THE CLOSING YEARS OF ST. PAUL'S LIFE

IN ROME.

BY COL. R. M. BRYCE THOMAS, AUTHOR OF "MY REASONS FOR LEAVING THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND."

II.

Another mile brought the travelers to the village of Lemonium, where Seneca, the great rhetorician, had his villa. Seneca was of Spanish birth, having been born in Corduba (Cordova) in B. C. 61. His son L. Annæus Seneca, the philosopher, became tutor in A. D. 49 to the young Domitius, afterwards known as the Emperor Nero, who donned the purple in A. D. 54. After a while he became irksome to the emperor, and was put out of the way by his orders, in A.D. 65, by suffocation in a vapor bath in his own villa, because he tried to use his influence to check the vicious propensities of Nero, and also, it is said, because the emperor's cupidity was aroused by the wealth of the great philosopher. Seneca's tomb, which was erected in A. D. 65, is still standing near the fourth mile from the city.

To the right could be seen the great aqueduct of Claudia, constructed by the Emperor Caligula and his successor Claudius, A. D. 38-52. Its total length was forty-six iniles, of which thirty-six were underground, and the rest upon arches, some of which were extremely lofty. There were nine such aqueducts in all around Rome, besides some minor channels for bringing water into the city. Professor Ramsay, in his book, A Manual of Roman Antiquities, says that the water that passed through these channels (as well as the aqueducts themselves) was distinguished in each case either by the name of the person by whom it was introduced,

as for instance, "Aqua Appia," "Aqua Marcia," “Aqua Claudia," etc., or from the source from which it was derived, as "Aqua Alsietina," "Anio Vetus," etc., or finally, from some legend connected with its history, as "Aqua Virgo," etc. The Aqua Claudia and "Anio Novus," which was also an aqueduct made by Claudius, conducting water into the city from a distance of fifty-eight miles, were two of the grandest and costliest works of their class, and, being more elevated than the rest, furnished supplies of water to the highest parts of the city. Some of the arches of the last named aqueduct are said to be over one hundred and nine feet high. It is interesting to note that each of the streams brought by the nine aqueducts entered the city all at different levels from the rest. There existed reservoirs and fountains all over Rome, necessitating the use of great volumes of water, and this is somewhat the case at the present time also. Nothwithstanding that the population of Rome is about one-twelth that of London; it is said that the amount of water that now passes through the former exceeds by eight times that which passes through the latter.

At the third mile would be seen the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, which is generally acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful sepulchral monuments of the world, and the best preserved of those along the Appian way. It consists of a round tower sixty-five feet in diameter, formed of stupendous blocks of tiburtine stone fixed together without cement, and adorned with a Doric frieze of marble, on which are sculptured the heads of oxen festooned with garlands and flowers, from which it is commonly called in Italian Capo di bove (head of the ox.) From the inscription in large letters below the frieze- Cæcilia Q. Cretici Filia Metella Crassi-it is evident that Cæcilla Metella was the daughter of Q. Cæcilius Metellus Creticus, who was consul in B. C. 69, and the subduer of Crete to the Roman yoke, and that she was the wife of the triumvir M. Licinius Crassus, surnamed Dives, whose ruling passion was the love of money. He permitted no scruples to interfere in adding to his wealth, and was the meanest while he was the wealthiest of all the Romans of his time. He, however, found no illustrious sepulchre at his death, for after having been defeated in his unsuccessful expedition against the Parthians in the plains of Mesopotamia, near Carrhæ (the Haran of Scripture), he was slain in

his interview with the Parthian general. Dr. Smith tells us further that his head was cut off and sent to Orodes, who caused molten gold to be poured into his mouth, saying, "Sate thyself now with that metal of which in life thou wert so greedy." This mausoleum of Cæcilia Metella was erected to her memory by her father, and contained a large and most beautiful sarcophagus of white marble, which Pope Pius III of the Farnese family caused to be removed to the court of the Farnese palace, where it is now to be seen.

A mile from the imperial city Paul and his companions would pass through the arch of Drusus, which was erected in about A. D. 20. Drusus was the younger brother of the Emperor Tiberius, and the father of Germanicus, and was born in B. C. 38. Youthful as he was, he carried out four very successful campaigns against the Germans (B. C. 12-9), consequently the Roman senate decreed him various honors, erecting him a marble arch and trophies on the Appian way, and granting him and his descendants the cognomen of Germanicus. (Suetonius, "Claudius," I.) On the return of his army from the Elb to the Rhine, Drusus accidentally fell from his horse and broke his leg, the accident resulting shortly afterwards in his death in B. C. 9, at the early age of twenty-nine years. The arch is now somewhat mutilated, and originally terminated in a pediment, but an aqueduct was led over it by the Emperor Caracalla, so as to obtain a supply of water for his great public baths in the city, the broken remains of which seriously impair its appearance.

Close by on the right were the various columbaria or sepulchral chambers of the freedmen of the imperial family of Rome. They are called columbaria from the supposed similarity of the niches which contain the ashes of the dead to pigeon holes (the Latin name of a pigeon being columba.) The names of the deceased were painted on plaster or carved on marble tablets, and placed above or below the niches, which ran in uninterrupted rows round the chamber, each niche containing one to four cinerary Here we can be said to look on the ashes of some of the early Christian converts of the imperial house, perhaps of some whom Paul during his stay in Rome brought to the knowledge of the gospel. We recall the salutation of Paul to the Philippians (chap. 4: 22), written from Rome: "All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Cæsar's household;" and we also find in

urns.

some of the inscriptions names that have become familiar to all Bible students, such as Tryphæna, Tryphosa, Epaphras and so forth. Paul salutes Tryphæna and Tryphosa when writing to the Romans from Corinth (chap. 16: 12). He mentions Epaphras when writing from Rome to the Colossians (chap. 1:7; chap. 4: 12), and also when writing from the same place to Philemon (verse 23). Mr. Russell-Forbes tells us that such names as Amplias, Tryphæna and Tryphosa are to be found on slabs in another of the columbaria, a mile further back on the Appian way, known as the columbaria of the servants of Livia Augusta, and which was discovered in A.D. 1726. It may be presumed, therefore, that such names were not uncommon among Christians in Rome. The Tryphæna and Tryphosa whom Paul knew must be presumed to have died or else removed from Rome before Paul's arrival in that city, because in none of his epistles from there does he make any mention of them whatever.

THE NEW RUSSIAN DUMA AND THE CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA LEADING UP TO IT.

BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER.

On the 5th day of March, the day after the Congress of the United States dispersed, the new Duma convened in the Tauride Palace, at St. Petersburg. This second Russian parliament, composed of 495 members elected, is the answer which the throne receives to the dissolution of the first Duma. It was hoped by the Reactionaries, who are led by the bureaucracy, that the new parliament would be less radical than its predecessor, and perhaps be made up of men more favorable to the existing order of things. The Constitutional Democrats, however, are in the lead and elected one of their members, Feodora Golovine, president of the lower house. On the first ballot, he received 331 votes as against 91 votes for Khomiakoff, the candidate of the Right, (the government party). There were a few scattering votes, but Golovine's election was finally made unanimous.

There was naturally much curiosity in the foreign colony of St. Petersburg over the appearance and character of the new members. It was quite evident from the start that a great majority of the new Duma intends to insist on two important questions which led to the dissolution of the last Duma; namely, the pardon of the political prisoners, and ministerial responsibility. In the first Duma, the labor and peasant members had a somewhat patriarchal appearance and were rather lenient in their attitude toward the government. The new men, however, who occupy their places belong to a younger class whose appearance give evidence of greater firmness and insistence. Whether they will wreck the Stolypin Ministry is perhaps the most serious question, and the