According to legend, Rome was born April 21, 753 BC, when Romulus, the survivor of its feuding twin founders, hitched his plow and furrowed a circular perimeter in the hills above the Tiber River. Everything inside was urbs, city space consecrated by priests who interpreted the will of the gods; everything outside was ager – unhallowed open territory.

“We have a city founded by the auspices and augury,” Roman historian Livy wrote. “There is not a corner of it that is not full of our cults and our gods.” Rome, in a sense, has been sacred ground right from the start. To many, Rome is the epicenter of Catholicism, the seat of the Vatican and home to a seemingly infinite number of churches. But in the nearly three millenniums of the city’s recorded past, Christianity is but a chapter.