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The Catholic Historical Review VOL. LXXXIJANUARY, 1995No. 1 PETRINE POLITICS: POPE SYMMACHUS AND THE ROTUNDA OF ST. ANDREW AT OLD ST. PETERS Joseph D. Alchermes* In the two centuries that followed public recognition of Christianity by the emperor Constantine, on many occasions the unity of the Church of Rome was dissolved by lengthy and violent schisms. Many disputes originated over such matters as papal succession and jurisdiction , often intensified by conflicts between ecclesiastical and imperial policy. In the 350's, for example, a bitter quarrel pitted Pope Liberius and his supporters against a rival claimant to the papal throne, Felix II, and his followers.1 On Liberius' death a decade later, eccle- 'Mr. Alchermes is an assistant professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies in the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Lectures from which this study developed were delivered in the series sponsored by the Medieval and Byzantine Studies Program of the Catholic University of America (October, 1992) and at a meeting of the Minnesota chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America (January, 1992). I thank the organizers of both series for the opportunity to make public presentations of my ideas regarding early commemorative cults on the Vatican. Professors K. Cooper and T. Mathews have read and criticized drafts of this article. I am most grateful for their observations and suggestions; all errors of omission and interpretation are my own. 'For the causes and course of this controversy, see Erich Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums von den Anfängen bis zur Höhe der Weltherrschaft (2 vols.; Tübingen, 1 ¿ PETRINE POLITICS: POPE SYMMACHUS AND THE ROTUNDA OF ST. ANDREW AT OLD ST. PETERS siastical war resumed when in 366, opposing groups simultaneously elevated Damasus and Ursinus to the pontifical dignity.2 In the 4l0's, the Roman Church again split into factions, this time answering to Eulalius and Boniface I, whose legitimacy was later acknowledged.3 The most protracted of these disputes, however, was the controversy today called the Laurentian Schism, named for the antipope Lawrence, whose opposition to the ultimately victorious Symmachus lasted for nearly a decade, from November, 498, until Lawrence's capitulation and retirement in 506.4 The pontificate of Symmachus had many features in common with those of his predecessors embroiled in schisms. All four abovementioned controversies were of such extent and gravity that they attracted the attention, and in most cases direct intervention, of civil authorities, municipal, imperial, or royal. Roman ecclesiastical tradition and topography often encouraged the disputes to unfold along similar lines; for example, when Symmachus was excluded from the customary papal seat, the palace and administrative center inside the Wall ofAurelian adjacent to the Lateran cathedral, he took up residence outside the city as Liberius and Boniface had done before him.* The most significant difference between the Symmachan and earlier conflicts , reflected in a variety of contemporary sources, emerges from the study of his building activity, most clearly attested by the papal biography preserved in the Liber Pontiflcalis. Here Symmachus' Lm1933 ), I, 166—195, and Charles Pietri, Roma Christiana. Recherches sur l'église de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son idéologie de Miltiade à Sixte III (2 vols.; Rome, 1976), I, 237—268, with references to the earlier literature. 2Caspar, op. cit., I, 196-256, especially 196-204; Pietri, op. cit., I, 407-418; Adolf Lippold, "Ursinus und Damasus," Historia, 14 (1965), 105-128. 'Caspar, op. cit., I, 361-365; Pietri, op. cit., I, 452-455, II, 948-950. ?Recent publications by historians of the early medieval papacy have only in part superseded the classic account of Symmachus' controversial pontificate, formulated sixty years ago, by Caspar, op. cit., II, 82—129. See also Giovanni Battista Picotti, "I sinodi romani dello scisma laurenziano," Studi storici in onore di Gioacchino Volpe, ed. G. C Sansoni (Florence, 1958), pp. 743-786; Charles Pietri, "Le Sénat, le peuple chrétien et les partis du cirque à Rome sous le pape Symmaque,"Mélangesd'archéologie etd'histoire de l'Écolefrançaise deRome, 78 ( 1966), 123-139; and the useful historical survey and analysis ofJeffrey Richards, The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476-752 (London, 1979), pp. 69-99. 5See the life of...

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