| Images of Mary on street corners were once pagan shrines devoted to the household gods. Ancient temples have been absorbed into the fabric of Christian churches. And the Pope has a pagan precedent. The ancient Romans had their own high priest, the Pontifex Maximus. Even this procession has echoes of the pagan world. In 205 BC, there are stories of the Magna Mater, a foreign goddess, being brought into Rome by boat right up this river, just like this, except it wouldn't have been motorboats. It would have been wooden boats. It wouldn't have been balloons, it would have been incense lamps. But the modern, Christian Rome of today, in many ways, is not so far removed from the ancient, pagan Rome of gods and emperors. And there's a clue to the origins of Rome's timeless sanctity in its founding myth. |
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