The Vatican's greatest achievement was making the most successful empire in human history invisible by calling it a church. They didn't inherit Roman power - they preserved it, perfected it, and globalized it. The empire that supposedly ended 1,500 years ago now rules more souls than any Caesar ever imagined.

Rome never fell.

Some people say it had two end dates, in 476 or 1453 AD. But even those are debatable.

We can look into these dates to see where the Empire went, and we will, but we can also understand its survived, in some way or another, where it transformed into different terms, and survives today in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Various Fall Dates

1453 was just the date that Rome’s second capital fell, which was considered the Empire. But even then, there was still a Holy Roman Empire in Europe, that did not include Rome. The second capital in Constantinople is more important to the Roman Empire than modern conception gives it, being the capital for 1,000 years while the Roman one held more importance for only 400 years. After Constantinople, the Church was its own thing, and my argument is that it effectively took on the Role of Empire, in whatever name we want to give it. The city pleaded to SOMEBODY in Rome for help with they were losing to the Muslim Turks, but that was the Pope, not a king or Emperor, at the seat of what used to be the Roman Empire a thousand years prior.

So let’s step back: Constantinople was the Roman capital that survived when the western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD. It was in Constantinople where most everything was happening the next thousand years, though Rome existed as a city among other Italian cities. Constantinople housed the libraries and scholars, and sat closer to their aims of expansion. It also sat between the Mediterranean Sea and India and Turkey and Asia and the Middle East and Israel- it was along this trade route that allowed it to flourish- and what caused disaster that made everyone look for land to reach India after- Vasco de Gama going south around Africa to find India, Columbus to sail west to find what he thought were “Indians” in America, and shiploads of people searching for a Northern Route past the north pole for the next 500 years.

Rome was the place for vacations that only half the Roman Emperors visited, after its fall in 476 AD.

When Constantinople fell in 1453, "Rome" itself was just a city within the some Italian States, ruled by the Pope. The Pope had been the effective ruler of Rome since around the 700’s AD. Much of Italy was fragmented into competing city-states and kingdoms (like Greece had been).

Here is where it gets really confusing: The Holy Roman Empire still existed in 1453 and claimed to be the continuation of the Western Roman Empire, though it was primarily Germanic and bore little resemblance to the original Roman Empire. However, Rome itself was not part of the Holy Roman Empire - it remained under control of the Pope. When you watch shows about Constantinople’s fall, as seen on Netflix, you see please to Rome for aid, which never came, and when ships were sent, it was too late. This was Rome, but not the “Roman Empire” anymore. There was no unified Roman power left. The name carried weight, and they had ships they could send, but the names of everything were very fluid. The Holy Roman Empire did not even include Rome!

So the Roman rule never ended, it just transformed.

Every time you see a Catholic ceremony, you're watching a Roman imperial ritual. Every time the Pope appears in public, you're seeing the last Caesar. When the Pope speaks, more people listen than ever obeyed any Caesar. When the Vatican issues policy, more territory is affected than Rome ever controlled. When Cardinals gather, they represent more wealth and power than the Roman Senate ever commanded.

Political Rome (27 BC to 1453 AD): had a peak population of 65 million people, its favorite land conquered by the Ottomans, then retreated to its Roman backup, where half the Caesars never stepped foot.
Spiritual Rome (476 AD - present): has a peak population of 1.3+ billion people (about 20x), found all over the world.

By abandoning territorial empire for spiritual empire, Rome achieved permanent global dominance that no military conquest could match. The Roman Empire succeeded beyond its wildest dreams

It’s even in the name: "Roman Catholic Church", with a rigid hierarchy that reaches up to the Pope. And guess what? No sole Roman ruler could be Queen. And no Pope can be a woman. That is something that was strange to much of the rest of the world. There have been many Queens in power, and the history of this is quite amazing- like in China, after a female queen for 50 years (Wu Zetian), the next generation saw extreme women hatred, including binding of the feet. We see political swinging back and forth that reveals a larger pattern- one of equality in control that lets women in, then violent sparks of egoism that bring all of civilization down a peg, like a child having a temper tantrum. Brute force is needed over conversation.

The Roman Empire was dominated by male emperors (though some women like Livia and Agrippina wielded enormous behind-the-scenes power). There were some exceptions in the broader Roman world, in further off territories of client kingdoms and later periods.

The rulers of the church have always been male - aside from one (possibly real) Pope Joan, who everyone thought was a man, until she became pregnant and was killed. There are no women in the church boss seat because of interpretations of holy books that say god chose a son to inhabit earth- soooo that means god cannot go into a woman’s body, even if they wanted to. Right there- I would challenge the interpretation that god can do whatever he'/she wants, unless they are saying they could never do it again, meaning they are NOT all powerful. Ha.

But we see a shift. In today’s freedom and access to information and communication, modern Catholics often disagree with Vatican positions, unlike Roman subjects who faced death with any questioning. Many people do face social and political damage by speaking up differently than the accepted rhetoric. Most people feel the need to say one thing or another- or risk votes, or position to gain funding in scientific institutions.

This made me curious, does the Vatican associate itself with the Roman Empire?

What the Vatican Says About Its Origins

Walk into St. Peter's Basilica today and the official narrative is breathtakingly simple:

The Vatican Version:

33 AD: Jesus appoints Peter to leader his followers, tell his tale
64 AD: Peter dies in Rome, buried on Vatican Hill
313 AD: Constantine legalizes Christianity, builds first St. Peter's on top of existing pagan sacred space
476 AD: Western Empire "falls," Church continues in Constantinople
800 AD: Pope crowns French King Charlemagne, "restores" Western Empire, as officially under Church authority

According to the official Catholic explanation, the power of the pope traces back to what the Church considers Jesus's hiring of Peter.

Matthew 16:18-19, Jesus tells Peter: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

The Catholic Church interprets "this rock" as referring to Peter himself (playing on his name, which means "rock" or "stone"), making him the foundational leader of the early church.

Rocks used to be quite sacred in ancient times- tops of mountains bringing us close to heavens, and even a holy rock in Rome and Bethlehem found on coins in the center of sacred rooms of major temples. Some interpret this to being meteorites that were quite scary, and fell from the heavens in fiery fury.

These objects falling from the sky with fire and thunder would have been terrifying and awe-inspiring - obvious signs of divine intervention to ancient peoples- were all likely meteorites.

The Kaaba's Black Stone in Mecca,
The stone of Cybele brought to Rome,
Various "bethels" (literally "house of god" stones). Notice the name: “Bethlehem”??

When a new pope is elected, the doctrine says he literally receives the same divine authority Jesus supposedly gave to Peter.

The pope apparently cannot make a mistake, for his voice is "ex cathedra" (from the chair). Just a reminder, the hieroglyph of Isis, the Egyptian goddess that was VERY popular in Jesus’ time in Rome, was literally the seat of a throne. She was literally called "the throne" - representing the divine authority that legitimized any Queen or King’s rule. (the word Pharaoh does not imply a gender). The "chair of divine authority" was already a powerful concept in the Roman world through Egyptian influence (and seen in more downstream places as well).

Early Christianity may have absorbed and reframed existing Mediterranean concepts of divine authority - sacred stones, divine thrones, and the idea that certain seats or objects could channel divine power. If we really want to have a real debate, we need to look at the rich story that predates christianity and saw female concepts as central to divine creativity- with her body as the thing that creates and nourishes life. We need women AND men to make babies. No man can do it alone. No sole creator- a combination of forces- a collaboration is needed. An ecosystem is needed. We are NEVER in isolation. You need breath, food, and to procreate, we need to make “love”.

Just how Popular was Isis in Rome? Remarkably popular.

Isis was honored in both halves of the broken Roman empire. She was even accepted in places that were barely Roman: even among the rebellious “Germanic” peoples of later Britain and throughout Gaul (Much of France and central Europe).

We see other foreign sun gods important in Rome, like Mithra, but this was restricted to the upper class Romans. The religion of Isis was truly universal. In egypt, she was the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, and the Venus (Star) of the morning sun (the brightest star in the sky as the dawn broke). Her energy was that of the rising sun, the seat of creation, and a sense of virginity that renewed itself and resurrected itself every single day. (A recurring virginity, as seen in women, where a mother COULD be a virgin over and over again- a perfect example of a mistranslation in Roman times).

Isis temples were found all the way into Afghanistan, Arabia, and Syria.

Petra, Palmyra
Italica in Spain
Londinium in Britain (the River Thames used to be called the River Isis in London)

By the fall of the Roman Empire in the 400’s AD, there were thought to be over 600 temples to Mithra (sun god) just in Rome alone- but this was for (Mithras). Isis temples were far more numerous.

Her biggest problem seemed to be her popularity. She was a little TOO well liked by the people. Her numbers and appeal began to mount a serious threat to Christianity.

Rome did not seem to know what to do with this foreign queen. While Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, the first two Emperors or Rome allied with Isis as the living queen in Cleopatra, their 3 sons were murdered. The next Emperor, Augustus won power specifically saying Marc Antony was under the spell of a foreign Egyptian woman, and had to make it a point of banning the Egyptian Isis worship within city limits. THe next Emperor Tiberius took even harsher measures to try to make people like her less (obviously failing).

Due to the scarcity of written evidence, nothing is completely certain about when the worship of Isis came to Rome. That said, scholars think that Her religion was introduced sometime during the early Republican period (261-30 BC)
An early Temple of Isis and Serapis, dating to about 200 BC, has been found along the coast of Sicily, Italy.
- 300 BC to 300 AD: Scholars think that this largest branch of Isis worship may have come to Rome from the Greek holy island of Delos for there were some similarities between the Delian and Roman religions. Interestingly, the temple of Isis later became associated with freedom for slaves. Slaves were liberated through a sale to the Goddess and God. No longer owned by their masters, the newly purchased slaves were now owned by the Deities and thus free.
The first Temple of Isis in Pompeii may have been built sometime around 100 BC, destroyed in the earthquake of 62 AD, rebuilt, then destroyed by the final earthquake in 79 AD, where the whole city was buried forever.
44 BC: Queen Cleopatra was seen as a living embodiment of the goddess Isis (like Jesus would be considered the son of God- gods inhabiting humans, especially rulers), and had children with both first and second Roman Emperors.
- During the Second Triumvirate, the Triumvirs voted to build a temple of Isis and Serapis. Queen Cleopatra, who had been living in Rome at that time and called herself The New Isis.
- Her temple was raised in the Campus Martius and many archeological finds there confirm the location. Nothing can be seen of it today. Yet, because of its location outside the pomerium, the sacred, ancient boundary of the city of Rome, it did not suffer as much when certain emperors banned the worship of the Egyptian Gods inside the pomerium in 28 and again in 21 BC.
In 28 BC, Augustus banned Isis worship within the pomerium, the sacred inner boundary of the city of Rome.
- This act marked the Egyptian goddess as non-Roman, but still acceptable outside their most sacred space. Augustus also suspended the building of a temple in honor of Isis and Julius Caesar.
- The fact that the emperors had to ban the worship of the Goddess inside the pomerium in 28 BCE—even after the destruction of the Iseum Capitolinum—must have meant that She was still being worshipped there. It argues for the survival of either the Iseum Metellinum or perhaps even some part of the Iseum Capitolinum.
In 19 AD, Tiberius, Augustus' successor, took harsher measures against the religion of Isis in Rome.
- He banned the religions, destroyed shrines, and even crucified some priests
- He also ordered her main statue thrown into the Tiber River (she represented water, as in the Nile River). But the man involved in the specific incident that triggered the crackdown was banished.
- The Iseum (temple of Isis) was subsequently rebuilt and enhanced by later emperors.
- While banned within the pomerium, Isis worship continued outside this boundary, with Augustus even arranging for the restoration of some shrines in these areas. This suggests that the ban aimed to reinforce Roman identity
- There seems to have been a juicy sex scandal that set Tiberius off, who ordered the Iseum Campense destroyed and everything in it thrown into the Tiber river. Some statuary and sistra (a musical instrument used in ancient Egypt and later by the Romans, a type of rattle.) have been pulled from the river and are thought to have been from this event.
  - Just to note, the earlier name of the Tiber River may have been Thebris, an Etruscan (or possibly Celtic) name, which means it does potentially still have a tie to the name Isis, just like the god Serap-is was a joining of her IS sound in the name.

What was the sex scandal?

According to historians Josephus (94 AD) and Tacitus (117 AD), a Roman matron named Paulina was deceived into having sexual relations with a man who impersonated the god Anubis in the temple. The priests of Isis were allegedly complicit in this deception.

Let’s break this down: a "matrona" was a high-class Roman woman. This term specifically referred to married women of the upper social orders, typically from senatorial families and those from cavalry officers (ie those guys that rode horses in battle). These families had special privileges, like front-row seats at theaters and considerable wealth.

Apparently there was a Roman named Decius Mundus, a Roman aristocrat, who fell in love with Paulina, a beautiful, and rich, senator’s wife. He tried many different ways to sleep with her, even offering her 200,000 drachmae for one night with her- and she kept refusing. She was a devoted follower of Isis. Apparently one of the priests was paid to try to convince her that the God Anubis asked to “dine and sleep” with her. To this, both Paulina and her husband AGREED. Paulina then had a dinner, alone, in the Isis temple, then escorted to a dark room. Decius emerged from hiding and had sexual relations with her all night in the darkness. She left pleased with her "divine experience" and boasted about it to her husband and friends. Three days later, Decius revealed the deception to Paulina, mocking her that she had refused him as Mundus but accepted him as Anubis. Furious and humiliated, Paulina and her husband appealed for justice. The priests were crucified, the temple razed to the ground, and epic statue thrown into the river. Decius Mundus, the main villain in the story, was only exiled. Emperor Tiberius said his actions were motivated by "passion of love."

Tacitus (116 AD) provides a a broader historical framework, writing that "there was a debate too about expelling the Egyptian and Jewish worship, and a resolution of the Senate was passed that four thousand of the freedmen class who were infected with those superstitions and were of military age should be transported to the island of Sardinia, to quell the brigandage of the place"

The religion of Isis had become extremely popular in Rome, particularly among women and the lower classes. This story tells us it was obviously not just the poor.

In Egypt, which held significant importance in Rome, sacred sexuality was a normal part of religious traditions. The concept of divine conception in temples was real - members of the royal families were considered gods incarnate (gods made flesh) and ritual sexual in the holiest rooms of the temples was a way for the gods to enter the union, particularly to be reborn as their child (female or male). Sex in temples was believed to bring cosmic balance, and give legitimacy for the child who would one day rule a very religions people.

It was believed that Cleopatra and her lovers (baby daddies) of Julius and Marc Antony all had sex in the most sacred rooms of the temples of the gods, which would have been totally appropriate - and expected- at the time. The holiest room in the temple of the Vestal Virgins in rome- the room no person could ever enter, was literally called- wait for it: “The Penis” room.

The fact that these women were not supposed to touch a man gives us evidence that there was in fact something sexual about sacred temples- especially in Rome’s reaction AGAINST it. What we can gather is that these women would have held the sacred blood line (as in fact the Vestals did), and their children would be the next ruler. It was of the utmost importance that these women had sex very mindfully and intentionally. Which would later be mistranslated to meaning no sex at all. Go figure.

Sacred sex (later called prostitution) was much less common in Roman religion, which is partly why the Isis incident was so scandalous. But this scandal shows how it did happen, even in the upper classes. Other foreign religions that entered Rome did also include sacred sex. Many of these foreign religions and in Rome and across Judea also employed priestesses, important roles open only to women, not men. Jesus would have been familiar with these institutions, even in Judea. Traditional Roman religion also had important female religious roles - the Vestal Virgins being the most famous example.

Foreign Religions with Sacred Sexuality in Rome:

Cybele/Magna Mater: The Great Mother goddess from Turkey had ecstatic rituals and her priests (galli) practiced ritual castration
Greece: Corinth's Aphrodite temple was famous for being a site of sacred sex
Dionysus/Bacchus: Mystery religions with sexual elements (though heavily suppressed after the Bacchanalia scandal of 186 BC)
Syrian goddess Atargatis: Had sacred sexual elements
Various Mesopotamian fertility deities had sexual religious practices going back to 3,000 BC and earlier!
Cyprus, Syria, Asia Minor: Widespread sexual rights in various forms
Egypt’s sacred sex in temples went back at least a few thousand years before Rome existed.
Judea around Jesus’ time was culturally diverse with Greco-Roman cities like Caesarea Maritima and Sepphoris nearby, with known sacred sexual rights. We also would expect to see the same in influences from Syria and Phoenicians, as well as the Canaanites.

Let’s now continue with our timeline:

Emperor Caligula (41 AD) reversed the ban against Isis (from 20 years prior), and made her worship legal again.
- Isis was often merged with Roman goddesses in this time period
- Caligula is also known for attempting to establish himself as a living god, (An Egyptian tradition much hated by Romans, but we see 40 to 60 Roman Emperors doing it), which included demanding worship and planning to place a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem. This action was met with strong resistance from the Jewish community.
- The last Roman Emperor who was deified after his death was possibly Emperor Anastasius I (518 AD). The whole idea of calling an Emperor a God in Rome started with Julius Caesar (under obvious Egyptian influence with an Egyptian/Roman royal heir), even officially accepted by Roman vote after his death.
69 AD: The Flavian emperors treated Isis with the same regard as traditional Roman gods like Jupiter and Minerva. (You can learn about these guys on Peacock’s incredible series called “Those About to Die”)
- While statues of Isis were initially prohibited within the pomerium, it's possible that they were introduced into the area later as the religion became more integrated into Roman culture.The Iseum Campense, a prominent temple dedicated to Isis and Serapis, was located on the Campus Martius, directly east of the Saepta Julia. The Campus Martius was situated just outside the pomerium, but its proximity suggests that objects related to the religion were present very close to the sacred boundary. Some sources suggest the existence of an "Iseum Capitolinum" on the Capitoline Hill, which was inside the pomerium.
- In Rome’s Capitoline Museum, there are two large pillars, a sphinx, a Thoth baboon, and a crocodile from the famous Iseum Campense, the Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius. The carving on the pillars is unlike the Egyptian stonework we’re used to seeing—the images are less precise, softer—but the other statues look exactly like their Egyptian counterparts. Likely, the pillars were locally made and the statuary imported from Egypt. Anything left of the temple itself is buried beneath a church and the streets of modern Rome. The Roman church did a very good job of deconsecrating the Pagan sacred places that preceded their own.
Vespasian and his son, Titus, encouraged Isis’ worship, even making her a state deity. Emperor Titus was known for taking the Israeli Queen for his lover, after he demolished her Jewish people, but was not able to marry her due to her foreign status.
- Vespasian and his son Titus are recorded as having spent the night before their triumph (a celebration of victory) in the Temple of Isis in Rome, in 71 AD. They were celebrating the Roman victory over the Jews in Judea. (8 years later would be a total Jewish massacre- removing them from their homeland, changing its name to Palestine, meaning invader due to their ancient enemy, and making the Hebrew language illegal to be spoken). Rome was pissed that the Jewish people would not assimilate, and were rebelling against oppression. This is also why Jesus was killed, by ROmans, under Roman punishment and authority, via crucifiction which is a Roman punishment. Not killed by jews- by Romans. And a few hundred years he would be their martyr. But that is a whole other story. The point was- This roman emperor celebrated Isis for this “victory”. Coins minted during their reigns even featured the Temple of Isis.
118 AD: Emperor Hadrian built Egyptian-style structures at Villa Adriana
- The villa was built as a retreat from Rome and is considered an "ideal city" combining architectural styles from Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
150 AD: “Isis in Rome is worshipped with supreme devotion and, for the place where her temple rises up, she is called Isis Campensis.” (Apuleius, M., XI 26, written around 150 AD)

The remains of the Iseum Metellinum can be seen near the modern Piazza Iside in Rome.

While initially embraced, then persecuted, then made state religion, Isis was officially welcomed in Rome, with statues of the Egyptian goddess placed within the sacred boundaries of Rome.

Sacred Sex Map

This makes me interested in making a map of sacred sexual rights. This helps us understand the goal and architecture of our holiest spaces, as passed down to us even today in unexpected, and never fully explained to us. This would include:

Mesopotamia (earliest documented)