Julian Barnett
Hidden Rome, Part 5

Julian Barnett - Hidden Rome, Part 5

- And thank you very much for joining again to Rome part five. And this of course is part of a series on cities I’ve done around the world, Jerusalem, Cairo, Oxford. One coming up by the way, is going to be Edinburgh. Edinburgh on the 7th and the 14th of May, both Sunday evenings. And there’s lots of beautiful things to see and be described when you visit with me to Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. But for now, we are honing in on Rome, and what I’m going to do this evening, as it is here in London, is go through some of the pictures that I’ve shared with you over these last four sessions so far. Drawing together the themes that we’ve followed through. So, the period of the kings of Rome, the Republican period of Rome, the Imperial period of Rome, Byzantine periods, Catholic period, Baroque periods. Once I’ve pulled them together, I’m going to draw back. And on the very final slides, you’re going to have seven titles that I’m going to discuss with you. And I hope that what I’m going to say will give you some food for thoughts, and perhaps, you’ll find controversial as to what I feel the legacy is for Rome to us. Because my contention this evening, is that despite all the things I’ve said about Jerusalem in the past, and about Ancient Egypt in the past, sometimes about Ancient Greece, and other things that I’ve covered, my contention is going to be that nothing comes close to the importance of Rome and what it stood for, to how it affects the world today. So, it’s what I have identified as the seven key points of the legacy of Rome, and the Romans to us, is going to be that end slide. By the way, I should add, that I happen to count up all the pictures that we’ve been through together in this journey, going through Rome in this five-part series.

And they add up to a remarkable 613 pictures! And for those people that are familiar with Judaism and the Old Testament, there were 613 commandments in the Old Testament. Now, I’d love to know what the experts on Gematria would think about that, maybe there’s some hidden meaning about Rome to all of us today through the Old Testament. But after that little bit of playfulness, we can start, and we’re going to go back in time now to look at where we started a couple of months back at that journey through Rome and its period. So, thank you Emily, over to you with the pictures, and here we go! So if I can remind you, that that very first period of Rome, which is often forgotten, is the Rome of the early kings. Remember that those key periods of Rome are from 625 to 510 B.C. So, we’re talking about two and a half thousand years ago, is known as the period of the early kings. It wasn’t a united city, it certainly wasn’t an empire, and it was ruled over by a variety of kings that harked back to those legends of Romulus and Remus. More on that later in that final slide about the legacy. Then, we’re going to go over to the Republican Rome, 510 B.C. to 31 B.C. Or there approximately. And then, we’re moving onto Imperial Rome from 31 B.C., all the way to through to 476 A.D. And then, Byzantine Rome. 326 A.D., the conversion of Constantine the Great to Christianity, all the way through to 1517, the sack of Rome, the beginning of the fall of empire. In a way, it’s really useful to say, roughly speaking, that the two real key periods of Rome as far as Rome’s ancient history are concerns, are the Republican periods and the Imperial periods. And very roughly, one is 500 B.C., and it ends ‘round about the year 0. There approximately.

And then, Republican Rome then comes after the, I’m sorry, Imperial Rome then comes afterwards from the year 0 to approximately 580. So! Let’s move on to that. And you’ll be reminded on that first slide of some of those things that we looked at, those famous letters, SPQR, Senatus PopulusQue Romanus. The Rome and the Senate, and the people of Rome. The Roman Senate and the people. If ever anything goes to the essence of what Rome was, and what Rome is, as I’ll come to later, it is that. That idea of not just an empire, not just of a city, but of a people, of a living people involved in that city. And delighted! To report that a couple of people, in fact, more than a couple of people, a few people who have kindly joined me for these lectures have since been to Rome. Some were already in Rome, some have gone to Rome, and some of them wrote to me from Rome saying that they had noticed, next slide please, Emily, what I had pointed out in the first lecture! This! All over Rome, SPQR! Everywhere, all over Rome, on the drains, and on the lampposts, and so on. Now, this isn’t ancient, this is a a piece of drain from, well, I’m not sure how far, if you’re asking me about drains in London, I could date them within a decade. One of my little hobbies, drains and lampposts, and bollards of London. Rome, I’m not so sure about when it comes to modern street furniture. But this is not an ancient piece! And people have been spotting these all over Rome. Think about this concept that Rome today still sees itself as the embodiment in many ways, as the continuum, as the inheritor of Ancient Rome. The Roman municipality even uses SPQR, those four ancient letters, Senatus PopulusQue Romanus, on their modern day street furniture. That’s remarkable. That’s really remarkable.

So, it’s an unbroken line, and that says something for the spirit of that city, which I’ll be talking about towards the very end. Let’s move on. And we’re going to go through these photos at quite a pace, because you’ve seen many of them before, this shows the root of the Appian Way. And if I can remind you, the Appian Way was that remarkable roads that stretch from Rome, all the way down to Brindisi, to give really, really useful trade routes. And if we can have a look at a few of those pictures of the Appian Way, it was in a sense, the super highway of the periods. With tombs and monuments, and you can go to the next picture, Emily, please, tombs and monuments, all the way along. It was also the roads where public crucifixions were held, massacres took place, and the real imprint in the spirit of the domination of Rome over the peoples that it controlled, was made very, very clear. I think I made mention of the revolt by the slaves against Rome, and 50,000 slaves were crucified along the Appian Way as a result of that revolt. Then, of course, this structure. The remarkable Pantheon. Literally the temple of all the gods. It’s an amazing structure. It is one of the best preserved structures from the ancient world full stop! Still with its original roof, on the roof is its wonder. But it’s often forgotten when people look up in awe at that incredible roof.

And this building is free to go in because it is now a church. When you look up at that incredible, people often forget the history of the actual structure itself. It’s a fascinating structure. It is a structure that tried to bring together the polytheistic nature of Ancient Rome. And although it was constructed originally by a couple of emperors, it was Hadrian, who really, in 126 A.D., rebuilt the structure. Let’s just go inside the Pantheon, and you will recall that remarkable roof. That is looking straight up, it’s concrete, it looks as fresh as ever, and I will be returning to concrete later, it’s a very important thing. But if you look closer at that roof, you can see the genius of Roman construction. So here, you have the height of the roof was the same as the diameter of the structure, 43.3 metres, 142 and a half feet. It’s almost as if you could blow up a massive balloon, and put it in the Pantheon, and it would sit perfectly in the roof, and touch the floor on the sides. That’s how perfectly constructed it is. Not only is this construction perfect, but the Romans understood how to not only make concrete, but how to make different types of concrete dependent upon its use. Now, you can see, those rectangular alcoves made out of concrete. There were five rings of 28, important numerically, had all types of relationships to the stars, and to the gods. And each ring gets smaller. And as each ring gets smaller, of course the roof is going to be weaker. Because it has less support from the walls. So, by the time you get to that third innermost ring of 28, not only were the alcoves smaller, but the concrete was different. It was less weighty, it was less strong because it wouldn’t have been able to be supported.

The Romans calculated this perfectly, so that this building stands perfect, beautiful today as it did 2,000 years ago. Let’s move on! And again, we look or staying in that Republican period, and we come to this remarkable structure, the Senate. So simple, it doesn’t have almost the pomposity of some of the Roman buildings. And certainly, the pretentiousness of many of them. It wasn’t making a statement in itself. It didn’t need to because that is where power resided in Ancient Rome. This was one of the most enduring structures, and most enduring institutions of Ancient Rome. That said, it’s very large. Look at the people at the very bottom in the foregrounds at the bottom, and then you get an idea of the size of the Senate. You will recall that I explained why this peculiar shape building was made the way it is! Because it’s very high, and sort of almost stumpy looking. It seems out of proportion! It’s far higher than it is wider and long! The reason for that, next picture, please, is because it was so constructed, so that debate could be perfectly heard. Because here are the senators debating, and because of the height, the acoustics were perfect! They didn’t need to shout. We are told that the commentators of the time, that the Romans stood, the senators just spoke a normal voice, and their voice would be carried. Because once again, the brilliance of the trigonometrists, and of the engineers had worked out what size building was most optimum for carrying the voice. Now, the Senate was, as I said, a deeply enduring institution, but it changed over that thousand year period, the 500 years of the Republic, and the 500 years of the empire. Let me just clarify that a little bit.

What was the difference between republic and empire? Republic was where the people of Rome, and indeed the Senate held pretty much all power. The Imperial period is when the emperor and the families of the emperor, and the dynasties of emperors started to set in. So, the Imperial period was seen by many Romans as the beginning of the end of Ancient Rome. Yes, it was appeared of massive imperial, territorial, and economic growth, but it didn’t have that purity of political thought that the Republican period had. Because the Republican period was all about that concept of republic! The people! The Senate and the people of Rome. And that is really critical. I’m going to again be returning to that in that seven point legacy of Rome at the very end. To the next picture, Emily. And you will see how impressive the Senate was. Simple impressiveness. They are the doors of the Senate. Yes, you will remember they are the doors, that’s not me at them, that was somebody else I photographed, this poor man, I got him to stand here and there, and everywhere, around this particular place where these doors are, so he could give me scale. Now, these doors are no longer on the Senate. They’ve been moved to the Lateran Cathedral, which is the Cathedral of Rome! St. Peter’s, remember is not the cathedral of Rome, St. Peter’s is the parish church of Vatican City.

The Lateran Cathedral of Rome sits slightly outside of the centre of Rome. And in the 1880s, these doors were taken off the Senate, where they had been on their hinges for 2,000 years, and they were moved to the Lateran Cathedral of Rome. But! At least they weren’t destroyed. You can see, you can sense that power of those doors of the Senate. Julius Caesar would’ve walked through those doors. They are as magnificent now as they were then. They’re bronze, they’re massive, and if this man had been allowed to push that door, those doors would’ve moved over as smoothy as anything because the original bronze doors were hung on bulb bearings, and hinges, where they could effortlessly moved. Open, be moved, open and close. Such as the engineering of the Romans. But there those doors are, they are not normally open, they’re opened when the Pope or other heads of state visit the Lateran Cathedral. Other than that, mere mortals like us have to take the side entrances. But what an amazing survivor from Ancient Rome. Okay, to the next. We looked at the arches of Rome, and we looked at a number of them. It is thought that there were 28 triumphal arches actually constructed in Rome over that thousand year period. And this is the arch of Titus, which I think will particularly interest a lot of people. We also looked at the art of Severus last time, and a couple of the others. But this is the arch of Titus. It’s very beautiful, set within gardens near the Roman forum. It’s the simplest of the surviving arches, there’s only three surviving triumphal arches now in Rome.

There are a number of other arches though, and they’re often confused as being triumphal arches, but they’re not. Those arches might be arches that were converted into arches from being gates in the walls. So, there were only three of those triumphal arches left, and this beautiful Titus arch, very simple, one simple arch in the middle rather than a set of three arches, this very solid, powerful structure. And built by Titus, actually, it wasn’t built by Titus, but it was built later on to commemorate the victory of Titus in A.D. 81 after the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. If we take the next picture, you will see that very famous or infamous threes within the arch of Titus’ arch of the plunder being brought back, and the prisoners, the prisoners from Jerusalem, the Jews from Jerusalem, and the plunder, there is a picture of the menorah from the second temple being brought back. Huge amounts of discussion over the centuries, whatever happened to that menorah. There are many theories. Some theories it is at the Roman Catholic Church, which was the natural indirect inheritor of Ancient Rome, has it in the Vatican volts. Highly unlikely for a number of reasons, although the romantic appeal of that theory is completely understandable. What is much more likely is that when Rome was sacked by the vandals in the 14, in the 2nd, 3rd centuries, and 4th centuries, in fact, A.D., it was probably either taken away as war booty from Rome, or more likely than that, even it was melted down because the vast majority of things that the vandals found, they didn’t particularly value as items of beauty, unlike the Romans who did.

And they melted everything down and sold it up, but made it into coinage. So, highly unlikely, I wouldn’t say it’s not possible, it’s not buried somewhere, but if it is true to form, it would’ve been melted down as war booty. But we know for sure that it did end up in Rome, and it was paraded on the triumphal marches around Rome in those years that followed the destruction of Jerusalem and the second temple in Jerusalem. And of course, I spent quite a bit of time on that idea of the temple of the holiest house in Jerusalem in the four-part series that I did on Jerusalem, which seems so long ago now, but it is almost a year ago since we looked into that, and the sects of the city around Jerusalem. A nice, pleasant reminder. Okay, moving on, we look at the Colosseum! Which again, to use a much overused words, but it’s correctly used here, an iconic structure of Ancient Rome. It is to this day still one of the largest amphitheatres ever built at its height, it seated 86,000 people. Absolutely astonishing. And it is considered one of the seven wonders, not of the ancient world, because the models of the ancient world was the really ancient world. So, we’re talking about the pyramids of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Library of Alexandria, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple of Jupiter, the Colossus of Rhodes. And the mmm, I can’t remember the seventh, that’s sixth of the seventh. But then, there were a second set of wonders that are considered to come in after the time of Jesus.

Yes, I remember now, the seventh wonders was the tomb of Mausoleus at Halicarnassus, modern day Bodrum in Turkey, southwest Turkey. And so, there are the other seven wonders of the world which are said to be post-Jesus. So, we’ve got the Great Wall of China, Petra, the Colosseum in being one of them, the Yucatan pyramid in Mexico. Machu Picchu I think is one of them, Taj Mahal, and so on. But there was only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world that still survives pretty much intact, The Great Pyramid of Giza, and the other two pyramids surrounding it, and this Colosseum is in pretty good nick, considering its age and its use, and considering the plunder that Rome suffered over a thousand year period, over the period of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Okay! So, let’s now move on. And we’re moving on now to what was our second dash through Roman history. Ah! Sorry, one I’ve forgotten. And that was an echo of Ancient Rome in modern Rome. This wonderful structure, EUR. The area of EUR just at the outer edges of Rome. This was built by Mussolini during the fascist period, but it was clearly to echo the Colosseum because Mussolini wanted to play up the Imperial period, he played down, by the way, the Republican period, he didn’t want to remind people that Romans had been free, and had been citizens, he wanted to play up the Imperial period, the majesty of the emperor, and Mussolini was the new emperor. So bombastic was Mussolini, he actually incorporated the numerical patterns of his name within the building. So if you go across the top, it has nine windows, M-U-S-S-O-L-I-N-I, the nine letters of his family name.

And if you go from bottom to top or top to bottom, it has six floors, B-E-N-I-T-O, Benito Mussolini. So, the windows mirror the man’s name. And the whole of EUR is a fascinating area of fascistic architecture absolutely worth visiting, and so, autumn missed off the tourist trail. Definitely worth the visit if you’re next in Rome, or if you’ve never been to Rome, go to EUR! It’s a most awe-inspiring area. And not even now put to full use. Okay, to the next. We now go to obelisks. And you’ll remember that we looked at obelisks around the world. This one, Heliopolis. We can go through these quite quickly now, Emily. And there are two obelisk in Istanbul, Constantinople. And to the next one, the national monument in Washington, the tallest obelisk in the world, 555 feet. And the obelisk of Ancient Egypt in Place de la Concorde in Paris. And to the next one. The obelisk of so-called Cleopatra’s Needle along the Thames in London. It dates back to the time of Theodosius. And to the next, please. Now, to Rome. The obelisk of St. Peter’s, sometimes called the silent witness ‘cause it was said that this obelisk oversaw the crucifixion upside down of St. Peter, who subsequently became seen and revered as the first pope. And there it stands in St. Peter’s Square. Wonderful picture of this, really early light. So, Rome has many obelisks. In fact, there are more Ancient Egyptian obelisks in Rome, I said this last time, than in the whole of Ancient Egypt. The Romans plundered Ancient Egypt, and sometimes, the Renaissance period Romans kept on plunging Ancient Egypt.

There are also some obelisks in Rome that were made by the Romans. But it’s easy to find out which which, you can often tell because the Ancient Egypt obelisks have hieroglyphs on, and most of the Roman obelisks don’t, but that’s not always the case. But also if you just look closely at the wear and tear on the stones, an obelisk that’s four and a half thousand years old looks somewhat different to an obelisk that is only 2,000 years old. Okay, to the next one, please. And there we have that wonderful trident pattern of the streets of Rome. This is a modern day satellite photo, but look how they still follow those ancient Roman streets, Piazza del Popolo. There at the top corner, to the next picture. And you will see, as we come into the piazza, the obelisk is there, the piazza designed by Michelangelo. And to the next one. Beautiful, beautiful piazza. There is that huge obelisk that was brought all the way from Luxor down in upper Egypt, and brought up the Nile, then over the Mediterranean, then to 'em, almost as much effort to bring it to Rome, as was originally used to make the thing two and a half thousand years before that by the ancient Egyptians. Okay, to the next one. An obelisk come small and large. This is the obelisk of Antinous, who was the longtime lover and partner of Emperor Hadrian. And when Antinous drowned in the Nile, some say by assassination, some say by natural drowning, Hadrian had this obelisk built in his honour to his lover. And it was known as Antinous’ Obelisks. And there’s many tiny elegant obelisks in Rome, to the next one, please.

And you can see this little one, in Villa della Mantore. Beautiful. It’s in fact two obelisks, one on top of the other. So many obelisks in Rome, the Romans were able to saw one off, and put one on top of the other. It’s a glorious filler. It’s opened by appointments only, but it’s free to go, strongly, strongly recommended. Just look at that gorgeous symmetry. The Italians do symmetry just right, don’t they? Okay, to the next. And you can see that we are now looking at this final wonderful one, the Bernini elephant with the top of an obelisk. And there it is with the Pantheon behind it. To the left of it, the university that trains all the Vatican diplomats, and to the right of it, a Renaissance palace that was the scene for the trial of Galileo Galilei. Only in Rome! Could you have such a combination as that. An Ancient Egyptian obelisk atop an elephant, with a 2,000 year temple behind it. A university that trains Catholic diplomats to the left of it. And a palace that tried scientists to do with the Inquisition. All in, you don’t even need to do a turn of the eye, it’s in one stare of the eye. That is Rome in a nutshell. Is it not? I should add that the hotel where we always stay when we go to Rome is on the other side of this square. So, it has this wonderful view of this snapshot of Rome through 2,000 years.

And then, the next picture shows the rear of that view. Because it is thought that Bernini was not very happy with his patrons, the Roman Catholic patrons. So, the story is, he made the elephant, so that his backside faced that palace of the Renaissance where the trials of the inquisition took place. He got the final word in of what he thought about Roman Catholic power. You can also see RVA on the building. They’re the last two, three words of the Hotel Minerva, and that’s named Arthur, the Temple of Minerva, which was and still is situated underneath that very square. Okay, moving on please. We are looking at that next period in Rome, Imperial Rome. And let’s go to those pictures, please, Emily. And we’ll look at those pictures, and we’re looking at now, Emperor Lucius Demetrius Aurelius, who built the Aurelian Walls. You’ll remember I spent almost a whole lecture on those Aurelian Walls. And I’m going to now just take you through a few of those picture, and I want to remind you of these remarkable walls. Let’s just have a look at these pictures. And moving on, you’ll see, the pink is the Aurelian Walls, and the yellow is the more ancient Servian Walls. The walls that are around about 500 B.C. The Aurelian Walls were built 142 to 148 A.D., or thereabout, in a remarkably short period of time. Okay, to the next one. The Servian Walls, which are very ancient, pop up here and there around Rome. There’s one, there’s a church that was a Roman temple. Now, you can see these huge boulders are part of the old Servian Walls, to the next one.

And you can see how those remarkable Aurelian Walls, pretty much encase, almost the whole of what I will call tourist Rome today. Yet so few tourist visit those Aurelian Walls. There they stand! But they’re hardly visit. It’s always sometimes see bits and pieces of them. But you can circumnavigate the walls in around about two days if you are walking them, and a day if you are cycling them. I’ll come to that in a moment to give you an idea of the length and size of them. To the next one. So, we start these Aurelian Walls at the pyramids of Gaius Cestius, who was a magistrate in Ancient Rome, and there is one of the gates. Let me just repeat to you what I said to you a month and a half ago. The Aurelian Walls are 12 and a half miles, about 20 kilometres, 13 feet thick, 16 metres high on average, around about 52 feet high. 338 towers, perfectly marked at 30 metres apart from each. 7,020 crenelations, 23 gates, 116 latrines, not modern day latrines, latrines that were put in for the soldiers, and 2,000’s and 66, I think it is, windows around. And they encircle all of those Seven Hills of Rome. It was the first successful encircling of the Seven Hills of Rome. The Capitoline, the Quirinal, the Esquiline, the Caelian, the Aventine, and the Palatine. Those Seven Hills of Rome were all encircled. It was a terrible admittal for the Romans to have to build the Aurelian Wall. Because the Romans were proud of the fact that they didn’t have walls. Republican Rome had no walls! The 1st century of Imperial Rome had no walls! Such was the power of Rome that they didn’t need walls, their might was themselves! They didn’t need to protect themselves, such was their might. That said, there was a bit of cheating going on there because the Romans very cleverly stationed armies. Dozens and sometimes hundreds of miles from Rome.

See, if any threat did come, the threat will be seen off long before it reached Rome. So that psychologically, you can see the brilliance of the psychology of Rome. Psychologically, Romans believed that they were invincible! They had no walls. But really, they were being protected way before any of invaders would get to Rome. But it was nevertheless a source of huge pride to the Romans, that that was the case, and therefore, a source of huge shock when they had to build these walls. Let’s skim through and have a look at these walls. So if we can go through these pictures quite quickly, please. You will see that they’re within the cemetery. Sometimes, you can see them at the top ends of the cemetery. And just keep going through them. The San Sebastiano gates. 30 metres apart towers. The size of the wall’s there, man’s cycling, gives you an idea. The walls touch the countryside, sheep, as I walked around the walls. And the walls are used for aqueducts at the top. And the walls are sometimes used by tram goers, you’ll see that shortly. Because they go through very poor areas. And you can see sometimes the wall are very damaged. There is a particularly poor area where the wall just passes through. Fascinating walk to take. And continue it, please. The walls get to the Praetorian Guards. And the Praetorian Palace is still within the walls, and to the next picture, and you just hold it on the next picture, please. Thank you, Emily, just hold it there. You can see windows in the walls. That was the fortress of the Praetorian Guard, the elite guard that guarded all Roman emperors in that Imperial period. And to this day, that fortress is still used as the headquarters for the RAF in Italy. There was an army and air force base, sat top for 2,000 years. That’s been a centre of military power in Rome. The famous expression, who will guard the guards?

Or, who will guard the guards themselves? To be more precise. It wasn’t lost on Roman’s satirist at the time. I think it was Decimus who said that. Who will guard the guardians themselves? They understood that once you have an emperor that’s so powerful, and once you have the elite guards who guard the emperor who’s so powerful, you might have a problem there. And that again, is going to feed into what I’m going to say very shortly about the legacy of Rome. That the Romans were always on guard to guard their democracy, as they saw it. To the next one please, Emily. And then, we move around walls where people still live in, there’s a fan hanging out of that window, you will call that picture, and to the next one. And the walls are used sometimes as transportation with that tram that you saw before on trains, literally travelling along the top of the 2,000-year-old Aurelian Walls. To continue, please, Emily. And back to complete that circle at Gaius Cestius’ pyramids, 2,000-year-old pyramids. Okay, to the next section, please. To remind you of the fountains of Rome and the water supplies of Rome. Just waiting for that section to come through. Okay, we’re looking at aqueducts, the absolute key to Rome. There were seven main aqueducts in Rome. Now, that picture was taken in the 1930s. Horrifically, many of those were demolished by Mussolini. I’m so sorry to say. But there are the aqueducts as you can see them. And you can see that they were interlocking. It is estimated that Ancient Rome at its height, with a population of 1.2 million, used more water then than Rome uses today. Yes, that is the true estimate, because remember the Romans were bathing in water, they were harnessing Aqua Vergine, Aqua Virgo, Aqua Agrippa, all these aqueducts, all of whom had names.

They were harnessing that water to their economy, to bathe, and so on. It was incredible turnover of water. Okay, to the next ones, Emily, please. And there are some of the aqueducts, you can keep going through the pictures again. They’re these glorious ruins that are in parks around, and they fed these, the fountains of Rome, you’ll recall. I mean, that’s the most famous of them all. The Trevi Fountain, where three aqueducts actually combined. And although the fountain is Baroque period, there has been a fountain there since Roman times. We know that the Roman soldiers drank at the Trevi Fountain, Trevi coming from trio, three aqueducts coming in. So, that name Trevi has been in existence since the Roman centurions used that fountain 2,000 years ago. Let’s continue through and look at a few more of those beautiful fountains, look at that one. That’s a Roman, that’s a bathtub! From the Bath of Caracalla in Piazza Farnese, a beautiful piazza. And there you have a bronze bathtub now used to catch water in a fountain. Only in Rome, as I keep saying. Wonderful, wonderful continuation of use. And let’s keep going, the fountains, please. And we go through two the little fountains, more modest ones. And this fantastic one on Piazza San Bernardo. A beautiful, beautiful fountain of Moses. Look at the size of it! Again, it’s a fountain that’s modern and inverted commons, built in 1637, I believe. But there has been a fountain there for 2,000 years, because water brought down there from aqueducts, and also from natural springs. That’s one of my favourite piazzas in Rome. Because it’s used by people. It’s not a tourist piazza, there’s cars and there’s motorbikes, it’s a piazza as designed to be, it’s a proper working piazza. Okay, moving on, please. We go to Byzantine Rome. And we started, do you remember in Istanbul? So if we can again go through these photos, now, if we need to stop at any, I’ll let you know, Emily.

So, we start off with Hagia Sophia. The Church of the Holy Wisdom, which is where the centre of the Roman Empire moved to. Justinian established this as a church once Rome moved from Rome, the centre power had moved to Constantinople, named after Constantine. These glorious use of golden mosaics. Moving on, please. And these mosaics were in these structures, basilicas. If you can just hold that, two uses of the word basilica. Basilica can have a religious meaning, meaning, a particular type of church given the title Basilica as an honorific title by the Vatican. Or, it can have an architectural meaning. A long, rectangular church with an atrium at the front, an open courtyard, often with fountains. That is how St. Peter’s would’ve originally looked when it was built, moving on. We look at some of those other basilicas around the world, the Church and the Nativity in Bethlehem to the next picture. And you’ll see that the Church of the Nativity is this long basilica-style church. Almost nothing’s changed in 2,000 years. It’s a fantastic survivor. But then, we go from Bethlehem to Rome, look at the next picture. And you’ll see Santa Sabina in Rome. A beautiful church. Now, go into the next picture. You’ll look at the interior, just like the Church of the Nativity in Rome. Using 24 columns on the temple of Jupiter, having marble floors that came from the temple of Minerva in the Piazza Minerva. And if we look in at that Santa Sabina Church to the next picture, you’ll see those wonderful jetsam windows, ancient, ancient windows made of, it’s jetsam, it’s a collection of ancient minerals. So, you can’t see through them, but they let in light. They’re probably my favourite windows in Rome. To the next one, please.

The famous doorway, which has, and to the next one, that has top left panel, the oldest, the oldest depiction of Jesus crucified between the two thieves, of Gestus and Cestus, there he is, crucified. That is the oldest known depiction of Jesus crucified between the two thieves. And if we just go back one picture please, sorry, Emily. You can see that it’s the top left panel of a door, there’s no plaque, there’s nothing to tell you, if you didn’t know that, you just walked through that door. And by the way, look above the door, and you can see this wonderful lintel that came from the Senate in Rome. So here, you have the most amazing piece of 4th century Byzantine period depiction of Jesus. You have the lintel from the Senate in Rome, and you have the two side panels on the door, the two beams, the marble beams that came actually from the Colosseum. They came from the latrines in the Colosseum when Santa Sabina was restructured. Okay, moving on, please, a couple of pictures. We look at other Byzantine structures ‘cause although the Byzantine period made Constantinople the centre of Rome, Rome still has its wonderful share of Byzantine churches, and these are widely forgotten. This is a 19th century church. The Church of San Paulo, which is outside the walls of Rome. But it’s a glorious structure. But it all looks a bit fresh and shiny for me, but it’s pretty darn impressive. And it has within it the tomb of Paul. And you will recall that recent archaeological excavations as recently as 10 years ago, have found very, very ancient bone and tunic, and human remains within the sarcophagus of Paul. It seems to be quite reliable as a very ancient burial site.

Moving on, a little smattering of some of the other wonderful Byzantine churches in Rome, Santa Stefano della Rotondo. Beautiful church there, amidst palms and gardens, we can go into the church, it’s arches, it’s all arches and light. But unfortunately, very, very disturbing pictures of all types of Christian martyrdom in those early years of Christianity. To the next picture, please, Emily. And you will see the lights and the arches, and the secondary use of Roman columns, and to the next, we can go through these quite quickly. And there are other pictures of decapitations of punishment. And here, you can see beautiful Byzantine mosaic close up all over this church. Then, to the Church of Santa Costanza, the daughter of Constantine the Great, where she was buried in a sarcophagus, the sarcophagus is now in the Vatican museums, but there she is, to the next picture, the most exquisite, exquisite mosaics within this building. In we go to the next picture, to Santa Costanza. And look at the glory of these mosaics. They are horns and trumpets, and pigeons, and pheasants, and drinking bowls, and plants, to the next one, please. They are just exquisite. And because they are not religious, and because they’re not making a statement, they have survived. Nobody wanted to destroy it, nobody wanted to plunder it, nobody was offended by it. Some of the greatest Byzantine period mosaic, early Byzantine period, I should say, 4th century in existence. To the next one, please. And to other Byzantine churches, and we can keep going. That gold keeps coming up in these churches. And to the final two churches, Santa Prassede, those wonderful, again, posts covered with, mosaics, as you can see there. And there is Santa Prassede itself.

And moving on, we go into Santa Prassede, you will recall just coming up now, stop there, please, Emily, the square, that’s it, perfect. The, sorry, Emily, the square halo. Very rare survivor. To the next one, Emily, sorry. The square halo. There it is. And to the next one. Square halo closeup. And you can see, although these saints, saints are Christian saints, they’re covered in the robes of Ancient Rome. The message being clear that the pope and the Byzantine church was the inheritor of Ancient Rome, and that therefore, this was the temporal power and spiritual power was all wrapped within one in Rome. Let’s just move on. And to those final couple of churches that I wanted to show you after these gorgeous mosaics in these Byzantine churches within Rome, again, hardly visited is Catholic Rome. And some of those churches were the following. Let’s go through these, please. And again, it’s to make the message of continuum. That’s what I wanted to do today, is the continuation of Ancient Rome to Republican Rome, to Imperial Rome, to Byzantine Rome, to Catholic Rome. Although we have separated them in our journey of lectures, it’s a continuum. Rome continues all the way through, the concept of Rome continues. So, let’s just go through some of these wonderful churches that are built upon the previous ones. The Seven Hills of Rome as you can see.

And then within them, let’s have a look at some of these fantastic structures. The Tempietto built by Bramante. The forerunner of the dome of St. Peter’s, and beautifully, exquisitely structured. Again, devoid of tourists normally. And moving on. On the Tempietto, St. Peter’s itself, we could have five lectures just on St. Peter’s. And moving on again, please. We look at St. Pancras in London, 'cause you will recall that we went to some of the catacombs within Rome. And St. Pancras in London is named after San Pancrazio in Rome. So, back to Rome, the Church of San Pancrazio. There it is, behind St. Pancras station. And to the next one, please. There is St. Pancras himself dressed as a Roman because he was a Roman nobleman and a boy. He was martyred by the Romans age 12, I think. Moving on again, please. Into the catacombs, into the Church of St. Pancras. And to the next. Into the church itself, into the courtyard. And then, after we go into that church, down into the catacombs themselves, you can keep going, Emily, through them. Into the church, down into the steps. Typical catacombs from the time underneath a humble, little church in a poor little neighbourhoods. These magnificent paintings from 2,000 years ago. You can keep going, Emily, thank you. Look at that. Fresh as fresh can be so, some of those colours. And then, the other catacomb I went to was the one of San Valentinos, St. Valentine. Let’s move through those pictures. Think again, everybody, of the continuation of Etruscan of Roman. And if you can just hold it there, just back one, sorry, Emily.

Look at the columns in the floor. They’re just plunged in. There’s no refinement there in the building. It’s so ancient that they hadn’t yet really built proper beautiful columns to hold the columns. They just plunged these pillars into the ground. Look at also the simplicity of the capitals of the pillars. And then, when we move ahead, we’ll see the actual skull of St. Valentine. Traditionally, the skull of St. Valentine, there you can see, Valentine just along the top of his skull. And I think the next one was me very proud that I got access to this little catacomb, where it’s very rare to get access to it. Took me a lot of persuasion to get there, I think that’s the next picture, if we move on, I’m going from memory here. I think I’m beaming as I was photographed in that particular thing. Sorry, there I am. So, I got access all the way down, and I was very, very proud of myself. So if we can just go to the next slide, and you can see, final couple of churches, remarkable services taking place on the Church of Aracoeli on top of the hill, the actual hill of where Ancient Rome first started. And to the next one. And the next one. A renaissance period church that built upon a very, very ancient structure. That floor, by the way, look out on Coronation Day in London, because you will see on Coronation Day, a very similar floor, the Coronation chair, the chair of Edward the Confessors will stand, during the Coronation, May the 8th here in London, or May the 6th, I think here in London.

And King Charles will be crowned on the chair of Edward the Confessor. But the chair will sit, look closely on a cosmetic floor. Very, very similar to this. Made by a direct descendant of the person that made this floor in Rome. The Cosmetii family brought over to Westminster Abbey, to make that floor for the Abbey a thousand years ago. A direct descendant of the people that made this floor. Okay, just moving on. To the last few pictures of some of these lesser known churches. Let’s go into this church of St. Nicola St. Nicola built upon the fish, because there was a fishing pond there. Look at the beauty of this very simple, very ancient church, a church for pilgrims, there are pilgrims to this day. Again, think of the continuum, where pilgrims of this day still sleep, to the next picture, please. They sleep on those little beds I showed you pictures of, there they are, pilgrim’s beds in that church where they can go. And the church of the Gesu, the Jesuits. Look at the incredible ceiling built by Giovanni Battista. Painted by him in 1681 approximately, to the next picture. This remarkable ceiling that I had a lot of questions on from people last time, I think it far does the Sistine Chapel, yet you’ll almost have this church to yourself when you go. To the next one, please. Absolutely astonishing, that ceiling is flat, everybody. But just look at the clouds. The shadows don’t exist. The shadows are painted on the golds. So, the shadows that the clouds are casting, the clouds are flat. So, the shadows are painted as if to look like shadows. It is absolutely astounding. When I was last in Rome, I went into this church just for five minutes every day, just to take in this remarkable thing, I’d cycle along, lock up the bike outside, go in, give myself the five minutes of this wonder of human creation. It beggars belief. Okay, to the next one.

And the Church of San Clemente. Upon which is a Mithraeum, an ancient temple of an ancient Roman cult. And my hometown of Lester, might have recently discovered the Mithraeum. And that has just been in international news recently. A Roman temple has been discovered under Lester Cathedral, it could be a Mithraeum. Let’s go into that church. And you can see, it’s like walking into the courtyard, it’s almost like a vision of heaven going into the church. And then, to the next one, down underneath to the steps that go down. And let’s go to the next one, to the Mithraeum itself. There it is. Very, very Ancient Rome underneath Catholic Rome, underneath Byzantine Rome, underneath Republican Rome even. This goes back to the period of the kings of Rome, these ancient, ancient temples. And to the next. There it is, like Chinese dolls, one after the other, layer after layer, one inside the other. And to the final picture before that final slide about the legacy of Rome, is this beautiful lush picture of Rome, which to me symbolises Rome. 'Cause what you’ve got there is a mediaeval tower. You’ve got a Roman period main structure, you’ve got a Catholic period at 12th century gate, and you’ve got a Baroque period dome, it sort of has it all. Let’s go now to that last slide. What is the legacy of Roman? I’ve sort of highlighted seven things that I would say, is the legacy of Ancient Rome. The first is this incredible thing that Rome was able to do to move from republic to empire. That should incredible adeptness at being able to completely reform themselves from within. An amazing achievement. The second thing is concrete! As you can see!

That might sound a bit strange. But concrete was a Roman invention. It is approximately 10 to 15% cement, I think 15 to 20% water. Aggregates such as stand and stone, stones. But the key to Roman concrete was pozzolaric material. Volcanic ash that they brought in the millions of tonnes from the Bay of Naples, from Vesuvius, and that whole basin, and they shipped that pozzolaric ash all over the empire. So, Roman concrete, not only did the Romans invent concrete, but they had their own type of concrete that had ash from the Bay of Naples. That enabled them, not just to build temples and bridges, that’s important enough. It enabled them to build aqueducts because they were able to make concrete that was non-porous, so that all water could travel through aqueducts. It’s not very glamorous, but it’s a really important legacy of the Romans. They were the first empire, indeed the first civilization that were able to, on a long-term basis, and on a permanent basis, move water hundreds and hundreds of miles. I don’t need to explain to you how important that was to the growth of empire, and to the growth of their civilization. Incredibly important. The fourth one is Tibullus’ sense of self. Tibullus coined the phrase “Urb Aeterna.” “Urbs Aeterna,” The Eternal City. That phrase wasn’t coined by some British or French, or German, or American poet in the last few hundred years. Urbs Aeterna was coined by Tibullus in 140 years B.C. So strong was the Roman sense of itself, of themselves, that propelled them. They believed in their eternity, almost at the start of their period of power. That is remarkable. The fifth thing is Christianity. Because it could be strongly argued that without the Roman empire, Christianity would never have taken root.

Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 326 A.D. He dispatched his mother Helena to Jerusalem to find the holy sights. And of course, then the Roman Empire followed suit, and converted to Christianity. You have to view Christianity as the continuum, and as the adaptation of the Roman Empire, not as a revolution in itself. The Christians who have been so awfully persecuted by the Romans, who have been so mercilessly tortured and slaughtered by the Romans, then became the Roman Empire. And that assured the continuation of Christianity with all the implications that that had for the civilization of Europe, and the history of Europe, and the history of the world that then followed. It’s an incredible legacy. And then the last two, what I would say are the really big two, not the Christianity or the movement of water are small. But the really big two that speak to us, I would say, is diversity, firstly. That it’s really important to bear in mind that the Roman Empire, because it was cross-continental, would have movement of people from all over the place. The mobility of the people, the merging of cultures was absolutely phenomenal. More and more skeletons are being found. For example, a group of skeletons of Romans were found in Scotland recently, but the teeth, we could tell from the test done on the teeth, showed that these people were from Africa. So, here was Romans in Scotland who were originally from Africa. This is being found more and more, and more. So, what you had was, you had almost a concept of Rome.

The idea was that you could move around, and Rome became this incredibly diverse empire that went from Constantinople in the east, to Scotland in the north, to North Africa in the west, and all the way down to parts of Liben Ethiopia and the the Arabian Peninsula down in the southwest. All of these people, most of whom would never go to Rome, consider themselves Roman! Why? Because of the idea of citizenship, which again was this remarkable Roman thing. You had the idea that if you were part of Ancient Rome, you had citizenship! That was extraordinarily important. The ability to turn people who weren’t Romans into Romans because they were part of that empire, this was extraordinarily important. So, you were called a Latin, you were a subject of the Roman Empire. The idea that you could be a subject of the empire, whether you were in Britain or France, or whether you were in Scotland or North Africa. And there was almost like an identiquette of what a Roman city would look like. Whether it was in any of those places, it had a forum, it had straight roads, it had squares, it had baths, it had laws, it had regulations. So, there was a concept of what it was to be a Roman. When the vast majority of people that were in the empire never visited Rome, had never been to Rome, had probably never met a native Roman. Now, that is an amazing legacy because that speaks to unity, and that speaks to the idea that what is bringing people together is an idea. And that goes back to my very original line at the beginning of this series of five. That Rome is one of those few cities, Jerusalem is another. Is one of those few cities that is a concept. And that concept continues to this day, particularly with these ideas of diversity, of citizenship, and of the idea of the people, of a place, being that place. That, I would say, is Rome’s legacy to us. We have a few minutes for questions if we may. As always, I’m available on email. I’m just going to go into those questions now, and here we go.

Q&A and Comments:

Gail, I haven’t given a lecture on drains and lampposts of London, but I do hope to do a series on London one day. Alas! I’ve talked about Jerusalem, Rome, I’ve talked about lots of other cities, Cairo, haven’t yet gone on to London, I will eventually, and there’s lots of things. It is fascinating, I agree with you. Drains and lampposts are absolutely fascinating.

I always stay, in answer to your question, at the Albergo Santa Chiara, Rome. Santa Chiara, Rome. Fantastic little hotel. Little Renaissance palace, it is reasonably-priced if you book early enough, and its location is totally unrivalled.

Q: “Why do we relate to St. Valentine’s to a love day?”

A: Well, one of the many patronages that St. Valentine’s was, was the patron saint of love, and of peace, and other things. That’s how it’s come down to us in these day.

Q: “What were the long, white robes worn by standing men in the service in the church slide?”

A: Yes, you are quite right! They were the Knights of Malta. So, they had come over from Malta for that dawn service in that particular church. Well-spotted.

“Having been in the building industry for over 30 years, I’m amazed with the quality of workmanship and craftsmanship without the modern tools that we have nowadays.” One word, it is miraculous, Ron. I agree with you, but bear in mind, we’re only seeing the successful buildings. Many buildings from the ancient world did fall down. It’s like when I look at stained glass, one of my great hobbies is the mediaeval cathedrals of Britain. And we look at the mediaeval glass in awe. But remember, the vast majority of mediaeval glass didn’t stain properly. We found rubbish dumps all over the north of England, of failed stained glass windows that were just thrown out. So, we are seeing the best of the best because it was the best, and because it survived. But I don’t want to detract from what you’re saying, Ron, I agree with you. I am in awe, but there were lots of failed ventures as well in the ancient world when it came to building.

Q: “If some room of skeletons,” Jerry asked. “Found in Scotland were found to have been the North African origin, presumably they would’ve been black.”

A: Presumably, yes, I’m not an ethnicist or geneticist, so I can’t be sure on that, but they were certainly from North Africa, and they’d been matched with DNA of people from North Africa.

Q: “Can you give up your email?”

A: You can get that from the office, Louise. Lauren and others will have my email address in the Lockdown University office.

The spelling, the name of the hotel, if you could throw me an email, Betty, and I will give you the full name of that hotel. So, anybody that comes to that hotel, ooh, maybe I’ll get commission.

Lots of people are asking, just throw me that, and I’ll give you that.

Everybody, thank you so much for this series of “Five Lectures on Rome.” I’m next on the 7th of May, going from wonderful, romantic Rome, to cool, but very beautiful and majestic and august Edinburgh. I look forward to seeing you on the 7th of May.

Many thanks indeed. Buh-bye.