THE CLOSING YEARS OF ST. PAUL'S LIFE

IN ROME.

BY COL. R. M. BRYCE THOMAS, AUTHOR OF "MY REASONS FOR LEAVING THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND."

IV.

Next came the beautiful temple of Castor and Pollux, built in B. C. 495, to commemorate the victory of Lake Regillus, of which only three Corinthian columns now remain, but they are among the most beautiful of those to be found in Rome. The two fabulous youths, Castor and Pollux, known generally as the Dioscuri, were heroes who received divine honors at Sparta, and were worshiped in Italy, Greece, and Sicily. They are said to have rendered great aid to the Romans in their fight against the Latins at the battle of Lake Regillus, and it is said that the temple was erected to their honor at the place where they had been seen after the battle, close to the "Edes Vestæ" or temple of Vesta.

This last named structure is attributed originally to Numa Pompilius, who reigned in Rome from B. C. 715 to B. C. 673. In close proximity to it stood the "Atrium Vestæ," or residence of the six Vestal Virgins, whose duty it was to keep up the sacred fire day and night in the temple, and who were the constituted custodians of certain sacred objects, including the renowned "Palladium" or image of Pallas, which, it is said, fell from heaven when Ilus was founding Ilium or Troy, and which Æneas the Trojan prince carried away with him afterwards to Italy along with the Phrygian "Penates," or household gods. It was for the perpetual

custody of such that Numa at first appointed four Vestals, for it was a belief among the Romans, that so long as the image was safe the city would be safe also, but that if ever the image should be stolen or lost, the city would be inevitably destroyed. The sacred fire was kept continually burning from abcut B.C. 700 till the worship of Vesta was abolished by the Emperor Theodosius the Great, in A. D. 394, or for about the period of eleven hundred years. The original four Vestal priestesses were increased in number by two under the great fundamental political changes that King Tarquin, the first, introduced among the Romans during his reign of thirty-eight years, from B. C. 617 to B. C. 579.

To the right would be seen the "Curia", or senate house, built by Tullus Hostilius, who reigned in Rome from B. C. 673 to B. C. 641, for the accommodation of the Roman parliament. The building was called from its founder the "Curia Hostilia." Close by was the triumphal arch of Fabius Quintus Maximus, the conqueror of the Allobroges, a powerful people of Gaul, in the year B. C. 121. This was the first arch ever erected in the Roman forum. Next stood the temple of Janus, a deity occupying a very important position in Roman mythology, and usually represented with two faces looking in opposite directions, sometimes with four faces looking to the four quarters of the globe, because he was a god who presided over the four seasons. As he was believed to preside over the beginning of everything, he was always involved first in every undertaking, and as he thus opened the year, the first month was named after him-January. This temple was built by Numa Pompilius, before B. C. 673, at the extremity of the street called by the Romans "Argiletus," its doors being always closed in seasons of peace, but open in times of war. Only on three different occasions in seven hundred years were the doors closed, as during almost the whole of that period the Romans were involved in war in various parts of the then known world.

Adjoining the temple would be seen the renowned Basilica Emilia, named after M. Æmilius Lepidus, the consul, who was subsequently Pontifex Maximus. It was originally erected in B.C. 179 by M. Fulvius Nobilioe, who was censor in that year, and was thoroughly repaired and enlarged in B. C. 55, by L. Æmilius Paullus, brother of the above named M. Æmilius Lepidus. The latter

with Antony and Octavian Augustus formed the second triumvirate, in B. C. 43, and they then agreed to divide the world between them, an arrangement that was to last for five years. In Dr. Smith's classical dictionary it is stated that these three published a list of all their enemies whose lives were to be sacrificed and their property confiscated, resulting in upwards of two thousand equites or knights, and three hundred senators, being put to death, among whom was the great orator Cicero.

From the present excavations of the forum, it is not difficult to conceive of the stateliness of the Basilica Emilia, with its grand marble columns, and its lofty colonnades. Probably the most noticeable of its features were the four rows of these same magnificent columns of pavonazzetto (or Phrygian) marble. It is said that in A. D. 386 they were removed to the church of St. Paul's outside the walls, when Valentinian was emperor and Sulpicius was pope. The tomb of Romulus, a comparatively late discovery, is situated close by, as is also the Dailian column.

Towards the center of the forum stood the temple tomb of Julius Cæsar, built in B. C. 29 by Cæsar Augustus, wherein the latter deposited the ashes of that great man. There was also an altar, and a beautiful porphyry column of the deified hero. A rostrum, too, had been erected in front of the temple, called the rostra Julia, and it was from that same tribune that Mark Antony, at the funeral of the murdered dictator, on the 19th or 20th March, B. C. 41, pronounced his celebrated oration which produced so great an excitement among the people that, when he held up the toga of the murdered man covered with blood, the disturbance rose to a tumultuous riot.

Other fine edifices and columns, with statues and bas-reliefs of exquisite workmanship, met the gaze of Paul and his companions as they took a rapid survey of the great forum which lay before and a little below them, notably the Regia, or official residence of the Pontifex Maximus, said to have been erected on the site where Numa Pompilius had his palace seven hundred years before the Christian era. It stood by the side of the "Sacra Via," near the shrine of Vesta and the house of the Vestals, and was the depository of the celebrated spears of Mars. There is a legend that before any great calamity happened to the nation, these spears

would oscillate and tremble of themselves, and that previous to the murder of Julius Cæsar they were seen to shake, thus indicating the impending catastrophe which immediately followed. Notable also were the Milliarium aureum, erected by Augustus in B. C. 28, and the Umbilicus urbis Roma. In Piali's hand book on Rome I find the following description of these two columns:

The former was the golden milestone or bronze column gilt, which stood at the end of the Rostra Nova near to where the column of Phocas now stands. On this milestone was written the distance from every gate of the city to the principal provincial towns in subjection to Rome. The Umbilicus stood at the other end of the Græco-stasis, or curved part of the Rostra, and denoted the exact center of the city.

I cannot imagine a more striking prospect, to one seeing it for the first time, than must have been this renowned Roman forum, with its superb, delicate and perfect styles of Græco-Roman architecture, its fine statues and exquisite bas-reliefs, and variegated and rare kinds of marbles, which tended so greatly to enhance the beauty and stateliness of its buildings.

Through a portion of this forum, St. Paul was conducted, amid temples and shops, round the base of the Palatine hill to the Excubitorium (excubia means sentinels) or barracks of the household troops attached to the imperial palace, and was there handed over to Afranius Burrus, the prefect of the pretorian guards, whose official duty it was to maintain in custody all accused persons who were to be tried before the emperor himself. Burrus, from all accounts, was an honest and kindly dispositioned man, and it may perhaps have been in some degree due to this fact, and to the good report of the Apostle made to him by the Centurion Julius, that Paul was permitted to enjoy a certain amount of freedom, being merely subjected, as Dr. Farrar tells us, to that kind of custodia militaris, which was known as observatis. Instead of being confined in the cells of the barracks, he was "suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him" (Acts xxviii: 16); but under the harsh Roman system, the favored prisoner, although treated as leniently as possible, had to bear the almost intolerable trial of being always chained to a soldier. We find Paul referring to his bonds in all the epistles which he wrote while a captive in Rome, namely, those to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to