the glory of rome

THE GLORY OF ROME

The city of Rome symbolizes the fusing of the centuries. Within her borders are the substantial evidences of three distinct periods of western culture, ancient, mediaeval, and modern. She has responded to the inquiries of archaeologists and historians in a most unselfish manner, and her storehouse of documents is not yet empty. Every day her ruins reveal some new aspect of an ancient glory in material and cultural achievement and of a great social and political force of two thousand years ago. But her glory is not alone the glory of an ancient temporal power. She represents also a conquering mediaeval institution, the Roman Catholic Church. Within the city is the Vatican, the tangible, visible evidence of a spiritual power and authority. But Rome is not all of the past. That "Rome was not built in a day"
is true. In fact, she is still under construction.

Rome is modern, progressive, a present force among the cities of the world even as she is the treasure house of the ages. Ancient Rome was substantial, extensive, and magnificent.
Walls and monuments erected two thousand years ago will remain two thousand years hence. They seem to be as enduring as the eternal hills on which they were built. Not many cities today can boast of buildings of such enduring qualities. And the wide reaches of the ancient city are a source of repeated surprises to the visitor. Even after one has read descriptions of the ruins with details of length, breadth, and height of the different structures, and of their locations, he is still unprepared for the panorama which stretches out before him when he visits them. In many parts of the present city of Rome and beyond its borders are the silent, material reminders of an extensive municipal development. In point of size the Rome of the Caesars was no mean city. And, further, in the fne art of building and of decoration
and ornamentation, ancient Rome attained an exceedingly highdegree of excellence. There was wealth in those days, as well as organized effort, artisans and artists, and leisure to enjoy the prosperity of the period. The arches, the columns, and the tem ples commemorating deeds of valor and virtue in the men of the Roman state stand today not so much as memorials to men as to a vital, energetic, conquering, and constructive people.

One canrather easily let his imagination take him from the splendid ruins to the more splendid edifices in their unspoiled condition in the period of the empire's glory, and then from the buildings in their magnifcence to the colorful and confdent life of the people who used them. If what remains are only ruins, and they are, then the original buildings and the life they served can easily explain the centuries of conquest and world power under the Roman people.
Just as the material ruins in and near the city represent the ancient imperial glory of Rome, so does the Vatican, in the same city, represent the chief mediaeval institutional development.
Christianity had its origin in Palestine, but the institution which has assurned responsibility for perpetuating Christianity had its signifcant beginning and development in Rome. The church of the Middle Ages succeeded the Roman empire, the pope succeeded the emperor, and the archbishops and bishops succeeded the provincial offcers. The church of the Middle Ages was almost the only orderly and highly organized agency for the civilization of the barbarians who overran the territory of the weakened and tottering Roman empire. Despite its limitations and manifest weaknesses it did represent authority in the disordered affairs of the time. Its monasteries were highly organized and became the "outposts of civilization" in western Europe. The officers of the church and its emissaries spoke with a divine sanction, and
men stood in awe of them. The church was a kind of bridge between the ordered life of ancient Rome and modern times. It was mediaeval, but it was potent. Now this institutional force of the mediaeval centuries, still energetic and aggressive, is repre sented best in the city of Rome. The monks in the robes of their respective orders, and the priests in the robes of the church are a part of Rome.

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