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A Web-enhanced edition of Pagan and Christian Rome by Rodolfo Lanciani published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company Boston and New York, 1892 Text, maps and black & white illustrationsº are in the public domain. Any color photos are © William P. Thayer.

Pagan and Christian Rome:
A Case Study in Late Antiquity
by a Master Topographer

Rodolfo Lanciani was an archaeologist who for many years towards the close of the 19c was in charge of all the excavations within the city of Rome, and personally responsible for a number of major discoveries which we now take for granted; for example, the House of the Vestals in the Roman Forum.

It would be presumptuous of me to offer any technical evaluation of Lanciani's work: having neither the knowledge required to critique him, nor even to praise him, I can offer only a personal appreciation hedged with references to the assessments of others, and these are unanimous in considering him one of the seminal figures in the modern scientific study of topography.

Lanciani's recognized magnum opus is the Forma Urbis Romae, a set of 46 very detailed maps of ancient Rome issued in 1893‑1901, which remains unsurpassed to this day, even if of course there have been many new discoveries since. It has recently been reissued in hardcopy; for a few years, some idea could be got of it online from a website that presented it, although the site was never complete — but now, with the continuing shrinkage of the Web, the site has vanished.

The great archaeologist had another special gift, however, that we can all appreciate; here too, it would be presumptuous of me to offer anything other than a personal appreciation — this time, since each of you may easily form your own.

He writes clearly and seductively, and is not afraid to flesh out the dry facts from an excavation with a full story, often a very interesting one: Rodolfo Lanciani is thus a perfect author for the Web, accessible to all of us at our different levels.

I cannot resist pointing out that there are many entertaining writers in this world, but here you have someone who is technically and temperamentally qualified to tell us the truth as much as anyone can: he should serve as a corrective for much of the nonsense that one reads on the Web, frankly. (If you are writing a high-school term paper, take note: with the increasing availability of good sources online, it's going to get harder and harder to get away with poor research.)

It is a tough juggling act, because above all Lanciani writes as a man impassioned: he is a Roman, in the line of nearly three millennia of citizens of Rome, and conscious of it; so that he will occasionally fall into one principal vice, the worship of power in its typically Roman forms: empire and papacy. But this inside look at Roman triumphalism — interesting in itself — is a small price to pay for the depth and breadth of knowledge he has to share.

Here then is Pagan and Christian Rome. The table of contents below (followed by a few technical notes on proofreading and the like) merely points out the salient points of interest; there are many others. Enjoy.

Chapter	Title • Salient Contents
Frontispiece and List of Illustrations
I	The Transformation of Rome from a Pagan into a Christian City The very earliest Christian tombs known Positive attitude of certain early emperors to Christianity So just how Christian was Constantine? (Lanciani's view, anyway) Labyrinths in churches Christian churches and bathing facilities Standards for weights and measures The agape-banquets of the early Christians Christian food welfare schemes Public rental storage facilities (and an actual set of regulations for one)
II	Pagan Shrines and Temples Laymen could buy the right to perform temple sacrifices (an actual fee schedule) Favissae: the official storage of ex‑votos in temples 6 temples of Rome, some very early: Ara Maxima Herculis Roma Quadrata Ara of Aius Locutius Ara of Dis and Proserpine Ara Pacis Augustae Ara Incendii Neroniani (the Altar of Nero's Fire) The Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with map of the Capitoline Hill Roman military discharge "papers" The Egyptian Temple of Isis and Serapis in Rome Caligula romps on rooftops: how this helped archaeologists find the Temple of Augustus
III	Christian Churches Home churches from the time of the Apostles Scholae (burial associations) The origin of the great basilicas of Rome Old St. Peter's (with map of the area in Antiquity, including the Circus of Nero) St. Paul's (and Johannipolis, a papal fortress of the 9c)
IV	Imperial Tombs Description of an imperial funeral (that of Augustus) The Mausoleum of Augustus The Res Gestae The so‑called House of Pilate, in Rome A wonderful illustrated retelling of the death of Nero (with a map, too) The Mausoleum of Helena, mother of Constantine The Imperial Mausoleum at St. Peter's, and the find of the intact tomb of an empress
V	Papal Tombs Do we know what the Apostles Peter and Paul actually looked like? The Tomb of Pope Cornelius Parallel burial sites of the pagan and Christian branches of the same family The crypt of the Popes in the Catacombs of Callixtus A brief life of Gregory the Great Gregory the Great's house, now a church The tomb of the Anglo-Saxon king Caedwalla, found and destroyed (?) in the 16c In St. John Lateran, the rattling bones of Pope Sylvester II . . . 12c sculptors and architects who collected and studied ancient classical statues
VI	Pagan Cemeteries The mechanics of ancient funerals: cremations and ustrina columbaria and how the spaces were allotted The Tomb of Platorinus Tombs of shoemakers (especially that of C. Julius Helius) The tomb of a child prodigy What happened to the earth dug up and carted off when Trajan's Forum was built? Herodes Atticus: how he got his money, how he buried his wife The grotto and springs of King Numa's nymph Egeria The extraordinary discovery in 1485 of the incorrupt body of a Roman noblewoman The tomb of a young bride, buried with her doll
VII	Christian Cemeteries The Catacombs of the Christian members of the imperial family of the Flavians The Catacombs: how big are they, and did people really live in them? The destruction of a large part of the Catacombs since the sixteenth century The Catacombs of Generosa (and the origin of the name Beatrix) The Catacombs of Domitilla, and the story of SS. Nereus and Achilleus The Tomb of Ampliatus: is this the man mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans? Representations of Jesus in Antiquity Tombs of dentists and surgeons Frescoes in the Catacombs Neopagan scholars of the Renaissance hold secret meetings in the Catacombs
	Ludi Saeculares, Inscription edited by Mommsen

Technical Details

Pagination

For citation purposes, the pagination of the original is indicated in the sourcecode as local links.

Proofreading

The Web edition has been carefully proofread: please report the inevitable oversights!

The rare typos in the printed work have been corrected, silently for the most part, except where there was some conceivable doubt. Worth noting briefly:

Lanciani or his printer seems to have had particular trouble with French: I've removed superfluous accents and cedillas, but have not added missing ones.
Baldassare Peruzzi's first name appears incorrectly almost thruout, with two r's, but I have corrected it. (Oddly, the name is properly spelled in his book Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, which will soon be coming to this site as well.)
Under the influence presumably of the Latin adjectival form Einsiedlensis, the placename Einsiedeln is misspelled about half the time as Einsiedlen: I made no corrections.

Further Annotation, Links, Conversions

Most of my annotation is perforce confined to relatively minor notes or links. I occasionally comment the text in a footnote, or when I manage to express myself succinctly, as Javascript annotations that you can read by placing your cursor over the little bullets,º or sometimes over the images. (You don't need to click.)

If you do click on those bullets:

Blue: relax. Blue bullets stay on the page (notes, unit conversions, etc.).
Green: go. Green bullets go somewhere, in another window. Lanciani's text will stay open in its own window.
Red: stop and think! Red bullets open another page in the same window. If you don't want to lose your page and have to reload it later, you should do a "New Window with this Link".

Conversions have been supplied for all non-metric measurements. There is some inaccuracy in doing this, since Lanciani had converted them from metric in the first place; and sometimes some ambiguity as well, since the text gives no clue whether feet are Roman or English, for example. Usually, this doesn't matter much; where it does, I've provided both conversions.

You should also bear in mind that "feet", "pounds" and so forth are not necessarily modern English units or even ancient Roman units: they may be mediaeval or 18c Italian, for example.

Images

Lanciani's 103 engravings, 11 maps and plans, and 16 photos are all black & white. This being the Web, I've colorized almost all of them, usually a gentle pastel touch-up which makes them easier on the eye; sometimes the colorization is functional. I'm putting my colorized images in the public domain.

All images have been compressed to save loading time: many are surprisingly small. Some few images were either inadequate by modern standards, or are very useful (like Lanciani's map of St. Peter's overlying the Circus of Nero) and best seen at greater magnification: they're represented by a placeholder with a link to another page in another window, for those who need to get a closer look.

I've inserted a few of my own photographs. Often, just a thumbnail, linking to the full image in another window.

Images with borders lead to more information.
The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)

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