Rome

Rumour has it that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is selling his agreeable little yacht Koru because it will not fit into places like Monaco and Venice and costs far too much to run. Poor old Jeff! Had he studied Classics, he would have known this was not a wise project. In 240 BC, we are told, Archimedes designed for Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse, the cargo boat Syracusia, protected by fearsome armaments, carrying 400 tons of grain and 500 tons each of pickled fish, wool and other cargo. It had interior panelling of cypress, ivory and aromatic cedar. Multi-coloured mosaics re-telling the Iliad covered the three floor-levels. There was a temple to Aphrodite, the ship’s guardian deity, and statues and artworks were liberally scattered about.

On the afternoon of Easter Sunday last year, Pope Francis was driven through St Peter’s Square in an open-topped Popemobile. A few weeks earlier he had nearly died from pneumonia, so pilgrims were thrilled to watch him blessing babies. They told journalists that it was a miracle to see the 88-year-old Argentinian in such good shape. At 9.45 the next morning the Vatican announced that Francis had just died from a stroke. And so began the preparations for a conclave that elected the second pope from the Americas. Cardinal Robert Prevost – ‘Bob’ to his friends – was a Chicago-born dual citizen of the United States and Peru. Until 2023 he’d been bishop of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo.

Those for whom the welfare state does not provide as much welfare as they would like might care to reflect on the plight of the Romans, for whom there was no such thing as the welfare state. A superb monograph by Kim Bowes, Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent, drawing on papyrus and other finds from across the Roman and Egyptian worlds, shows in fascinating detail how the poor survived. She defines the poor as the c. 90 per cent who ‘worked with their hands’, most of whom were farmers renting their farm (rents were not cheap). One Soterichos rented a number of small, scattered plots, with small yields, and died in debt. His wife and children budgeted carefully and started breeding farm animals (very profitable).

Some Labour MPs are demanding that Colonel Alistair Carns, a former Royal Marine who served in the military for 24 years and was awarded the Military Cross for his service in Afghanistan, become leader of the party. The Romans would have approved, but might have felt he was not quite rich enough. Rome fought its rivals for control over the only resources anyone had: land and its products and people. The more territory a state controlled, the more powerful it would be. Those doing the fighting were led by the phenomenally wealthy landowners who, combining political authority with military command, controlled the Senate. Success in the field of battle virtually guaranteed an influential political career.

To look through Jeffrey Epstein’s curriculum vitae on Google is to be left goggling at how this revolting creature could have gained credence among so many influential people. Roman censors would surely have dealt with him in pretty short order. Their job was to keep an eye on the moral and financial standing of every Roman in the state. For those who did not live up to the standard expected of a citizen, a mark (nota) was put next to his name on the census rolls, resulting in humiliation and loss of political status. Extravagantly flashing one’s wealth about, bad parenting, cruelty, disgusting behaviour, disreputable business practices, cowardice on the battlefield and suchlike would lead to infamia (public ignominy) and expulsion from official positions.

Ordinary Romans, famous for their cheerful working-class familiarity, loved Pope Francis for his common touch. For the first time in living memory, they will have the opportunity of turning out on the streets to say their final farewells to a Pope, as Francis willed that he be buried in the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline hill rather than in the vaults of St Peter’s. His will be the first papal burial procession to the Basilica since Clement IX’s in 1669. Unlike his predecessors, though, Francis insisted on plainness, economy and simplicity. His first arrival in the Vatican as Pope was by public bus. His departure, in a plain wooden coffin, is likely to be equally low-key and dignified. The mortal Pope dies, but the Eternal City lives. And, indeed, is reborn.

As timing goes, a pope simply can’t do better than to die just after Easter Sunday. The moral of the thing hardly needs saying. Francis died in Christ and will share His Resurrection. In fact, that’s exactly what several bishops have been observing today. But Francis also had his Good Friday. He was desperately ill in the Gemelli hospital in February, being very close to death in particular on 28 February. But he pulled through with all the drugs and therapies possible, and went triumphantly on. For that’s what he did. That popemobile trip round St Peter’s Square yesterday, the meeting with J.D.