Word: rome
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...only did salt serve to flavor and preserve food, it made a good antiseptic, which is why the Roman word for these salubrious crystals (sal) is a first cousin to Salus, the goddess of health. Of all the roads that led to Rome, one of the busiest was the Via Salaria, the salt route, over which Roman soldiers marched and merchants drove oxcarts full of the precious crystals up the Tiber from the salt pans at Ostia. A soldier's pay-consisting in part of salt-came to be known as solarium argentum, from which we derive the word...
When John Paul followed that action by calling the international Jesuit leadership to Rome for further instructions, the grumbles and concern mounted. Some of the North and South Americans arrived for the meeting in T shirts and blue jeans, a minor act of sartorial insouciance, given John Paul's insistence on traditional dress (they wore clerical garb when they met the Pontiff). Many of the leaders were in a fighting mood, armed with massive documentation on the good works they were accomplishing...
Except for one session in Rome, the meeting took place at the Villa Cavalletti amid the vineyards of the Frascati region twelve miles outside Rome. The bucolic setting may have helped. In any event, the anticipated confrontations never occurred. Dezza, 80, won more esteem from the Jesuit leaders than had been expected. But his very strength as a master of the Vatican bureaucracy also meant, said one participant, that his "mindset was such that it would be useless to debate." The assembled priests quietly decided that he was unable to comprehend how Jesuits out in the provinces must work...
First to go was Maria Ferraguto, 50, who had won bonuses for hard work on her climb to the job of a personnel director in a Rome post office. She was charged with aggravated and continuous fraud against the state, a felony that carries a penalty of up to three years in jail and up to $318 in fines. Her alleged crime: consistently checking in to her office at 11 a.m. and leaving at 1 p.m., thus working only two of the six daily hours required. Alessandro Vigneri, 29, police claim, should have been handling baggage at Fiumicino Airport instead...
...arrests are just beginning. Ten other government employees in Rome have been put behind bars, and another 278 government employees have been informed that they are under investigation, as are 90 doctors who signed suspect medical certificates...