In New Tales of Old Rome, by weaving a tapestry of historical explanation with revelations of recent discoveries, Lanciani not only helps the reader understand the past but helps him or her relive the excitement of rediscovering a city the author obviously loves. In the first part of the book, Lanciani outlines the difficulties of excavating a city as rich in history as Rome. Then the author takes the reader back to the time of the founders of Rome, depicting how they lived and how they worshipped. Moving into the imperial period, Lanciani focuses on a fashionable part of the city and goes into detail discussing its various shops. With this information in place, the author broadens his perspective by examining the early settlements in the lower valley of the Tiber, the geography of the region, the agricultural operations and the evolution of landowners in the area. In the final part of his tales, Lanciani brings Rome onto the international stage, but in an unusual way. He discusses Jews, English and Scots, some of whom first involuntarily made contact with the city but later created settlements, made pilgrimages and, as Prince Charles did in 1727, began to simply visit the city of Rome.

KEY WORDS: Archaeology, Jewish life in Rome, Comitium, Forum, Sacred Via, Roman history, Roman religion, Roman superstitutions, Sacred grove of the Arvales, Christian crypts, St. Paul, Scottish pilgrims

The statement ‘A discovery made on the borderline between the Comitium and the Forum, on June 15, 1899, has set the archaeological world astir’ sets the direction of Rodolfo Lanciani’s New Tales of Old Rome, a book based on a series of lectures he gave at St Andrews. Before developing his theme, the author clarifies matters.

In the first part of the book, Lanciani explains the various difficulties confronting an archaeologist in Rome. How far should one excavate? ‘No archaeologist in the world has the right to break one single link in the chain of chronology of superimposed structures and sacrifice one (layer) to the requirements of a deeper exploration,’ he writes. The task is to attempt to reach earlier periods without injury to later structures. Other problems crop up: medieval roads are paved with building material from earlier periods; edifices in the Forum and surrounding area were damaged by fire in AD 283 and the sack of the city by Gauls in 390 BC (involving rebuilding and rearranging). Even the documents on which an archaeologist can draw are suspect. Lanciani mentions the various and varying commentaries: was the stele inscribed and set up in the Comitium before or after the retreat of the Gauls? ‘Did the pedestal of Mayentius support a statue of Mars or the bronze wolf now in the Capitoline museum?’

In the second section, the author brings past into present. He does so by weaving a tapestry of historical explanation with revelations of recent discoveries. He begins by taking the reader back to the time of the founders of Rome, depicting how they lived, their surroundings, their religion and its evolution, and then moves into the imperial period. Rather than a dry scientific treatise, Lanciani takes the reader back to a Rome as it was. ‘Continuing our peregrination up the Clivus Sacrae Viae’, he goes into detail discussing the various shops of the most fashionable part of Rome: jewellers, makers of musical instruments, florists, perfumers and chemists. Lanciani even explains in detail the use of red, white and black pepper. To illustrate the psychology of its inhabitants, the author mentions various apparitions, such as a shower of blood falling in the Forum Boarium and an apparition of hostile legions hurrying to storm the city seen on the Janiculum.

With this foundation in place, Lanciani then takes a more bird’s eye view. He examines the sacred grove of the Arvales and the surrounding countryside. In a tapestry-like approach, he examines the early settlements in the lower valley of the Tiber, the geography of the region, the agricultural operations and the evolution of landowners in the area. As to the Roman attitude toward nature, he recounts Pliny’s story of Nero’s stepfather, who cherished a tree, worshipped it, embraced it and poured wine on its roots. Lanciani concentrates on the sacred grove, the seat of the Arvales, at the fifth milestone. Here was the Augusteum of the Arvales, with a marble head of Augustus himself. He explains the approaches, the excavations, the buildings and how the temple would have looked. In 1887, a ferryman’s anchor, a piece of marble, was found to be a valuable document from the plinth of a statuette representing the Genius of the guild of salt-carriers.

In the final part of his tales, Lanciani brings Rome out on the international stage, but in an unusual way. Instead of conquests, he focuses on who did what where in the city. He examines the Jewish colony on the banks of the Tiber which was already flourishing at the time of Pompey the Great. Lanciani goes into the various declines and triumphs of Jews in Rome (for example, Augustus was merciful to the Jews and protected them) and examines a Jewish quarter, schools, synagogues and catacombs. English memorials in Rome date back to the first century after the capture of King Caractacus. Lanciani examines an inscription of Claudius depicting the conquest of Britain. Over the centuries, contact became voluntary: English kings buried in ‘paradise’, near the Vatican; the Schola Saxonum, the oldest and foremost of foreign colonies established in the low and unhealthy ground around St. Peter’s; a pilgrimage made John Milton in 1637. In view of the sympathies of his listeners, Lanciani finishes his lectures and book with another group of visitors, the Scots. The author relates the tradition of the Scot Ninian, who arrived in Rome soon after Christianity had been established. A Scots college was founded in the sixteenth century and, long before the Reformation, there was a hospice for the relief of Scottish pilgrims. The young Prince Charles was in Rome in 1727, and Lanciani includes a two-page pullout showing how the Piazza Navona looked like when the prince visited.

What was that discovery that set the archaeological world astir? In 1899, in the Forum, an enclosure was found, twelve feet long, nine feet wide, screened by a marble parapet on three sides and paved with slabs of the blackest kind of Taenarian marble. As Rodolfo Lanciani notes, ‘We come to the conclusion that we actually behold one of the most famous relics of the early days of Rome.’ Throughout his book, the author not only helps his reader to understand the past, but helps him relive the excitement of rediscovering a city that Lanciani obviously loves.