Rome, the famous capital of the Western World, and the present residence of the Pope, stands on the River Tiber, about fifteen miles from, its mouth, in the plain of what is now called the Campagna, in lat. 41° 54′ N., long. 12° 28′ E. The country around the city is not a plain, but a sort of undulating table-land, crossed by hills, while it sinks towards the south-west to the marshes of Maremma, which coast the Mediterranean. In ancient geography the country, in the midst of which Rome lay, was termed Latium, which, in the earliest times, comprised within a space of about four geographical square miles the country lying between the Tiber and the Numicius, extending from the Alban Hills to the sea, having for its chief city Laurentum. Here, on the Palatine Hill, was the city of Rome founded, but it was extended, by degrees, so as to take in six other hills, at the foot of which ran deep valleys that, in early times, were in part overflowed with water, while the hill sides were covered with trees. The site occupied by modern Rome is not precisely the same as that which was at any period covered by the ancient city: the change of locality being towards the north-west, the city has partially retired from the celebrated hills. About two-thirds of the area within the walls (traced by Aurelian) are now desolate, consisting of ruins, gardens, and fields, with some churches, convents, and other scattered habitations. Originally the city was a square mile in circumference. The ground on which the modern city is built covers about one thousand acres, or one mile and a half square; its walls form a circuit of fifteen miles, and embrace an area of three thousand acres. Three of the seven hills are covered with buildings, but are only thinly inhabited. The greatest part of the population is now comprised within the limits of the Campus Martius. The ancient city, however, was more than treble the size of the modern, for it had very extensive suburbs beyond the walls. The population in 1836 consisted of 153,078, exclusive of Jews, who amount to 3700.
The connection of the Romans with Palestine caused Jews to settle at Rome in considerable numbers. On one occasion, in the reign of Tiberius, when the Jews were banished from the city by the emperor, for the misconduct of some members of their body, not fewer than four thousand enlisted in the Roman army which was then stationed in Sardinia. From Philo also it appears that the Jews in Rome were allowed the free use of their national worship, and generally the observance of their ancestral customs. Then, as now, the Jews lived in a part of the city appropriated to themselves, where with a zeal for which the nation had been sometime distinguished, they applied themselves with success to proselytizing. They appear, however, to have been a restless colony; for when, after their expulsion under Tiberius, numbers had returned to Rome, they were again expelled from the city by Claudius. It is probable that the Christians, as well as the Jews, properly so called, were included in this expulsion.
The question, Who founded the church at Rome? is one of some interest as between Catholic and Protestant. The former assigns the honor to Peter, and on this grounds an argument in favor of the claims of the papacy. There is, however, no sufficient reason for believing that Peter was ever even so much as within the walls of Rome.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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