It is hard to comprehend Rome. I sat down on a bench outside the small temple of Julius Caesar (see picture). Just on the other side of the wall there was a mound of dirt where his remains were cremated. Caesar walked by that spot the morning he was killed by his adopted son Brutus. He should have listened to the street corner Etrusian preacher who near that spot cried out to Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March.”
Later in the day Susan and I toured Palatine Hill where Rome is thought to have begun and where a huge palace covered the west side of the hill. The palace overlooked the Circus Maximus where horses and chariots raced for over 500 years before crowds that could number 250,000. (see picture) The palace was so magnificent that many said it caused the god’s to envy Caesar.
A large banquet hall can be found overlooking a courtyard filled with fountains. Here the powerful, rich and famous gathered to feast. Caesar would be seated on a platform and guests would recline on couches where they would gorge themselves on such things as bowls of larks tongues and pigs stuffed with live birds before roasting and lots of wine. If they got too full and wanted more a feather was provided to help them get rid of what was on their stomachs (see picture).
Hard to imagine the standard of living built on conquest, on booty, and on slave labor. It was great for those who were in power, but the cost in human suffering is all around, from the Coliseum where slaves fought and died, to the stories of rape and violence, the good life had a high price tag for many.
I had to think of the humble birth of a man in a distant country occupied by Rome. No one in this great city would know anything of his birth or his death, which was happened at the hands of Roman soldiers. He would have no palace to call home. No one would fear him. Yet the one born in Judea would inspire a new way that would ultimately conquer Rome. The Caesars are dead now, just their images in marble remain. But the one born in the obscure hamlet of Bethlehem remains a living presence in the hearts and minds of those who believe. And at the coliseum a cross stands where Caesar once sat. Love not hate and violence is eternal (see pciture).