KOD
ROMAN EMPIKE
401
rocks in your love-fensts,' etc. The RV translates ffTiXdSes by 'spots,' and this has the supiioit not only of the Vul;;. mnculir, hut also of the iiarallel jiassage in 2 P '2'^. Hidden, or sunken, rocks is an eminently appropriate metaphor by which to de- scribe the unjjodiy character of tliose who, like Balaam and Korah, were inclined to mar the fellowship of Christian believers.
The only other passage remaining to be discussed is that contained in Rev 6'°- '", in which the Seer pictures the stru^^gle of the Church, and of God's judgment ujion lier enemies. At the opening of the sixth seal, the wicked are depicted as terrorized by an eartlujuake, and as hiding in the caves and rocks of the mountains, to escape the wrath of the Lamb. It is the dreadful Day of the Lord which is about to come. Panic seizes troubled consciences. The end is near. The wicked, even the rich and the mighty, princes and captains, bondmen and freemen, hide themselves, calling to the mountains and rocks to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and from the -wrath of the Lamb (cf. Is 2'», Hos 10', Lk 23™). George L. Robinson.
ROD. — 1. An instrument of punishment or correction. — The term denotes an instrument of punishment or correction.
(a) In his enumeration of the hardships and sufl'erings endured by him in the course of his apostolic labours, St. Paul employs the verb pa^oiiciti, ' to beat with rods,' to describe the punishment to which he was subjected on three occa.sions by Roman magistrates (2 Co 1P°). 'The rods ' was the customary expression for Roman scourging. In the one instance recorded in the Acts, the scourging was inflicted by the lictors (pa/35oOxoi, tr. ' sergeants ' in AV and RV, lit. 'rod-holders') by order of the duumviri (16-'-'- ^- **). It was the duty of the lictors to carry the fasces, consisting of rods bound in the form of a bundle, with an axe in the middle which projected from them. These, usually made of birch, were the instruments with which St. Paul and Silas were cruelly maltreated at Philippi.
(b) The term is used figuratively in 1 Co 4*' to denote the stern treatment called for in the event of continued recalcitrancy on the part of Church members, chastisement with the rod being a familiar method of enforcing obedience and sub- mission to parental authority (cf. v.'"-).
2. The symbol of soYereignty.— The 'rod' or sceptre is also used as the symbol of sovereignty (He 1« ; cf. Ps 45« 110^). Quotations in the Apoca- lypse (12' 19") from Ps 2", which represents the tlieocratie king as ruling {Tro^fj.avets, LXX) the nations with a rod of iron, are applied to the mediatorial reign of Christ, in which His servants also share (2-"-). The rod of empire, regarded as a shepherd's staff, is transformed into an instru- ment of penal authority which subdues or crushes all opposition (cf. 1 Co IS'^).
W. S. Montgomery.
ROLL.— See Scroll.
ROMAN EMPIRE.— The purpose of this article is to sketch the growth of the Roman Empire from its small beginnings down to about the middle of the 1st cent. A.D. The Empire did not stop growing at that date, but its later history hardly belongs to a Dictionary of the Apostolic Church.
1. Origins. — Rome, according to the opinion now commonly held, began with a settlement on the Palatine Hill on the left bank of the Tiber, some twenty miles from its mouth. This settlement occupied what was afterwards spoken of as Roma Quadrata, ' Square Rome,' from the shape of the outline of the walls. It was a community of VOL. 11. — 26
shepherds, who, along with their wives, families, and property, were i)rotected from an eiH'iiiy by the strung walls surrounding the town. Hill towns are still a feature of Italy. Other hills in the neighbourhood seem to have been occupied by similar communities, and there can be no doubt that these communities found it advisable to make an alliance with one another against their common enemies. Such an alliance had a religious sanction, and wo find in early times a festival of the Septimontium in existence, the seven mountains being the Capitolinus, Palatinus, Avcntinus, Cadius, Oppius, Cispius, Fagutal (the three last spurs of the afterwards named Mons Esquilinus). (The later list of the [proverbial] 'seven hills' is not precisely the same, but consists of the first four followed by the Mons Esquilinus, the Collis Viminalis, and the Collis tiuirinalis ; this list is purely geographical, and has no religious signifi- cance. ) The result of an attack on these coml)ined communities by the hardier Sabines from the hills to the north and east appears to have been the defeat of the Romans, and the absorption within the population of a strong Sabine element. This fresh element led to the strengthening of the power of the united peoples. A further absorption seems to have taken place as the result of struggles with their northern neighbours on the banks of the Tiber, the mysterious Etruscans, who were believed to have come from Lydia in Asia Minor through Thrace to Italy. The presence of certain Etrurian customs as well as the ancient ' Etrurian street ' ( Vicus Tuscns) in Rome proves their influence on the young city.