The capital of the empire and, at roughly a million people, the largest city in the western world — fed by grain fleets from Egypt, drained by eleven aqueducts, and stratified from senators to the enslaved third of its population. Its Jewish community was old and substantial (synagogue inscriptions name at least eleven congregations), and it is where the first Christian groups in Rome almost certainly began. ⚠ The emperor Claudius expelled Jews from the city around AD 49 — Suetonius says over disturbances 'at the instigation of Chrestus', which many read as a garbled reference to Christ — and their return after his death in 54 left mixed congregations with a real problem, which is the situation Romans 14-15 addresses. Paul had never been there when he wrote; he arrived a few years later under guard, and both he and Peter are remembered as dying there under Nero.