discomforts of theirhomes by spending as little time in them as they could.They would get up very early to make full use of thedaylight. When dawn was breaking they would alreadybe out and about, on their way to work. For many of

Places in Rome

1

The RomanThe RomanForumForum

2

them, this meant going to the forums, which were thenerve-centers of the city's life.

Imperial splendor

The magnificence of the public buildings offered astriking contrast with the modest dwellings of thecrowded residential blocks. They reflected theimmense power of the Roman Empire, and were like asummary of the whole of Rome's history.

PLACES IN ROME

3

At the beginning, in the sixth century B.C., theRoman Forum was simply a market-place, butreligious buildings soon began to be built there. One ofthe first was the Temple of Vesta, where the sacred firewas kept burning perpetually in honor of the goddessof the hearth. Beside it was the Regia, the royal palacewhich, according to legend, had been built for Numa,the second king of Rome. When the monarchy fell, theRegia was used to house the archive of the Calendarsand the Annals, which recorded the history of the Cityof Rome.

The coming of the Republic saw an increase inpolit ical activity, and the Forum fi l led up withgovernment and administrative buildings. The Curia,where the Senate held its deliberations, is still in goodcondition today. Very little, however, remains of theComitium, the circular space where the assembliesmet to elect the magistrates. Likewise, little is to beseen of the platform called the Rostra, or ships' prows,from which orators addressed the people. All thecrucial episodes in the history of the Roman Republicoriginated in this part of the Forum: the speeches ofthe Gracchi to improve the lot of the common people;the polemics between Marius and Sulla; Cicero'sdenunciations of Catiline; the debate in the Senateabout ordering Julius Caesar to abandon his militarycommand - an order that he disobeyed, crossing theRubicon instead and taking the City; and the grantingof the title Augustus to Octavius in 29A.D., which isreckoned as the beginning of the imperial era.

This new change of government was followed byextension and improvements to the forums, whichbecame more and more spectacular. Together with theancient Roman Forum, the Imperial Forums were builtby Julius Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, Nerva andVespasian. These great public spaces were imposing

4

to see: the broad roads were paved with travertinemarble, as were the squares, which were usuallydominated by enormous statues; on the buildings, theglimmer of bronze alternated with the gray, white andochre tones of marble. In religious and civic buildingsalike, every detail was carefully designed to stand thetest of time, and to impress the beholder.

Most imposing of the civic buildings were themajestic basilicas, used for legal trials and commercialtransactions. The vast spaces inside these buildingswere divided into long naves and aisles by lines of

A reconstruction of the Roman Forum. In the center, almost at groundlevel, the Rostra, from which orators addressed the populace.

www.josemariaescriva.info

PLACES IN ROME

5

pillars. In the colonnades along the exterior of thebasilicas were rows of booths selling every kind ofware. The remains of the Basilica of Maxentius andConstantine give an idea of the enormous dimensionsattained by some of these buildings.

The Forum was adorned with many monumentsand statues, and especially by pillars such as that ofTrajan, and the various triumphal arches in honor ofTitus, Septimius Severus, Constantine, and others.These were carved with depictions of each emperor'svictorious military campaigns, to commemorate hismoments of glory for future generations, following the

The Arch of Septimius Severus.

6

triumphs when the victor was borne in processionalong the Via Sacra to the applause and acclamationof the populace.

Obviously there was a risk that all the praise andadulation would go to the emperor's head, so that hewould desire his subjects to forget that he was a meremortal. This did in fact happen, in several cases, whenan emperor assumed the status of a god, or accordeddivine worship to his own ancestors and even some ofhis relatives. Augustus, for example, dedicated atemple to Divus Iulius; Antoninus Pius built another inhonor of his wife Faustina; and Maxentius built a thirdin memory of his son Romulus.

Divine worship of the emperor was on the increasewhen Christianity arrived in Rome. For the Romansthis was perfectly compatible with their polytheism, asshown by the fact that the deified emperors also builtlarger and larger temples to Mars, Venus, Apollo,Cybele, and other gods and goddesses. What was notpermitted, however, was for one religion to claim to bethe only true one, with the logical consequence thatthe rest were false. The authorities were tolerant ofany novelty provided that it fitted in with the pervadingrelativism. The Christian faith did not.

The salt of the earth

"How glorious must the heavenly Jerusalem be, ifearthly Rome shines thus!"1. These words of StFulgentius, recorded by one of his disciples, reflect thegreat admiration aroused by the sight of Rome in thosewho traveled from the provinces of the Empire andsaw the city for the first time. By his time, in the earlysixth century, Rome had been evangelized, the ancientpagan temples had been closed for over a century,

1. Life of St Fulgentius of Ruspe, III, 27

www.josemariaescriva.info

PLACES IN ROME

7

and some Christian churches had been built in theRoman Forum itself. In his Hymn to St Lawrence,Prudentius exults at the victory of the faith in the heartof the Empire: the Quirites, or native Roman citizens,now fill the churches; the leaders of the Senate, whoformerly held it a great honor to ride in pagan religiousprocessions down the Via Sacra, now kiss thethresholds of the martyrs' shrines; the noble familiesdelight to see their sons and daughters dedicating theirlives to the service of the Church; the fire that burnedin the Temple of Vesta has been extinguished, and theleader of the Vestal Virgins who guarded it, Claudia,was even converted to Christianity; the Cross, in short,is raised over the ancient pagan symbols.2

How was this change possible? As well as theaction of God, one of the factors that explain it is thatthe first Christians never considered themselves asseparated from their city or their job by the fact ofembracing the faith. Many of them worked in theForum, often directly in the service of the Empire; evenin the times of Sts Peter and Paul, some werepatricians and were among the three hundredSenators who met in the Curia; others were lawyers,attorneys or judges; in the Epistle to the Philippians,written during his captivity in Rome, St Paul sendsgreetings from the "saints" who were of Caesar'shousehold;3 and in the Epistle to the Romans he citesthe names of Aristobulus and Narcisus, who hadworked with the Emperor Claudius.4

Almost certainly some members of the Emperor'sfamily embraced the faith as early as the end of thefirst century A.D. Titus Flavius Clemens and Flavia

2. Cf. Prudentius, Peristephanon II, 513-5293. Cf. Phil 4:224.Cf. Rom 16:10-11

8

Domitilla, for instance, were a married couple relatedto the Emperor Domitian. They had seven children, ofwhom the eldest two had been selected as candidatesfor the Imperial throne and educated accordingly bythe famous teacher of rhetoric, Quintillian. However, inA.D. 95 Flavius Clemens was suddenly put on trial ona charge of atheism, which was only used againstChristians. Domitilla, who was banished to the islandof Pandataria, is also known as the owner of the landwhich included the catacombs that bear her name.Their children never attained the throne, since in A.D.96 Domitian himself was assassinated, and the Flaviandynasty ended.

Persecution and martyrdom were an ever-presentdanger for the first Christian faithful. But even in timesof tranquility, ordinary life was not free from obstacles.In Roman society, daily life was filled with acts ofadoration of the gods and goddesses. Peoplerequesting a loan had to take an oath in the name ofthe gods; those taking up public office had first to offersacrifice; if someone walked past a temple or thestatue of one of the gods, it was common practice totake off his hat, and so on. There was a long list ofaccepted modes of behavior whose omission wasconsidered a mark of impoliteness and a betrayal ofthe traditions of their ancestors. This was one of themost damaging accusations made by Celsus againstthe Christians:

"If they refuse to render due service to the gods,and to respect those who are set over this service, letthem not come to manhood, or marry wives, or havechildren, or indeed take any share in the affairs of life;but let them depart hence with all speed, and leave noposterity behind them."5

5. Quoted by Origen, Contra Celso, VIII, 55

www.josemariaescriva.info

PLACES IN ROME

9

Public opinion generally, in those times, shared in thesame intolerance towards the followers of Christ. Atthe very least, Christians were thought to be "odd"people. Given that they helped their neighbor, werefaithful to their spouses, paid their taxes, andscrupulously avoided any dishonesty in business, thereason for this was their fanatical devotion to their

The Temple of the Dioscuri.In the background, the Archof Titus.

10

strange religion, and to prove themselves superior toothers. Such twisted interpretation was aggravated byslander and insults, such as that suffered by a youngman called Alexamenos in the Paedagogium, thetraining school for the Emperor's page-boys. Thisschool was situated on the Palatine, close to theForum, and archaeologists discovered a graffitodepicting a man praying before a crucified figure withthe head of an ass. Beside it a scratched inscriptionsays: "Alexamenos adores his god". Nearby, aninscription in different handwriting reads: "Alexamenosthe faithful." This may well have been the retort ofyoung Alexamenos himself to his companions' taunts.

In many respects, morality in the Roman Empire wasin a deplorable state. Celebrations were marked byindecent plays in the theatres, human beings weremade to kill one another for the entertainment of circuscrowds, and art portrayed lasciviousness. Divorce wasallowed, and the birthrate was very low because ofwidespread recourse to abortion and infanticide amongother reasons. It is true that not all Romans lived in thisway, and morality went into really steep decline onlytowards the end of the imperial period. But it wasalways the case that widely accepted pagan customscontradicted the human dignity that Christianity hadcome to restore.

Faced with all this - degraded customs, persecution,slander, insults, and the very real threat of martyrdom -the first Christians could simply have turned theirbacks on the world and retreated into a ghetto, asCelsus maliciously urged them to. This, however,never occurred to them. They had found the faith, theirChristian vocation, their calling to holiness, in themiddle of their work: in the Forum, in studios and

www.josemariaescriva.info

PLACES IN ROME

11

workshops, in the army, in the merchants' wagons, etc.They felt no less Roman than their fellow-citizens: theyloved their splendid City, and considered the Empire tobe not just good but providential, since in the politicaland cultural unity it had brought about, the faith couldspread more easily. All that they rejected were thefalse gods and the brutal customs. These last theyaimed to purify, conscious as they were of being "thesalt of the earth".6

The House of the Vestal Virgins next to the Via Sacra. The statuesare of the successive Vestales Maximae, and an inscription on thebase of each carries her name and the date it was put up. On oneof these inscriptions only the initial, the letter C, remains, and therest of the name has been erased; the date is 364 A.D., and manyhistorians consider that this statue was of the Vestal Virgin Clau-dia, who was converted to Christianity and was celebrated in apoem by Prudentius.

12

Ordinary people

Among the ruins of the Roman Forum it is easy torecall the phrase St Josemaría often used to sum upOpus Dei: "The easiest way to understand Opus Dei isto consider the life of the early Christians."7 During thefirst months he spent in Rome he would often repeatphrases like the following, which he wrote years later,to impress upon people's minds Opus Dei's secularcharacter: "The early Christians lived their Christianvocation seriously, seeking earnestly the holiness towhich they had been called by their Baptism.Externally they did nothing to distinguish themselvesfrom their fellow citizens. The members of Opus Deiare ordinary people. They work like everyone else andlive in the midst of the world… just like any otherChristian citizen who wants to respond fully to thedemands of his faith."8

The Second Vatican Council proclaimed stronglythat all the faithful are called to holiness, and that it isthe responsibility of the laity to bring earthly realities toChrist. In the nineteen-forties, many people identifiedChristian perfection with the religious life, and it washard for people to grasp fully how anyone could aspireto Christian perfection in the middle of the world,working at any and every honest job.

St Josemaría never tired of repeating that thefaithful of Opus Dei are "ordinary people", like the firstChristians. And he often said, too, that Christians todayhave the same means as they did to conquer in interiorbattles for holiness. "Think about what the Holy Spiritsays, and let yourself be filled with awe and gratitude:Elegit nos ante mundi constitutionem - he chose usbefore the foundation of the world, ut essemus sancti

6. Mt 5:137. St Josemaría, Conversations, 248. Ibid.

www.josemariaescriva.info

PLACES IN ROME

13

in conspectu eius! - that we might be holy in hispresence. To be holy isn't easy, but it isn't difficulteither. To be holy is to be a good Christian, toresemble Christ. The more closely a person resemblesChrist, the more Christian he is, the more he belongsto Christ, the holier he is. And what means do wehave? The same means the early faithful had, whenthey saw Jesus directly or caught a glimpse of him inthe accounts the Apostles and Evangelists gave ofhim."9

Using these means, the Christians of the firstcenturies after Christ became saints, in the midst of asociety that was pagan, partly corrupt, and thatpersecuted them to the death. And with those means,they did apostolate wherever they found themselves,until they transformed a civilization that was hostile tothe faith, working from within it. "To follow in Christ'sfootsteps, today's apostle does not need to reformanything, but even less has he to take no part in thecontemporary affairs going on around him. He has onlyto act as the first Christians did, and give life to hisenvironment."10

9. St Josemaría, ibid.10. The Forge, 1020

14

St Josemaría with Don Alvaro del Portillo in front of the Basilica of Maxentius

in the Roman Forum, on December 1, 1946

www.josemariaescriva.info