The seventh chapter examines how, in the face of significant physical contraction in the sixth and seventh centuries, the entire Subura valley was reworked into a Christian processional landscape starting under Gregory I. Focusing on Mary as a civic intercessor, two ad hoc seven-form processions, which later became four annual processions, terminated at S. Maria (now Maior), spurring the foundation of several new churches along the Subura’s thoroughfares, all dedicated to virginal female saints. At this time, the Subura shows a marked concentration of female church dedications compared to the city at large.

The fourth chapter provides an impression of the rapid residential and commercial growth that took place in the Subura during the second and third centuries CE. The variety of evidence for domus, insulae, tabernae, and markets from across the valley is considered, as is the increased religious diversity outside state cults. Most importantly, a sizable Jewish community, with likely earlier origins, becomes apparent at this time.

Chapter I provides a road map for the book. It delineates the approach to conceive of myth as a system of knowledge (episteme) and as an expression of cognitive and cultural experience. With its explanatory and orientating functions myth constitutes reality myth and represents one way of worldmaking (Nelson Goodman). By drawing on insights from cognitive sciences and cognitive narratology the book argues for conceiving of myth as conceptual metaphor that was translated into text, image, and ritual performance with these media informing and complementing each other. Particular attention is given to political mythmaking which situates myth in the institutional context of the palace and temple with their scholarly circles.

On January 9, 2013, Cesare Esposito was not happy. The sixty-five-year-old artist, a longtime resident of Rome’s Monti district, had just been evicted from his residence. The heart of Monti essentially covers Rome’s eastern hills (Quirinal, Viminal, Cispian, Esquiline, and Oppian) and the valleys formed between them as the landscape stretches downhill and westward toward the ancient Forum (Plate 0.1; Map 0.1). Esposito’s family had lived here for generations, and he had thrived in the neighborhood that had been one of the areas of Rome most associated with artists and artisans of all sorts for centuries. But Esposito’s connection to Monti has meaning beyond his family history there. He is the artist in charge of one of the highest-profile ceremonies in Monti’s annual calendar: the celebration of the Miracle of Madonna della Neve at the papal basilica of S. Maria Maggiore, which looms over the central part of Monti from the top of the Cispian hill. Every year on August 4, the ceremony recalled the miraculous snowfall that occurred on that same date in 352 CE, when a rich patrician was directed by the Virgin Mary in his dream to construct a basilica where fresh snow fell that morning. The bishop Liberius, upon being informed of this dream, said that he had had the same one, so he marked out a floor plan for the basilica on the ground of the Cispian where snow – somehow in the heat of the late summer – had indeed fallen. Esposito directs the annual reenactment of this snowfall, which entails blasting artificial snowflakes from the roof of the basilica, and he has devoted his artistic efforts from time to time to numerous other church or civic celebrations across the city for decades. But now, Esposito said, he sleeps in the archaeological ruins of the ancient imperial fora that enclosed the lowest part of Monti, forced to look upon Monti and his former residence from the street. Esposito had been fighting the city to keep his apartment and studio since 2006, but he had now suffered the final defeat. Only by selling all of his belongings could he afford to get it back.

Chapter X makes a case for considering the ancient scholars as the agency behind the creation of myth in text and image.

The first chapter examines the Subura’s early urbanization from the Iron Age through the Middle Republic. It shows a mixed occupation of plebeians and patricians from the start. Most importantly, it emphasizes the creation of a sacred landscape composed of multiple shrines dedicated to female deities throughout the valley. Each one evoked the city’s mythological origins to highlight the important role that women played in constructing and uniting Rome’s contemporary social fabric.