"Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame—
The friend of Petrarch—hope of Italy—
Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree
Of Freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be—
The forum's champion, and the people's chief—
Her newborn Numa thou—with reign, alas! too brief."
Childe Harold.
Through the brick arch of the Portico we enter upon the ancient Pescheria, with the marble fish-slabs of imperial times still remaining in use. It is a striking scene—the dark, many-storied houses almost meeting overhead and framing a narrow strip of deep blue sky,—below, the bright groups of figures and rich colouring of hanging cloths and drapery.
"C'est une des ruines les plus remarquables de Rome, et une de celles qui offrent ces contrastes piquants entre le passé et le présent, amusement perpétuel de l'imagination dans la ville des contrastes. Le portique d'Octavie est, aujourd'hui, le marché aux poissons. Les colonnes et le fronton s'élèvent au milieu de l'endroit le plus sale de Rome; leur effet n'en est pas moins pittoresque, il l'est peut-être davantage. Le lieu est fait pour une aquarelle, et quand un beau soleil éclaire les débris antiques, les vieux murs sombres de la rue étroite où la poisson se vend sur des tables de marbre blanc, et à travers laquelle des nattes sont tendues, on a, à côté du monument romain, le spectacle d'un marché du moyen âge, et un peu le souvenir d'un bazar d'Orient."—Ampère, Emp. i. 179.
"Who that has ever been to Rome does not remember Roman streets of an evening, when the day's work is done? They are all alive in a serene and homelike fashion. The old town tells its story. Low arches cluster with life—a life humble and stately, though rags hang from the citizens and the windows. You realize it as you pass them—their temples are in ruins, their rule is over—their colonies have revolted long centuries ago. Their gates and their columns have fallen like the trees of a forest, cut down by an invading civilization."—Miss Thackeray.
Here we are in the centre of the Jews' quarter—the famous Ghetto.
The name "Ghetto" is derived from the Hebrew word chat, broken, destroyed, shaven, cut down, cast off, abandoned (see the Hebrew in Isaiah xiv. 12; xv. 2; Jer. xlviii. 25, 27; Zech. xi. 10—14; &c.). The first Jewish slaves were brought to Rome by Pompey the Great, after he had taken Jerusalem, and forcibly entered the Holy of Holies. But for centuries after this they lived in Rome in wealth and honour, their princes Herod and Agrippa being received with royal distinction, and finding a home in the Palace of the Cæsars,—in which Berenice (or Veronica), the daughter of Agrippa, presided as the acknowledged mistress of Titus, who would willingly have made her empress of Rome. The chief Jewish settlement in imperial times was nearly on the site of their present abode, but they were not compelled to live here, and also had a large colony in the Trastevere; and when St. Peter was at Rome (if the Church tradition be true), he dwelt, with Aquila and Priscilla, on the slopes of the Aventine. Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius Cæsar treated the Jews with kindness, but under Caligula they already met with ill-treatment and contempt,—that emperor being especially irritated against them as the only nation which refused to yield him divine honours, and because they had successfully resisted the placing of his statue in the Holy of Holies at Jerusalem. On the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, thousands of Jewish slaves were brought to Rome, and were employed on the building of the Coliseum. At the same time Vespasian, while allowing the Hebrews in Rome the free exercise of their religion, obliged them to pay the tax of half a skekel, formerly paid into the Temple treasury, to Jupiter Capitolinus,—and this custom is still kept up in the annual tribute paid by the Jews in the Camera Capitolina.
Under Domitian the Jews were banished from the city to the valley of Egeria, where they lived in a state of poverty and outlawry, which is described by Juvenal,[94] and occupied themselves with soothsaying, love-charms, magic-potions, and mysterious cures.[95]
During the reigns of the earlier popes, the Jews at Rome enjoyed a great amount of liberty, and the anti-pope Anacletus II. (ob. 1138) was even the grandson of a baptized Jew, whose family bore a leading part in Rome, as one of the great patrician houses. The clemency with which the Jews were regarded was, however, partly due to their skill as physicians,—and long after their persecutions had begun (as late as Martin V., 1417—31), the physician of the Vatican was a Jew. The first really bitter enemy of the Jews was Eugenius IV. (Gabriele Condolmiere, 1431—39), who forbade Christians to trade, to eat, or to dwell with them, and prohibited them from walking in the streets, from building new synagogues, or from occupying any public post. Paul II. (1468) increased their humiliation by compelling them to run races during the Carnival, as the horses run now, amidst the hoots of the populace. This custom continued for two hundred years. Sprenger's "Roma Nuova" of 1667, mentions that "the asses ran first, then the Jews—naked, with only a band round their loins—then the buffaloes, then the Barbary horses." It was Clement IX. (Rospigliosi), in 1668, who first permitted the Jews to pay a sum equivalent to 1500 francs annually instead of racing.
"On the first Saturday in Carnival, it was the custom for the heads of the Jews in Rome to appear as a deputation before the Conservators in the Capitol. Throwing themselves upon their knees, they offered a nosegay and twenty scudi with the request that this might be employed to ornament the balcony in which the Roman Senate sate in the Piazza del Popolo. In like manner they went to the senator, and, after the ancient custom, implored permission to remain in Rome. The senator placed his foot on their foreheads, ordered them to stand up, and replied in the accustomed formula, that Jews were not adopted in Rome, but allowed from compassion to remain there. This humiliation has now disappeared, but the Jews still go to the Capitol, on the first Saturday of Carnival, to offer their homage and tribute for the pallii of the horses, which they have to provide, in memory that now the horses amuse the people in their stead."—Gregorovius, Wanderjahre.