A Week in the Life of Rome

by James L. Papandrea

  Early Christian writers generally denounced the gladiator shows as barbaric and as participation in murder. However, the urgency with which they begged their flock to stop going to the shows tells us that they were in fact having a hard time getting the Christians to stop attending. There were a few more philosophically minded pagans who also recognized that the gladiatorial games were detrimental to civilized society. The Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote against the games in his Moral Epistles, but then he was exiled by the emperor Claudius.

  Figure 6.1. Painting of a Roman arena with gladiators (National Archaeological Museum, Naples)

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Maria said. “I was hoping that Tertius could stay here for a while.”

  “Mother, what’s wrong?” It was clear she was upset.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” she answered. “I just need a safe place for Tertius right now.”

  Senator Pudens said, “Of course he can stay here.” He motioned for a slave standing by to come closer. “Bring my daughters.” The slave nodded and left the atrium. Soon Pudenziana and Prassede came in, followed by Scrap. The children bowed to Maria.

  Maria turned to Tertius. “Tertius, you know the senator’s daughters. And of course you know Scrap. You can stay with them for the day. Now, why don’t you go play some games.” She gave Tertius a little shove in the direction of the girls. Tertius didn’t say anything but did as he was told and followed the other three children as they walked out of the atrium.

  Pudenziana tried to find something to say to break the ice with Tertius. “Scrap,” she said, “tell us the story of your name.”

  “You’ve heard it a thousand times,” he protested.

  “But Tertius hasn’t, have you, Tertius?”

  “Not from Scrap himself,” Tertius said.

  “Go ahead and tell it!” Prassede started the pleading, and the others joined in until Scrap relented.

  “All right, all right. My name is Scrap because on the day I was born, I was left on the garbage pile in one of the alleys of the Suburra. The midwife, I suppose, left me there to be exposed because I was unwanted. I was like garbage to my own mother and father. But I wasn’t about to just lay there and die. I cried! I cried and I cried, and I yelled and I screamed. And someone heard me.” The sisters clapped their hands. Scrap smiled and continued. “It was my master’s son, young Clemens. He was passing through the Suburra, and he heard me crying. So he came to the garbage pile to see what all the noise was. And when he saw that it was an abandoned baby, well, he couldn’t just walk away. Because even though he was only twelve years old, he was a Way-follower, and he had heard Peter say that every person is made in the image of the one true God. Every person is loved by our Lord. So he picked me up from the garbage pile and took me home. His father, who is not a Way-follower, decided to call me Scrap. But someday, when I am free, I will take my master’s name, and I too will be called Clemens.”

  Pudenziana and Prassede clapped their hands, and Tertius smiled to hear details of the story that were new to him. “I was fortunate,” Scrap concluded. “Many babies die on the garbage pile because there are not enough Way-followers to pick them all up.”

  At that same hour, another baby was fortunate. Lucius Geta’s body was found in the marshy area along the river south of Marble Street, near the Fish Market. Word of Geta’s death came to his household just before his wife gave birth to a baby girl. His orders to drown her were never carried out.

  Stachys looked around the amphitheater. Women of the senatorial class wore their finest and most colorful tunics and shawls, each trying to outdo the next with their clothing and jewelry. For the wealthiest of Romans, this was the place to be seen. The plebeian women were in their section, up at the top of the bleachers, most of them hardly paying attention to the action in the arena. Stachys noticed the boys’ section, with their tutors seated nearby. They looked so young. He looked back and forth between the boys and their tutors. He tried not to think about what it was like when he was that age. He tried hard not to think about it, but in trying not to think about it, all he could do was think about it.

  Then Stachys knew what he had to do. He had to protect his son. He had to do what his own father could not do for him, because he had been a slave. But Stachys was free. He had to say no to Urbanus. That was going to be hard.

  Stachys wondered at the words he would use as the first animal hunts of the day began. Slaves brought in scenery backdrops, large plants, and other obstacles for the animals to hide behind. Stachys allowed himself the luxury of postponing his dilemma for a short time as he watched the hunters taunt a bear with nets and spears.

  As the morning wore on, the shows moved from people hunting animals to animals hunting people. Convicted criminals were sentenced to die by the beasts, and so one by one, condemned men were sent out into the arena to face the lions, tigers, bulls, and boars. The emperor Claudius and his wife Agrippina appeared, to a mixture of cheers and boos from the crowd. They sat in the imperial ringside box, between the priests and the Vestal Virgins. Claudius seemed to be in a good mood. Agrippina fanned herself and looked bored.

  When the excitement of the emperor’s arrival died down, Stachys decided it was time to find Urbanus and give him the news—though he was dreading the conversation, it wouldn’t be wise to put it off any longer. He got up from his seat and started moving down toward the section where he knew many of the equestrian businessmen sat. He scanned the crowd as he walked. Eventually he saw Urbanus sitting by himself in a less crowded section. Many people were going out to get lunch as the “noontime gladiators” were starting. The first pair of condemned criminals fought to the death, and when one of them died, another came out to fight the winner. This went on for some time as Stachys sat next to Urbanus in silence, pretending not to notice the stares of Urbanus’s fellow equestrians, who recognized that Stachys was seated above his social class. Neither one of them said anything until the last round was complete, one condemned criminal lived to fight another day, and the musical interlude started.

  Urbanus was the first to speak. “You didn’t come see me this morning.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect,” Stachys said.

  “I know. I’m not upset with you. I understand. It was unfortunate, what happened last night. But as long as we keep it to ourselves, we should be fine.”

  “And the gladiators? Will they keep quiet?”

  Urbanus paused, then said, “If they are not fortunate today, then we are fortunate.”

  “We can’t simply hope they all die in the arena.”

  “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  Stachys knew the time had come to tell Urbanus. “I have to tell you something.”

  Urbanus sighed.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to say no to you. I won’t be hiring a tutor for my son.”

  For a moment, Urbanus looked indignant, yet it seemed that he could not find the words to respond to Stachys. He was saved by a loud musical fanfare. So he just stared at Stachys, fuming in silence.

  Now the professional gladiators came out into the arena. Slaves, criminals of lesser offenses sentenced to the gladiator schools, even a few volunteers who signed up as a last resort to get themselves out of debt all marched around the arena, presenting their arms to the emperor. Behind them marched twelve of Claudius’s freedmen carrying the fasces, the bundled axe and rods that symbolized Rome’s power of corporal and capital punishment. The freedmen bowed to Claudius, lowering the fasces in deference to his imperial power. The gladiators bowed and saluted.

  The Fasces, S. P. Q. R.,

  and Imperial Power

  The fasces are the bundled rods and axe that symbolize Rome’s power of corporal and capital punishment. By the time of our story, they had come to symbolize the personal power of the emperor. Our English words fascist and fascism come from this concept. Whenever the emperor walked in a procession or parade, he was followed by men carrying the fasces to remind the people that his
power was absolute.

  The acronym S. P. Q. R. stands for Senatus Popolusque Romanus—“the Senate and the Roman People” (the Q comes from the suffix -que, which was one way to say “and” in Latin). During the time of the Roman Republic, this acronym was meant to convey the idea that the Senate and the people ruled together. Back then the people had a voice in their government through voting. But in the empire, the people had lost most of their voting rights, and the acronym was little more than symbolic.

  Because Julius Caesar had been assassinated by the senators, the first true emperor, Augustus, distrusted the Senate and made the Praetorian Guard his personal bodyguard, something like our Secret Service. When Caligula was assassinated, the Senate debated trying to restore the republic—in other words, many hoped they could go back to not having an emperor. But in reality that could never happen, because the Praetorians were too powerful, and they had proclaimed Claudius the new emperor. So the transition from republic to empire was in a way the transition from “the Senate and the Roman People” to “the Senate and the Emperor.” Caligula had switched the balance of power to “the Emperor and the Senate,” and with the reign of Claudius the Senate lost much of its power altogether—with Claudius elevating freedmen to positions of authority and inflating the senate class with new foreign families—so that the real rule was in “the Emperor and the Praetorian Guard.”

  Figure 6.2. An example of the acronym SPQR on a statue base. Capitoline Hill, Rome.

  Claudius stood and shouted to the gladiators, “Be brave, men. Die well, if today is your day to die. Do not run from your opponent so that your death takes place on the edge of the arena where only a few can see it. Confront your opponents in the center of the arena, where all may see your bravery, either in victory or in death.” Then the emperor saluted, and trumpeters played a fanfare as the first of the gladiators took up their positions.

  “How can you say no to me?” Urbanus said, clearly exasperated. “I’m your patron. Is it because of this Chrestus, your other lord?”

  “No. Or at least, not directly. Let’s just say that I must say no to you because my father was not able to say no to your father.”

  “You regret being my father’s favorite boy?”

  “Urbanus, did you have a tutor when you were Tertius’s age?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you wish your father had said no?”

  Urbanus didn’t answer. After a long pause, he said, “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t get the position, so you, or rather, your son, is no longer relevant.”

  Stachys should have been relieved, but he wasn’t. The death of Geta was weighing heavily on his mind.

  He and Urbanus allowed the cheering of the crowd to be a welcome distraction from their conversation. The first gladiator had fallen. His opponent stood over him with his sword at his throat and looked to the crowd. The people cheered, booed, and many made the sign of thumbs up or thumbs down, depending on whether they thought the defeated man had fought bravely and deserved to live to fight another day. The victorious gladiator looked to the emperor’s box. Claudius stood, and the crowd grew silent. Claudius turned his thumb upward, to indicate that the winner should take the coup de grâce and kill the defeated man. Stachys and Urbanus watched in silence as the victor thrust his sword into his opponent’s jugular notch. Then he stepped away from the dying man as a slave dressed as Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx, came out and broke the defeated gladiator’s skull with a sledgehammer. The body was then dragged away, and the sand was groomed for the next match. The Praetorians shooed away the potion dealers who tried in vain to get some of the sand soaked with gladiator’s blood.

  Stachys stood up to leave. Urbanus looked at him, seemingly with surprise, but didn’t say anything. As Stachys walked toward the exit, four Praetorians walked in, pushing their way through the crowd.

  It didn’t occur to Stachys that they were coming for him until it was too late. But even when they grabbed him, he thought they were just going to throw him out for sitting in the wrong section. Urbanus turned to run in the other direction but ran into another group of Praetorians.

  Eight Praetorians in all dragged Stachys and Urbanus out of the amphitheater as their most important business associates looked on in shock and horror. Once outside the bleachers, in the amphitheater’s arched stairwell, the Praetorians tied their hands behind their backs. Stachys was panicking, pulling at the ropes around his wrists, remembering the threats of torture at the Praetorian barracks. Urbanus was shouting to the soldiers, “Do you know who I am? Do you know who my patron is?!” The Praetorians just laughed and shoved the two men out the gate and into the street. The soldiers walked Stachys and Urbanus along, pulling and shoving, causing them to trip, and then smacking them when they fell. Stachys’s knees buckled out of fear, and he could hardly support his own weight. In his mind he was frantic with the realization that his only hope for justice was also tied up right next to him. Urbanus was wild with anger and denial, and he kept shouting, “No! No! Stop! Wait!” But the soldiers shoved them on.

  They moved southeast along the river, enduring the stares of the crowds in the street and the sting of the Praetorians’ rods and fists. Turning east toward the Fontinalis Gate, Stachys could see his home in the distance. His body instinctively turned toward home, but a soldier kicked him in the direction of the gate and the Capitoline Hill.

  The climb up the hill seemed like a long, painful eternity. As they finally reached the top, the Praetorians shoved Stachys and Urbanus east toward the Tarpeian Rock, a cliff overlooking the Old Forum. Narcissus was waiting for them there.

  The Praetorians stood Stachys and Urbanus at the edge of the cliff. Narcissus spoke to them, not looking at them but looking out over the Old Forum.

  “Urbanus, I’m surprised to see you here, in the middle of all this. But I have the testimony of four gladiators, swearing that you hired them to attack Geta.”

  Urbanus tried to think fast. “The testimony of gladiators is not admissible in court.”

  Narcissus’s tone turned to one of contempt. “Look around you—are we in a court? Urbanus, I tried to help you. I tried to gain a very respectable—and lucrative—position for you. And how do you repay me? By speaking nonsense in the presence of the emperor. You made me look like a fool, and so I have no regrets about your fate.” Narcissus looked Stachys up and down. “And who is this?”

  Urbanus answered, “My freedman, Stachys. The oil merchant, and a Way-follower.” Stachys turned to look at Urbanus with a horrified look on his face.

  Narcissus raised an eyebrow. “What is a Way-follower?”

  All eyes were on Stachys. He cleared his throat. Did he dare contradict his patron? That could make things worse. He cleared his throat again.

  “Well?” Narcissus was getting impatient.

  “I am in the school of the Way-followers, which is to say I am not initiated to their table—yet.”

  “That does not answer the question.” Narcissus pushed Stachys even closer to the edge of the cliff. Stachys’s foot slipped, and he had to lean backward to avoid going over the edge.

  “Um.” Stachys’s mind raced. “Way-followers are like Judeans in their prayers, in their belief in one God, in their burial of the dead, and in their modesty about their bodies. But they are not like Judeans in some ways. They do not refrain from certain kinds of foods, and they do not require men to cut their . . .”

  “Enough!” Narcissus was unable to conceal his impatience. “Did I ask to join their school? No! I simply asked what a Way-follower is.”

  Stachys thought about the Way-followers he knew. In a flash, all of the people he cared about went through his mind. Tertius, Maria, Marcus, the people who gathered in his home for prayer. Even annoying old Ampliatus. Then his mind came to rest on Scrap, and a newfound courage filled his heart. “A Way-follower,” he said with his head held high, “is someone who cannot hear the cry of a baby from the garbage pile and just walk away.”

  Narcissus
was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “So are you one of these Way-followers, or are you not?”

  Stachys hesitated, but only for a moment. “I am.”

  Narcissus turned his gaze back out over the cliff. “Do you know,” he said thoughtfully, “that in the days of the republic, traitors were executed by being thrown off this cliff?”

  Urbanus and Stachys remained silent.

  Narcissus continued to speak as he looked out over the Old Forum. “In many ways, this rock is Rome. It represents the power of Rome to destroy whatever threatens Rome’s traditions. Your feet feel as though they are on solid ground. But one little shove, and you would fall to your death. So what is to stop me from throwing you both from this rock right now?”

  Urbanus said, “My freedman and I are both citizens.”

  “Ah yes, citizens. Entitled to a trial, and to a quick and painless execution. You will have both.” Narcissus turned and walked away.

  Roman Citizenship

  Most people who have read the New Testament are aware that the apostle Paul had Roman citizenship, which (at that time) meant that he had certain rights and privileges, including that he could not be executed without a trial in Rome. We don’t know how Paul got citizenship, or why, but normally Roman citizenship was reserved for natives of Italy. For those from the provinces it could be given as a reward for services rendered to the state, or in some cases it apparently could be bought with a bribe. Although we do not read in the New Testament that Paul was ever asked to provide proof of his citizenship, he must have had a bronze “diploma,” inscribed with the grant of citizenship for his family. At the time of our story, we know that the emperor Claudius gave them out as a reward for loyalty.

  There were two different levels of Roman citizenship. Full citizenship included both private and public rights. All Italians would have had the private rights, allowing them to conduct business and make a contract (including a registered marriage). Technically women still needed a guardian to make a contract, though a woman who had three or more children (four or more if a freedwoman) could make a contract on her own.