41°53′N, 12°29′E · On the Tiber River, Italy
Historical Overview
Rome was the capital of the empire and the largest city in the western world, with a population around one million in the first century. It was the seat of the emperor, the Senate, and the legal and administrative machinery that governed the Mediterranean world.
There were Jews in Rome long before there were Christians. A Jewish community had been established in the city since at least the second century BC, and by the first century there were multiple synagogues. Suetonius records that the emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome around 49 AD because of disturbances “at the instigation of Chrestus” (Claudius 25.4) — likely a garbled reference to Christ.
What the Archaeology Shows
Rome has been excavated extensively, and the Christian sites of the first century are among the most studied in the world.
The Vatican necropolis, beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, was excavated in the 1940s and 1950s under the direction of Ludwig Kaas and later Margherita Guarducci. The excavation revealed a Roman cemetery from the 2nd century and, beneath it, a shrine from the mid-2nd century that had been venerated by Christians as the tomb of Peter. A Greek inscription from the 3rd century on the wall of the shrine reads PETROS ENI — “Peter is here.” Bone fragments found in the shrine were examined in 1968 and identified as those of a man in his sixties or seventies from the first century.
The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls was built over the traditional tomb of Paul. In 2002–2006 a marble sarcophagus was examined and confirmed to date from the first or second century; a fragment of purple linen and bone fragments were found inside.
The Catacombs, of which there are more than sixty in and around Rome, are mostly from the 2nd century onwards. They preserve some of the earliest Christian art and inscriptions, and they confirm the growth of the Christian community in the city.
What Happened Here
Rome is where Peter and Paul died. According to tradition and the earliest sources, both were martyred under Nero in the aftermath of the fire of 64 AD. Paul, as a Roman citizen, was beheaded. Peter, as a Jew from Galilee, was crucified.
Rome was also the destination of Paul’s final journey, recorded in Acts 27–28. He arrived as a prisoner, appealed to Caesar, and spent two years under house arrest preaching the gospel. The Pastoral Epistles suggest a subsequent period of freedom, followed by a second arrest and execution.
By the end of the first century, the church in Rome was the most prominent in the western world. Its bishop sent the letter known as 1 Clement to the church in Corinth around 96 AD — the earliest Christian document outside the New Testament — and its role in the wider church continued to grow.
