When in Rome

September 2009

In Romans 16:1, Paul commends the deacon Phoebe to his readers. This woman, a leader of the church at Cenchrae in Greece, probably carried Paul’s letter to Rome, delivering it to the Christians there. What was Rome like when Paul’s letter arrived? Who were these early Roman Christians? What did they think of Paul, that outspoken fellow who called himself “apostle to the Gentiles”? Let us imagine what Phoebe experienced when she made her visit to Rome, sometime in the mid-50s, in the first century A.D.

Sights, Sounds, and Smells of the City

Rome was a busy, crowded city. The Roman Forum, where people conducted business, bustled with activity. There you could consult a lawyer about an upcoming court case. Or you could listen to poets reciting their compositions to an appreciative—or rudely critical—audience. The marketplace sold daily necessities such as food and pottery, as well as exotic jewelry and trinkets from all over the known world.

Visitors admired the elegant temples and magnificent public buildings surrounding the Forum. These structures were richly decorated with marble and supported by perfectly proportioned columns. (Phoebe, of course, would have stayed away from the temples dedicated to Roman gods.) Though many parts of Rome were beautiful, other sections were slums, blighted with decrepit buildings. The whole city was constantly under construction. Pedestrians had to step around scaffolding. When crossing the street, they needed to pay attention so they wouldn’t be run over by mule-drawn carts transporting building supplies to construction sites. (Roman drivers then were probably just as menacing as their descendants today.)

A visitor like Phoebe might have found the sheer numbers of people overwhelming. More than a million people lived tightly packed together in Rome, a city more densely populated than modern-day Kolkata (Calcutta).

There was an enormous immigrant population. People from all over the known world settled in Rome. People greeted one another in Latin, Greek, and foreign languages that the Romans considered “barbarian.” Slaves and poorer people usually wore brown wool tunics. Wealthy men wore white tunic-like garments. They donned togas for formal occasions. Women wore long draped dresses decorated with colorful trim.

The more pleasant smells of the city included bread from the bakeries and delicious food sold by outdoor vendors and snack bars. As you walked to work, you could stop at a food stall and pick up a fresh roll for breakfast. (Ancient Rome had its own version of fast food.) Some smells were less appealing, such as the sweat of workers on a hot day. The odor outside leather-tanning and cloth-dying workshops was hideous, since tanners and cloth dyers used human urine to prepare the leather and fabric.

Romans often complained about how noisy nights were. The emperor didn’t want a lot of cart traffic during the day when people were walking, shopping, and conducting business, so deliveries to shops were made at night or during the pre-dawn hours. Kept awake by the clatter of mule-drawn carts and the boisterous shouts of delivery men, a resident could find it very hard to sleep, especially on a hot night.

Living “as the Romans do”

Paul wrote his letter to the Romans in the Greek language. Most of the first Christians in Rome were Greek-speaking immigrants from the eastern parts of the Roman Empire. Latin was not their mother tongue, but they would have learned enough of that language to get along and do their work. Some Christians were Jews who had come to believe in Jesus. Others were converts from the Greek and Roman religions, which worshiped a variety of gods and goddesses. The earliest Roman Christians were not rich. The majority of the people in Paul’s audience may have been slaves or freed persons (former slaves who were now free, but still low in social status).

Wealthy and privileged people preferred to live in gracious, elegant villas on one of Rome’s seven hills, where they could enjoy their gardens and atriums (open-roofed courtyards). Poorer people, especially immigrants, had to live in the swampy lowlands. Archaeologists and historians think that the first Roman Christians resided in a very poor section of the city called Trastavere. It was a damp, unhealthy slum, close to the Tiber River. A lot of the smelly leather-tanning workshops were located there.

Almost all Roman citizens and slaves dwelt in tiny apartments in one of the many enormous tenement buildings. These giant tenements (called insulae or “islands”) were four or five stories high. The buildings were not only enormous, they were ugly and they were so poorly constructed that they were always at risk of collapsing. They were also fire hazards.

Apartments were cold during the winter and stiflingly hot in the summer, especially on the top floors. The poorly ventilated apartments could be smoky when people cooked their meals indoors on a charcoal fire. There was no air conditioning, central heating, or plumbing. (Rome had some sophisticated public latrines, where water channels carried away the waste. At home in the tenements, however, people used chamber pots and emptied them out the window. Or they used a small “closet” under the stairs with a container that needed to be emptied regularly.)

In our own day, a penthouse apartment is often the best place in a building. In Rome it was the reverse. There were no elevators. People unlucky enough to live on the top floor had to climb many stairs. A well-to-do family could rent spacious multi-room apartments on the first or second floor of a tenement. Wealthy apartment dwellers hired artists to paint beautiful outdoor scenes on their walls to make them feel like they were in the country! Ground floor spaces were often rented to business owners for stores and workshops.

Since 90 percent of the population of Rome lived in apartments in tenement buildings, it is likely that most of the earliest Christians lived and worshiped in such settings. We don’t know how many Christians lived in Rome when Paul sent his letter, but there were a number of groups meeting separately. While there were synagogues for Jews and beautiful temples to the Roman gods, there were no church buildings for Christians yet. There was no single place where all Christians in the city could meet together.

They had to make do with the space they had, meeting in small groups.

Prisca and Aquila’s tent shop

In Romans 16:3–5, Paul greets a congregation meeting in the home of Prisca and Aquila, who were tentmakers (Acts 18:1–3). Prisca and Aquila probably rented workshop space on the ground floor of a tenement. They would have slept in a smaller room in the back of the store and used the large front room for their work. There they would take customer orders, draw patterns, cut the material (canvas, linen, or leather) for tents and awnings, and sew the pieces together. Most tentmakers in Rome kept busy making awnings for homeowners, shopkeepers, outdoor vendors, and market stalls. In sunny Rome, everyone wanted shade.

Since their workshop was more spacious than most single-family apartments, it may have been used for worship gatherings. Their tent shop may have been one of the first storefront churches! Some 15 to 20 people would fit. Worshipers could sit on benches and stools. Others might have sat on stacks of fabric functioning as makeshift furniture. Tools and works in progress would be cleared away to make room for the guests. Perhaps work tables were used for the food, including bread and wine for the Lord’s Supper. When early Christians gathered, they often met at night and shared a meal. Imagine the flickering lights of the oil lamps as the community prayed and sang hymns together.

Christianity was not a legal religion in Rome. Christians had to worship in secret. Romans were suspicious of new religions, especially those that came from the east. Judaism was tolerated as an ancient religion. But the followers of Jesus seemed to resemble some of the secretive religions—such as worship of the Egyptian goddess Isis. However, as Christians met for worship, neighbors and passersby probably assumed that their gatherings were ordinary dinner parties.

So many things in Rome would have been unfamiliar to Phoebe. Back in her home town of Cenchrae and when she visited the church in nearby Corinth, Phoebe was probably accustomed to the congregation gathering in spacious homes, where 40 worshipers could meet together. The believers would have assembled in the dining room and adjoining atrium. The apostle calls Phoebe his “benefactor” (Romans 16:2), so Bible scholars think she had higher social status than Paul. In ancient times, rich people were expected to be benefactors (patrons) of those who had less. Perhaps she was wealthy and hosted worship services in her own home, which might have been decorated with artistically painted walls (frescoes) and the beautiful multi-colored mosaic floors that were popular in Corinth. In Rome, as she visited the different churches there, Phoebe would have found much humbler accommodations.

Reading Paul’s letter

Since most people at that time were illiterate, someone would have read Paul’s letter aloud to the people gathered in the various house churches in Rome. How would the Romans have responded to Paul’s letter? Some of the listeners already knew Paul. They were probably happy to hear from their dear brother in Christ and eager to hear his news from Phoebe.

Others may have been suspicious, wondering what the apostle wanted from them. Paul said he hoped to stop in Rome on his way to a mission trip to Spain (Romans 15:22–24). Would he overstay his welcome and put a strain on the community’s resources? Was he going to ask them for money?

Paul had strong opinions and was often controversial. He sometimes got into conflict with Christians who thought that believers should follow such Jewish rules as circumcision and the food laws. Would he stir up trouble in their city? However, some listeners no doubt looked forward to Paul’s upcoming visit, excited about his plans for evangelism in Spain.

The people listening to Paul’s letter expected him to come soon, maybe in a few months. Perhaps they began making plans with Phoebe to help the apostle spread the Gospel to the Spanish people. But Paul never made it to Spain. And when he eventually did travel to Rome, it was not the way he had originally expected.

According to the book of Acts, Paul was arrested in Judea and brought to Rome for trial. Later tradition says that Paul was beheaded in Rome, becoming a martyr for his faith. But before his execution, Paul lived in the city for two years under house arrest (Acts 28:16–31). He dwelt in rented accommodations, probably in a tenement apartment, where a guard stayed with him. He was allowed to have visitors, so the Christians in Rome could spend time with him in person. Many of the Roman Christians had been strangers to Paul when his letter arrived. But now these same people whom he had called “God’s beloved” (Romans 1:7) could meet the apostle face to face and become his dear friends.

The Rev. Dr. Joy A. Schroeder, an ELCA pastor, teaches church history at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and Capital University, where she holds the Bergener Chair in Theology and Religion. She is the author of Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation (Fortress Press, 2007).