ROMA SOTTERRANEA 
 
 OR 
 
 OME ACCOUNT OF THE ROMAN CATACOMBS 
 
 ESPECIALLY OF THE 
 
 CEMETERY OF SAN CALLISTO 
 
 COMPILED FROM THE WORKS OF COMMEND A TORE DE ROSSI 
 WITH THE CONSENT OF THE A UTHOR 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. J. SPENCER NORTHCOTE, D. D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF ST MARY'S COLLEGE, OSCOTT 
 AND 
 
 REV. W. R. BROWNLOW, M.A. 
 
 TRTNITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYE 
 
 1869 
 
 \^All rights of Translation reserved^ 
 
EDINBURGH 
 PKINTKD I;Y BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, 
 
 Paul's work. 
 
 THE GOTY CE?JTtfc 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ^ I ^HE interest which the Roman Catacombs have 
 excited in the minds of our countrymen, espe- 
 cially of those who have visited the Eternal City, has 
 long made us wish to present them with that most full 
 and accurate information upon the subject w^hich is 
 contained in the ROMA SOTTERRANEA of De Rossi. 
 
 Two courses were open to us ; either to bring out 
 a translation from the Italian original, or to embody in 
 a work of our own the most interesting and important 
 facts which those volumes contain. The first would 
 have been incomparably the easier, and in some 
 respects the more satisfactory course. But the size 
 and cost of such a work would have put it entirely 
 beyond the reach of many whom we were most anxious 
 to benefit. We therefore decided on the plan adopted 
 in the volume which we now introduce to our readers, 
 and which, we believe, will be found to contain as fair 
 a summary as its dimensions would allow — not only of 
 De Rossi's two volumes of Roma Sotterranea, published 
 in 1864 and 1867,— but also of many articles in his 
 bi-monthly Biillettino di Archeologia Cristiana, of 
 papers read by him before learned societies in Rome 
 and elsewhere, and of his occasional contributions to 
 
IV 
 
 Pi^eface. 
 
 works published by others, such as the Spicilcgiuvi 
 Solesinense of Cardinal Pitra, &c. 
 
 It was our intention at one time to have drawn up a 
 tabulated statement, showing the exact portion of De 
 Rossi's works from which each part of this had been 
 compiled ; but as those works are unhappily without 
 indices, and the intention referred to was not enter- 
 tained when first this volume was taken in hand, some 
 three or four years ago, it was found that the benefit to 
 be derived from such a statement would not be likely to 
 repay the labour of drawing it out. Nevertheless, it has 
 been thought worth while to retain a number of refer- 
 ences in the notes, wherever they happened to have been 
 preserved in our MSS., and either related to some mere 
 obitci' dicta which might easily have been overlooked 
 even by persons who had studied the original, or 
 belonged to some of those minor works which we 
 have enumerated, and which are not so generally 
 known as the larger works of our author. 
 
 A more important omission, which will be regretted 
 by many of our readers, requires a word of explanation. 
 We allude to the Inscriptions on the grave-stones of the 
 Catacombs. But this was too large a subject to be 
 disposed of satisfactorily at the end of a volume already 
 longer than was desired. Moreover, it would hardly be 
 fair, either to the subject or to our author, to handle 
 this question until the second volume of Inscriptioncs 
 Christiance, on which he is at present engaged, shall 
 have been published. That volume will contain all the 
 Christian inscriptions of Rome which bear upon Chris- 
 tian doctrine and practice ; and should the present 
 attempt to put the fruit of De Rossi's wonderful dis- 
 coveries in the Catacombs within the reach of English 
 readers meet with sufficient encouragement, a similar 
 
Preface, 
 
 V 
 
 epitome — already begun — of his labours in the fields of 
 Christian epigraphy will soon follow. 
 
 In the arrangement of this volume, we have followed, 
 in the main, the order of De Rossi himself; but to those 
 to whom the subject is altogether new, we should re- 
 commend a certain departure from this order. They 
 would do well to postpone the perusal of the Introduc- 
 tion, or Literary History of the Catacombs, until they 
 have first read Books I. and II., which contain an 
 account of their origin and real history. Then the 
 Introduction would form a suitable link between the 
 general treatment of the subject in Books I. and II., 
 and the more minute examination of one particular 
 cemetery (San Callisto), which forms the subject of 
 Book III. Book IV., on Christian Art, is, of course, 
 complete in itself. The last two chapters of it are, in 
 great part, taken from the works of Bosio and of Padre 
 Garrucci. Even here, however, we are indebted for 
 many important additions and corrections to the works 
 of De Rossi. Book V. is compiled from that part of 
 the Commendatore's volumes which was contributed 
 by his brother. It is a development, partly of the last 
 chapter in Book I., and partly of the second chapter 
 in Book III., of this volume. We suspect that to many 
 of our readers this Book will seem dry and tedious, 
 in spite of the assistance of the numerous plans and 
 sections by which we have illustrated it ; yet, the study 
 of it is certainly indispensable to those who would go 
 thoroughly into the matter, and satisfy themselves 
 as to the solidity of the foundation on which De Rossi's 
 conclusions rest. Its special value lies in the fact of 
 its being an examination of the subterranean excava- 
 tions themselves, which are made to bear testimony to 
 the successive periods of their own construction, a;id 
 
VI 
 
 Pi^efacc. 
 
 thus its conclusions are drawn from a source quite 
 independent of those historical documents which have 
 been the main guide of Gio. Battista de Rossi in all 
 his labours in this field of Christian archaeology. 
 
 We have prefixed a chronological table and a list 
 of the Catacombs according to their ancient appella- 
 tions and their position on the various roads out of 
 Rome, which we hope may assist our readers in forming 
 a clearer notion both of the history and geography of 
 the cemeteries referred to in the course of the work. 
 
 Finally, it may be well to add that, although both 
 Editors are jointly responsible for the whole volume, 
 the first portion, to the fifth chapter of Book IV., is 
 mainly the work of Dr Northcote ; the remainder of 
 the text, and Note C in the Appendix (on St Peter's 
 Chair), is the work of Mr Brownlow. 
 
 Easter Tuesday, 1869. 
 
LIST OF PLATES 
 
 AT THE END OF THE VOLUME. 
 
 — 
 
 The pages refer to the passages where they are described or alluded to. 
 
 Plate. Page 
 L Damasine Inscription found in Papal Crypt (See Plan L' 
 
 Atlas 4), . . . , . .147 
 
 IL Copy (probably by Pope Vigilius) of Damasine Inscription 
 
 to St Eusebius, found in his Crypt (Atlas, T>e i), . 170 
 
 III, The same, as originally set up by St Damasus, . .170 
 
 IV. Fresco of Moses, from a ctibicuhmi near to Area VI., . 248 
 V, Fi-esco of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian in the Crypt of St 
 
 Lucina (Atlas V>h 3), . . . . .181 
 
 VI. Ceiling of citbicuhim near the above ; painting of Second 
 Century ; representing in the centre Daniel between the 
 lions, and in the corners the Good Shepherd alternately 
 with a female orante, which is probably the Blessed 
 ^Virgin (on the walls of this same chamber are painted 
 Plate XIV. I, and Figs. 14 and 19), . . .255 
 
 VII. Fresco of Jonas, ...... 244 
 
 Vni. Frescoes from Bosio : (i) Good Shepherd and the Blessed 
 Virgin with Birds (Bosio, p. 387) from ciibicuhim in 
 Cemetery of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, . .255 
 (2) Noe, from Cemetery of St Agnes (Bosio, p. 449), 241 
 IX. Do. : (i) Lazarus from Cemetery of Saints Peter and Mar- 
 cellinus (Bosio, p. 359), . . . .247 
 
 (2) Three Children from Cemetery of St Hermes 
 
 (Bosio, p. 565), . . . . .245 
 
 X. (i) The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Prophet Isaias, Fresco 
 
 of Second Century in a czibiciihim of St Priscilla, . 258 
 (2) The Adoration of the Magi, from Cemetery of Saints Peter 
 
 and Marcellinus, a Fresco of the Third Century, . 257 
 
viii 
 
 L ist of Plates. 
 
 Plate. Page 
 
 XI. (i) Sacrifice of Isaac, from aibicuhim A3, Fresco of Second 
 
 Century, . , . . . .270 
 
 (2) Our Lord under the symbol of Orpheus, from ceiling of 
 
 ciibiculicm same age, . . . -199 
 
 (3, 4) Fossors painted on either side of the doorway of cubi- 
 
 cuhim A4, Third Century, . . . .272 
 
 XII. (i) The Smitten Rock and the Fisher of Souls, from ciibi- 
 
 culuvi A2, Second Century, .... 265 
 
 (2) The same subjects, from atbiculutn A3, . . . ib. 
 
 (3) Paralytic carrying his Bed on the same wall with 2, . ib. 
 XIIL The Eucharistic Feast, from aibicnlum A3, where it is 
 
 painted between XI. i and XIV. 3, forming one com- 
 position with them, ..... 269 
 XIV. (i) Symbol of Holy Eucharist, from the same atbicnhuii in 
 
 Cemetery of St Lucina as Plate VI., . . . 224 
 
 (2) Eucharistic Symbols, from cubicitlum A2, . .214 
 
 (3) Sacrifice of the Mass symbolically depicted in acbiciilmn 
 
 A3 (see XIIL), . . . . .266 
 
 XV. Papal Crypt, as it must have appeared in the time of St 
 Damasus, restored by De Rossi from fragments found 
 in the Crypt itself, . . . . -147 
 
 XVI. Christ and the Apostles under symbol of Good Shepherd, 
 painted in the lunette of an arcosoliiim, probably to- 
 wards end of Third Century, in the same aibiculutn 
 with Plate IV. (see Atlas, Area VII. 3), . . 237 
 
 XVII. (i) Bronze Medal of Saints Peter and Paul, of First or 
 
 Second Century, found in Cemetery of St Domitilla, . 284 
 (2) Gilded Glass of St Peter as Moses, in Vatican Library, 287 
 XVIIL Gilded Glasses from the Catacombs : — 
 
 (1) Blessed Virgin between Saints Peter and Paul, in Pro- 
 
 paganda Museum, ..... 285 
 
 (2) St Agnes with two Doves, in Vatican Library, . . 286 
 XIX. Sarcophagus found at St Paul's on Via Ostiensis, now in 
 
 'Lateran Museum, ..... 300 
 XX. Sarcophagi with Pagan Sculptures used by Christians in 
 ages of persecution : — 
 
 (1) Dolphins, Epitaph of Longliamis, buried on the dth of 
 
 April, ....... 297 
 
 (2) Orpheus and Fisherman ; viy stveet Furia, holy soul, . 300 
 Atlas — A description will be found at the end of the Volume. 
 
LIST OF WOODCUTS. 
 
 Fig. 
 
 
 Page 
 
 
 Ueneral view of the Gallery of a Catacomb with Graves, 
 
 26 
 
 2. 
 
 Plan of arenaria immediately above the Catacomb of St Agnes, 
 
 28 
 
 3- 
 
 Plan of part of that Catacomb from Padre Marchi, 
 
 29 
 
 4- 
 
 General appearance of an arcosoliiuii, .... 
 
 30 
 
 5- 
 
 Table-tomb, called also sepolcro or loailo a mensa. 
 
 30 
 
 o. 
 
 i^namoer m Catacomb or bt Agnes, with Chairs and Bench cut 
 
 
 out of the solid tufa, ..... 
 
 31 
 
 7- 
 
 A lu7fiinare giving light to two Chambers in Catacomb of Saints 
 
 
 
 Marcellinus and Peter, ..... 
 
 34 
 
 Q 
 O. 
 
 Sepulchral Stone lound in a Catacomb on Via Latina, having 
 engraved upon it the Monogram, the Fish, and Good Shep- 
 
 
 herd, — explained in page 213, .... 
 
 55 
 
 9- 
 
 View of entrance to Cemetery of St Domitilla, Via Ardeatina, . 
 
 71 
 
 lO. 
 
 Fresco of Vine on Ceiling of Cemetery of St Domitilla, First 
 
 
 
 Century, ....... 
 
 72 
 
 II, 
 
 Remains of Fresco of Daniel in Cemetery of St Domitilla, First 
 
 
 
 Century, ....... 
 
 73 
 
 12. 
 
 Painted Chamber in Cemetery of St Pretextatus, Second Century, 
 
 79 
 
 
 Epitaph of St Januarius by Pope Damasus, 
 
 80 
 
 13- 
 
 Stone (having a Lamb, Dove, and Anchor engraved on it) which 
 still closes a locithis in a very ancient part of the Lower Gal- 
 
 
 
 lery of Area of St Lucina, ..... 
 
 82 
 
 14. 
 
 Two Sheep with Milk-pail, in cnbiculuvi of St Lucina, (described 
 
 
 
 in p. 225), . . . . . 
 
 103 
 
 15- 
 
 Sarcophagus, with inscription, 0 Blastiainis, peace with thee ! a 
 form of Epitaph similar to the very ancient ones in St Pris- 
 cilla, found in very ancient cubiaihim of St Lucina, adjoin- 
 
 
 
 ing that described in p. 225, .... 
 
 109 
 
 
 Epitaph of Pope Cornelius, . . . • • 
 
 118 
 
 16. 
 
 Fresco of the Baptism of our Lord in the cubiculuni described under 
 
 
 
 l-'ig- I5> 
 
 119 
 
 
 Epitaphs of Popcb St Anlhcrus, St Fal^ian, St Lucius, and St 
 
 
 
 Eutycliianus, 
 
 137 
 
X 
 
 List of Woodcuts, 
 
 17. Statue of St Cecilia, by Maderna, who had seen her body incor- 
 
 rupt in 1599, . . . . . -157 
 
 18. Inscription (with Monogram and Doves) on an arcosoliitni in the 
 
 Cemetery of St Soteris, . . . . .166 
 
 19. Fresco of Doves from the aibiculum in which is Fig. 14, First or 
 
 Second Century, . . . . . .185 
 
 20. Fresco of Good Shepherd in centre of Ceihng of the adjoining 
 
 Chamber, . . . . . . .201 
 
 21. Epitaph from very ancient part of Catacomb of St Priscilla, . 207 
 
 22. Another Epitaph from the same, . . . . -213 
 
 23. Frescoes of Gospel Stories illustrating the Holy Eucharist, from 
 
 Catacombs of Alexandria, . . . . .221 
 
 24. Sepulchral Stone from ancient Christian Cemetery at Modena, . 223 
 
 25. Fresco of Lamb with Palm and Milk-pail, being one of those in 
 
 each of the four corners of a cubiculum in Saints Peter and 
 Marcellinus, ...... 225 
 
 26. Fresco of Lamb with Shepherd's Crook and Milk-pail, from very 
 
 ancient part of Catacomb of St Domitilla, . . . 225 
 
 27. Different forms of the Cross and Monogram of Christ, . . 230 
 
 28. Sarcophagus found in Crypt of St Lucina, with Monogram of 
 
 Tyranio, and Sculpture representing Ulysses and the 
 Syrens, ........ 232 
 
 29. Inscription found in Crypt of St Lucina, with Doves plucking 
 
 at Grapes. There is an error towards the end, of N 
 for II, as the original runs SABBATIAOVEVIXI 
 lANNIIIAENSV, evidently the work of a stone-cutter 
 ignorant of letters, and intended for Sahbatia qticB vixit aim. 
 iii., mens, v.; " Sabbatia, who lived three years and five 
 months," ....... 238 
 
 30. Sculpture of Elias being taken up into Heaven, in Lateran Mu- 
 
 seum, ....... 250 
 
 31. Fresco of the Madonna and Child in Catacomb of St Agnes., early 
 
 part of Fourth Century, . . . . -257 
 
 32. Sarcophagus with Pagan Good Shepherd, and Cupid and Psyche 
 
 found beneath the floor of atbiailum (Atlas, 7), in 
 San Callisto, described in p. 298, . . . .261 
 
 33. Gilded Glass, with Saint Peter as Moses, in Vatican Museum, . 287 
 
 34. Fragments of Glass Paten found at Cologne, a.d. 1864, . . 290 
 
 35. Sarcophagus, still containing the body of a man, ornamented with 
 
 unfinished figure of the deceased, veiled and clothed in tunic 
 and pallium, with a roll of a book in his hand, and a box of 
 books at his feet — described in p. 299. At either end is a 
 shepherd with a dog. This and two other sarcophagi, like- 
 wise containing bodies, A\'ere found in the CTtbiculum, where 
 tliey now are, close to the staircase in Area VII. (Atlas, 
 Cr 2), ..... . 294 
 
List of Woodcicts. xi 
 
 Fig- Page 
 36. Sarcophagus representing the Passion, in Lateran Museum, of 
 
 Fourth or Fifth Century, ..... 307 
 
 37. Spandrils of arches on Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a.d, 359, . 312 
 
 38, Glass in the Vatican Library, representing Christ between Sts. 
 
 Peter and Paul ; also Christ as the Lamb, and the Faithful 
 as Lambs — Jews and Gentiles coming from Jerusalem and 
 Bethlehem {Becle) to Mount Sion, whence flow the four 
 
 Evangelical Streams, united in the Mystical Jordan, . 316 
 
 39. Part of Wall of Gallery of St Hermes, .... 323 
 
 40. Section of Gallery in St Hermes, .... 323 
 
 41. Section of Gallery supported by brickwork, . . . 324 
 
 42. Plan of part of Catacomb of St Priscilla, . . . 329 
 
 43. Gilded Glass in the Louvre Collection, representing St Callixtus, 332 
 
 44. Section of the Cemetery of St Callixtus, .... 336 
 
 45. Plan of principal Area of St Callixtus, in the First Period of 
 
 Excavation, ....... 340 
 
 46. Elevation of outer Wall of Ambulacrum C in it, . . 341 
 
 47. Elevation of inner Wall of Ambulacrum A, . . . 342 
 
 48. Second Period of Excavation, ..... 343 
 
 49. Third Period : Connexion with Arenarium, . . . 345 
 
 50. Section of Secret Staircase into Arenarium, . . . 347 
 
 51. P'ourth Period of Excavation : Union with a second Area, . 349 
 
 52. Fifth Period : Galleries made when old ones were filled with 
 
 earth, . . . . . • -353 
 
 53. Section of Galleries, ...... 353 
 
 54. Last Period of Excavation : Works of St Damasus, . . 354 
 
 55. St Peter's Chair, . . . . . -389 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 Tn page 37, Xotc (*),>/- Tacitus Hist. iii. 65, 75, read Dio Cass. Hist. 
 Ixxii. 4. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
 
 The dates of the Popes' accession are given, and the place of their burial according to the Libet 
 PoiitiJicnUs : the dates of the Emperors are only proximately exact. 
 
 ROMAN EMPERORS. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 POPES. 
 
 PLACE OF BURIAL. 
 
 NERO. First Persecution, . 
 
 GALBA, OTHO, VITELLIUS, 
 VESPASIAN. Fall of Jerusa- 
 lem, ... 
 
 TITUS, 
 
 DOMITIAN, .... 
 
 NERVA, .... 
 TRAJAN, .... 
 
 HADRIAN, 
 
 ANTONINUS PIUS, 
 M. AURELIUS, . 
 
 COMMODUS, 
 SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, 
 
 CARACALLA, 
 MACRINUS, 
 
 HELIOGABALUS, 
 ALEXANDER, . 
 
 MAXIM IN, 
 
 GORDIAN, 
 PHILIP, 
 DEC I US, 
 
 GALLUS, 
 VALERIAN, 
 
 GALLIENUS, 
 CLAUDIUS II., . 
 AURELIAN, . 
 TACITUS, FLORIAN, PRO 
 
 BUS 
 
 NUMERIAN CARINUS 
 DIOCLETIAN, . 
 
 GALERIUS MAXIMFAN. 
 CONSTANTINE MAXEN 
 TIUS, 
 
 Edict of Milan, 
 CONSTANTINE, 
 
 67 
 
 235 
 236 
 238 
 1 244 
 250 
 
 253 
 254 
 257 
 259 
 268 
 
 2 JO 
 
 274 
 
 283 
 284 
 290 
 
 303 
 309 
 
 3ii 
 312 
 
 PETER, 
 LINUS, 
 
 CLETUS, 
 CLEMENT 
 
 ANACLETUS, 
 EVARISTUS, 
 ALEXANDER. 
 SIXTUS I., . 
 TELESPHORUS 
 HYGINUS, . 
 PIUS L, 
 ANICETUS, . 
 
 SOTER, . 
 
 ELEUTHERUS, 
 
 VICTOR, 
 ZEPHYRINUS, 
 
 CALLIXTU.S, 
 
 URBAN I.. . 
 PONTIANUS, 
 
 ANTHEROS, 
 FABIANUS, . 
 
 CORNELIUS, 
 
 LUCIUS, 
 STEPHEN. . 
 SIXTUS 11... 
 DIONYSIUS, 
 FELIX, . 
 
 EUTYCHIANUS, 
 
 CAIUS, . 
 
 MARCELLINUS, 
 
 MARCELLUS, . 
 EUSEBIUS, . 
 
 MELCHIADES, . 
 
 Peace given to the 
 
 CInirch. 
 SYLVESTER, 
 
 In Vnticayio juxta Palatiiim 
 
 Neroniannni. 
 fiixta corpus B. Petri in Vaticano. 
 
 jfitxfa corpus B. Petri in l/'aticano. 
 In Gnecia, {i.e., in the Crimea.) 
 
 Jiixta corpus B. Petri, 
 fuxta corpus B. Petri in Vaticannin. 
 Via Noj)ientana, 7nilliario VII. 
 Juxta corpus B. Petri i7i Vaticanum. 
 Juxta corpus B. Petri in Vaticano. 
 Juxta corpus B. Petri itt Vaticano. 
 Juxta corpus B. Petri in Vaticano. 
 In coemet rio Callixti (?) see page 141. 
 
 1)1 coeineterio Callixti Via Appia (?) 
 
 see p.ige 141. 
 Juxta corpus B. Petri in Va ticano. 
 
 Juxta corpus B. Petri in Vaticano. 
 In ccenieterio suo juxta cocin. Callixti 
 Via Appia. 
 
 hi cocmeierio Calepodii, via Ajirclia, 
 7nillia7'io III. 
 
 1 71 ca'7/n'terio Prcptextati, Via Appia. 
 hi casiiieterio Callixti, after being 
 
 brought back from Sardinia. 
 hi ccci/ieterio Callixti, J'ia Appia. 
 hi ccpi/u'terio Callixti, Via Appia. 
 
 hi crypta, jjixta caetnet. Callixti, in 
 
 pra'dio B. Lucincp. 
 hi c(E/7ieterio Callixti, Via Appia. 
 hi cce/neterio Callixti, Via Appia. 
 In caetneterio Callixti, Via Appia. 
 hi coc77ieterio Callixti. Via Appia. 
 In basilica Via Au7-elia /nilliario II. 
 
 In ca77ieterio Callixti, Via Appia. 
 
 hi caeineterio Callixti, Via Appia. 
 
 hi cestMcterio Priscillce, Via Salaria, 
 
 i7i cubiculo claro. 
 hi ccenieterio Priscillce, Via Salaria. 
 In co'/neterio Callixti in crypta. 
 
 hi cccineterio Callixti in crypta. 
 
 Via Salaria, 7nilliario I II., in caaiie- 
 terio PrisciUcp, [in basilica.} 
 
LIST OF CEMETERIES, MENTIONED IN ANCIENT HISTORICAL 
 RECORDS, ON THE VARIOUS ROADS. 
 
 ROADS. 
 
 APPIA, 
 
 ARDEATINA, 
 
 OSTIENSIS, 
 
 PORTVENSIS, 
 AURELIA, . 
 
 CORNELIA, . 
 
 FLAMINIA, . 
 CLIVUS CU-) 
 CUMERIS, ) 
 
 SAL ARIA VE-) 
 TUS, 5 
 
 SALARIA 
 NOVA, . 
 
 GREATER CEMETERIES. 
 
 LESSER CEME- 
 TERIES ; 
 
 Primitive Names. 
 
 TLucinse, ; 
 I Callixti jZephyrini, | 
 
 C Hippolyti, 
 
 2. Prsetextati, 
 
 3. Ad Catacumb:i 
 
 4. Domitiila;, 
 
 5. Basilei, 
 
 6. Commodillae, 
 
 Pontiani i 
 pileatimi, 
 
 Lucina 
 
 ro. Calepodi 
 
 Names in 4th Century, 
 Time of peace. 
 
 12. Ad Septem Columbas, 
 
 Basilic, 
 
 [5. Ma.ximi, 
 
 S. Xysti. 
 
 S. Cseciliae. 
 
 SS. Xj'sti et Cornelii. 
 
 S. Januarii. 
 
 SS. Urbani, Felicissimi 
 
 Agapiti, Januarii, et 
 
 Quirini. 
 SS. Tiburtii, Valeriani, 
 
 et Maximi. 
 S. Sebastiani. 
 S. Petronillse. 
 SS. Petronilla;, Nerei, 
 
 et Achillei. 
 SS. Marci et Marcel- 
 
 liani. 
 
 SS. Felicis et Adaucti 
 
 Or, 
 
 Isolated Tombs of 
 Martyrs. 
 
 27. Soteridi 
 
 CEMETERIES 
 
 Constructed after 
 the Peace of the 
 Church. 
 
 38. Balbinse sive 
 
 S. Marci. 
 
 39. Damasi. 
 
 28. Sepulcrum Pauli 
 
 Apostoli in prsedio 1 
 Lucinae. j 
 
 29. Cosmeterium Timo- 
 
 thei in horto Theo- 
 nis. 
 
 30. "Ecclesia S. I'hec'se. 
 
 31. Ecclesia S. Zenonis 
 
 SS. Abdon et Sennen. 
 S. Anastasii, pp. 
 S. Innucentii, pp. 
 
 Mai 
 
 S. Pancrati 
 bS. Proces 
 
 tiniani. ! 
 
 S. Agatha; ad Gii ulum. 1 
 
 S. Callisti via Aurelia. j 
 
 Julii via Aurelia. i 
 
 S. Valentini. 
 
 Ad caput S. Joannis. 
 
 S. Hermetis, 
 
 SS. Hermetis, Basil's: 
 
 Proti, et Hyacinthi. 
 S. Pamphyli. 
 S. Felicitatis. 
 
 Julii via Por- 
 tuensi, mill, 
 iii , S. Feli- 
 cis via Por- 
 tuensis. 
 
 S. Felicis via 
 Aurelia. 
 
 32. Memoria Petri Apos- 
 toli et sepulturaj 
 episcoporum in Va- 
 ticano. 
 
 33. Ecclesia S. Hilaria; 
 
 in horto ejusdem. 
 
 34. Crypta SS. Chry 
 
 santi et Darise. 
 
 35. Ccemeterium Novella;. 
 
List of Cemeteries, &e. 
 
 XV 
 
 List of Cemeteries — Continued. 
 
 
 
 
 GREATER CEMETERIES. 
 
 
 
 LESSER CEME- 
 
 CEMETERIES 
 
 
 
 
 
 TERIES; 
 
 ROADS. 
 
 
 
 
 Constructed after 
 
 
 
 Primitive Names. 
 
 Names in 4th Century, 
 
 Or, Isolated Tombs of 
 
 the Peace of the 
 
 
 
 Time of Peace. 
 
 Martyrs. 
 
 Church. 
 
 
 16. 
 
 Thrasonis, 
 
 .S. Saturnini. 
 S. Alexandri. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Jordanoi uiii, . . \ 
 
 SS. Alexandri, Vitalis 
 
 
 
 
 17- 
 
 et Martialis et VII. 
 Virginum. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Priscillge, . • • | 
 
 .S. Silvestri. 
 
 
 
 
 18. 
 
 S. Marcelli. 
 
 
 
 NOMENTANA, 
 
 19. 
 
 Oslrianum vel Os- J 
 triani, . • ■ 
 
 Coemeterium majus. 
 Ad Nymphas .S. Petri. 
 
 36. Coemeterium S. Ag- 
 netis in ejusdem 
 
 
 
 
 Fontis S. Petri. 
 
 agello. 
 37. Coemeterium S. Ni- 
 comedis. 
 
 
 TIBURTINA, 
 
 20. 
 
 
 S. Hippoiyti. 
 
 
 
 21. 
 
 Cyriacae, . 
 
 f 
 
 S. Laurentii. 
 
 
 42. In Comitatu 
 
 
 
 S. Gorgonii. 
 
 ■ 
 
 LABICANA, . 
 
 22. 
 
 
 SS. Petri et Marcellini. 
 
 
 sive 
 
 23- 
 
 Ad Duas Laiiros, . | 
 
 i 
 
 S. Tiburtii. 
 
 S. Castuli. 
 
 S. Gordiani. 
 
 SS. Gordiani et Epim- 
 
 
 SS. Quatuor 
 Coronatorum. 
 
 LATINA, 
 
 
 
 achi. 
 
 
 
 2=;. 
 
 \ 
 
 SS. Simplicii et Servi 
 Hani, Quarti et 
 Quinti, et Sophiae. 
 
 S. TertuUini. 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 26. Aproniani, 
 
 S. Eugeniae. 
 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 PART I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Modern Authors. — Roma Sotterranea — Its discovery — Visited in 
 fifteenth century by Franciscan friars— and by Pomponio Leto 
 and his companions — In 1578 visited by Baronius — Researches 
 of Ciacconio, De Winghe, and Macarius — Bosio — His life and 
 labours — Immense learning and industry— His labour in the Cata- 
 combs and its danger — Posthumous publication of his Roma Sot- 
 terranea, and its success— Its value and general arrangement — Sad 
 destruction of antiquities in Catacombs — At length prevented by 
 the Popes — Protestant notices of Catacombs — ^John Evelyn — Bur- 
 net and Misson — Fabretti aistode of Catacombs — Succeeded by 
 Boldetti — Works of Boldetti, Buonarrotti, Marangoni, and Bottari 
 in eighteenth century — Christian Museum in the Vatican — D' Agin- 
 court, his work and devastations — Padre Marchi — De Rossi — 
 Follows system of Bosio — His sources of information, . . i 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Ancient Records. — The Martyrologium Ilieronymianum— Its value 
 and antiquity — Almanac of Furius Dionysius Filocalus — Inscrip- 
 tions of Pope Damasus — Liber Pontificalis — Martyrologies — Acts 
 of martyrs, their importance even when of doubtful authenticity 
 — Itineraries of pilgrims in seventh century — Papyrus list of olea 
 at Monza in time of St Gregory the Great, . . '17 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. — General Description. — Position and extent of 
 Catacombs — Their number and names — Their origin and purpose, 
 and distinctions from sand-pits or arena ria — Explanation of terms 
 
C 071 tents. 
 
 xvii 
 
 1 age 
 
 — Different kinds of tombs — ^Tlie Catacombs as places of pilgrim- 
 age until the relics were removed — Their abandonment and re- 
 discovery in sixteenth century, . , , . -25 
 
 CHAPTER II. — Social and Religious Position of the First 
 Roman Christians. — The Roman Church in Apostolic times 
 comprised among its members persons of noble rank, Greeks and 
 Jews — Scattered notices of them in Pagan authors — The Flavii — 
 Flavius Clemens, the consul and martyr — Flavia Uomitilla — 
 Pomponia Grecina— Their political position — At first confused 
 with the Jews, and protected as a sect of a legalised religion — - 
 Proscribed by Nero — First persecution — Domitian — Nerva — Tra- 
 jan and Pliny — Insecure position of Christians even under tolerant 
 princes, ........ 35 
 
 CHAPTER III. — Roman Laws and Cust( ms affecting Burial. 
 — Christian sepulchres protected by the ordinary privileges of 
 Roman tombs — Even in times of persecution — Roman burial- 
 places readily adapted for Christian cemeteries — Their size and 
 appurtenances — Catacombs originally limited by the size of the 
 superincumbent area, as in St Lucina — Funeral confraternities in 
 Rome, their rul'es and dustoms — Might easily have been made use 
 of by Christians as a safeguard — Instance of this having been done 
 — First edict expressly against Christian cemeteries by Emperor 
 Valerian, . . . • • • • '45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. — Beginning of the Catacombs. — Roman burial- 
 places, extra-mural — Their character as contrasted with Christian 
 cemeteries— Jewish Catacombs— Christians did not bum their dead, 
 but buried them entire — First Christian cemeteries small nnd pri- 
 vate — Examples of these very early cemeteries, . . ■ 5^ 
 
 BOOK II. 
 HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS. 
 CHAPTER I.— The Catacombs in the First Ages.— Apostolic 
 . origin of some of the Catacombs— Papal crypt on the Vatican— 
 St Paul's on the Via Ostiensis— St Priscilla on the Via Salaria— 
 Cemetery of Ostrianus or Eons Petri— Signs of antiquity— Ceme- 
 tery of St Domitilla-Its description— Entrance and arrangement 
 —Character of its paintings— Evidences of Apostolic antiquity- 
 Description of the very ancient cemetery of St Pretextatus on the 
 Via Appia-Its architecture -Tomb of St Januarius-His epitaph 
 in Damasine characters-Tomb of St Quirinus-Catacomb of St 
 Alexander on the Via Nomeulana, • , • • • 
 
XVlll 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER II. — From the beginning of the Third Century 
 TO Constantine's Edict of Peace, a. u. 312. — Public Chmtian 
 cemeteries — Cemetery of St Callixtus — Under the pontificate of 
 St Zephyrinus — -Burial-place of the popes — Other public ceme- 
 teries — Edict of Valerian against the Christian cemeteries — Mar- 
 tyrdom of St Sixtus II. and St Laurence — Cemeteries restored to 
 Pope Dionysius — Necessity of concealment — Christians attacked 
 in cemeteries — Martyrdoms in them — Used as hiding-places — 
 Their condition from Aurelian to Diocletian — Confiscated by the 
 latter, and restored by Maxentius to St Melchiades — Parishes or 
 titles of Rome — Each had its own cemetery — Their ecclesiastical 
 administration — Reflections upon this portion of their history, . 83 
 
 CHAPTER III. — From the Edict of Milan to the Sack of 
 Rome by Alaric, a.d. 410. — Gradual disuse of subterranean 
 cemeteries — Basilicas of the martyrs— Care of St Damasus for the 
 Catacombs — His labours and inscriptions — Catacombs as places 
 of pilgrimage — Described by St Jerome — Also by Prudentius — 
 Scene on the festa of a saint — Damage caused by indiscreet devo- 
 tion and private interment — Rapid disuse of Catacombs as burial- 
 places — Total cessation after A.D. 410, . . . -95 
 
 CHAPTER IV. — ^From a.d. 410 until their Final Abandon- 
 ment. — The Catacombs abandoned as burial-places — Still fre- 
 quented as shrines — Profaned by the Goths under Vitiges, a.d. 
 537 — Repaired and cared for by the popes — First translation of 
 relics from Catacombs, a.d. 756, by Paul I. — Afterwards by 
 Paschal I. and other Popes — Final abandonment of Catacombs — 
 Origin of the name Catacomb, . . . . .104 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CATACOMB OF ST CALLIXTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. — Its Discovery and Identification. — Pre-emi- 
 nence of the Via Appia, both in Pagan and Christian Rome- 
 Its cemeteries and shrines described by ancient writers — ^Those 
 in or near the Catacomb of St Callixtus — Basilica of St Sebastian 
 — The temporary resting-place of the bodies of St Peter and St 
 Paul — Their translation — Erroneous medieval inscriptions in the 
 Catacomb beneath this basilica — Proof that the Catacomb of St 
 Callixtus is not there— Discoveiy of the crypt of St Cornelius— 
 And of the Papal crypt, . . . . . .110 
 
 CHAPTER II.— Distinction of the several parts of the 
 Catacomb of St Callixtus.— Difficulties of mapping the Cata- 
 
Contents. 
 
 XIX 
 
 combs — Overcome by Michele de Rossi — Several different arec£ of 
 cemeteries originally independent— Crypt of St Lucina — Belonged 
 originally to the Gens Crecilia— Who was St Lucina? — Charac- 
 teristics of this area —The central area of St Callixtus — Another 
 area subsequently added to it — Cemeteries of St Soteris and of , 
 St Balbina, . . . . . . .120 
 
 CHAPTER III. — The Papal Crypt. — Its entrance— 6^n7^// on the 
 plaster — Of three kinds — Mere names — Prayers and pious ejacu- 
 lations — Invocations of saints — Their antiquity — Examination of 
 the crypt itself — Ancient altar — Original epitaphs of popes of third 
 century — Burial of bishops at that period — Rarely, but sometimes 
 away from their own churches — Popes buried in this cemetery— 
 Zephyrinus — Urban I. — Pontianus — Anteros — Fabian — Lucius — 
 Eutychianus — Sixtus II. martyred in Catacomb of St Pretextatus 
 — Inscription of Pope Damasus concerning it — Has been erro- 
 neously applied to St Stephen — Caius — Traces of Diocletian per- 
 secution in this cemetery — Tomb of St Melchiades — Inscription by 
 Pope Damasus in Papal crypt — Vast number of martyrs men- 
 tioned in itineraries not improbable, . . . .130 
 
 CHAPTER IV. — Crypt of St Cecilia.— General appearance of 
 this chamber —Plistory of St Cecilia — Iler martyrdom and burial 
 — Her body discovered and translated by Paschal I. — Found in- 
 corrupt, A.D. 1590 — Examined by Cardinals Baronius and Sfron- 
 drati — Statue by Maderna from the body itself —Critical examina- 
 tion of the crypt — Its discovery and excavation — Its paintings and 
 other decorations— Identification of the tomb of St Cecilia, by in- 
 scriptions and graffiti — Verification and correction of the Acts 
 of St Cecilia— Alterations made in the crypt— Saints depicted on 
 \i?> l/iiiii//ari', . . . . - . • ^S'^ 
 
 CtlAPTER v.— Epitaph of St Euskpi us.— Crypt of St Eusebius 
 — Fragments of a Damasinc inscription found there — Which had 
 been restored in the sixth or seventh century— Inscription explained 
 — Its importance as supi)lying a lost page of history of the ponti- 
 ficate of St Eusebius, . . . . . .166 
 
 CT.IAPTER VI.— The Sepulchre of St Cornelius.— Inscription 
 to Saints Parthenius and Calocerus — Labyrinth connecting the 
 cemetery of St Callixtus with the crypts of St Lucina— Family of 
 St Cornelius— How his epitaph came to be in Latin instead of 
 (ji-eek- His sepulchre described— Damasine inscription there, 
 and also one by Pope Siricius, restored by De Rossi— Fresco of 
 St Cornelius and St Cyprian, its date and peculiarities— Another 
 of St Sixtus and St Optatus— Pillar near tomb of St Cornelius- 
 Cm^// on the plaster, . . . • • -175 
 
XX 
 
 C07ltC7ltS. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 CHRISTIAN ART. 
 
 Page 
 
 CI^PTER I. — Antiquity and Original Types of Christian 
 Art. — Opinions of D'Agincoui t, Raoul Roclaette, and others on 
 the antiquity of Christian paintings — De Rossi claims a very high 
 and even apostolic antiquity for many of the frescoes in the Cata- 
 combs—Protestant testimony to the same effect — The birth of 
 Christian art— Its progress checked by persecution — Explanation 
 of the canon of the Council of Elvira against pictures in churches 
 — Means of distinguishing the dates of paintings — The nimbus^ its 
 introduction and pi-evalence — Letters on garments — The mono- 
 gram — Evidence from style, and choice of subject, locality, &c. 
 — Sketch of early history of Christian art— In apostolic times — 
 Christian artists by no means confined themselves to Pagan 
 models, as was supposed, from the discovery of two Gnostic ceme- 
 teries — Christ represented as Orpheus and the Good Shepherd — 
 Division of our subject, ...... i86 
 
 CHAPTER II.— Symbolical Paintings. — Symbolism explained — 
 Rules for interpreting symbolical representations and their abuse 
 — The anchor a symbol of hope — Sheep and dove of living and 
 deceased Christians — Dove joined with other symbols — The fish : 
 its symbolical use confined to ages of persecution — A symbol both 
 of Christ and of a Christian — Origin of its use as symbol of Christ 
 • — Instances of its use by the Fathers in this sense and in monu- 
 ments of art — Used with a ship, a dove, or an anchor — Fish and 
 bread (St John xxi.) explained of the Holy Eucharist by St Au- 
 gustine and the rest of the Fathers — Confirmed by epitaphs of St 
 Abercius and of Autun, and by monuments of art — Similar paint- 
 ings in a Catacomb of Alexandria — Summary of evidence on this 
 subject, and importance of conclusion — Holy Eucharist symbolised 
 by milk in very ancient frescoes, as in acts of St Perpetua and by 
 St Augustine — The cross : its different forms and disguises — The 
 monogram : its successive modifications, .... 202 
 
 CHAPTER III. — Allegorical Paintings — Parables of our Lord 
 give the key to many of these paintings — e.g.. The vine — The wise 
 and foolish virgins — The Good Shepherd : its frequency and va- 
 rious forms^Explanation of Plate XVI., . . . 233 
 
 CHAPTER IV. — Biblical Paintings. — Subjects taken from holy 
 Scripture are ljut few in number, and confined in mode of treat- 
 ment ; being, in fact, symbolical rather than historical— Noe in 
 the ark typical of baptism, not copied from Pagan type — ^Jonas 
 and the fish a type of the resurrection — The ivy or gourd — Daniel 
 
Contents, 
 
 XXI 
 
 in the den of lions, and the tliree children— Adoration of the 
 Magi— Moses striking the rock, and the resiu'rection of Lazarus 
 — Moses taking off his shoes— These subjects probably chosen Ijy 
 ecclesiastical authority, ...... 239 
 
 CHAPTER V. — Paintings of Christ, His Holy Mother, and 
 THE Saints. — Historical paintings extremely rare in Catacombs — 
 No real portrait of Christ, or of the Blessed Virgin— A bust of our 
 Lord described by Kiigler— The saints generally represented pray- 
 ing — The Blessed Virgin as an orante in Catacomb paintings, sculp- 
 tures, and glasses — Sometimes, perhaps, as a figure of the Church 
 — Remarkable fresco of her in Catacomb of St Agnes — She is fre- 
 quently represented with the adoration of the Magi, who are nearly 
 always three — Very ancient painting of the Blessed Virgin and 
 Child with Isaias, in Catacomb of St Priscilla — Its date of the 
 second century— Other paintings of Our Lady, St Joseph, &c., . 251 
 
 CHAPTER VI.— Liturgical Paintings.— Liturgical paintings are 
 necessarily very rare — Remarkable series of them in acbicula near 
 the papal crypt — Made in second and third century — Description 
 of them — ^Explained by TertuUian — Baptism under figures of 
 smitten rock, a fisherman, and the paralytic carrying his bed — 
 Holy Eucharist — Consecrating priest clothed in palUnni only — 
 Church represented by a woman praying — Answers to objections 
 — Sacrifice of Isaac explains the companion scene — Resurrection 
 of Lazarus forms a conclusion to the series — ^Jonas — Painting of 
 teachers and of fossors — Series probably drawn out by authority 
 — Other liturgical paintings in Catacomb of St Priscilla, . . 262 
 
 CHAPTER VII. — Gilded Glasses found in the Catacombs. — 
 Various articles found in the Catacombs — Gilded glasses in Vatican 
 Museum— In England and elsewhere — Description of these glasses 
 — Their discovery by Bosio and others — Two found recently at 
 Cologne — The art of making them known only in Rome, and 
 practised there only in the third and fourth centuries — Subjects 
 depicted on them — Pagan — Social and domestic— Jewish — But 
 most frequently Christian — Description of some of these — Bibli- 
 cal subjects — Figures of saints — Most favourite subject is Saints 
 Peter and Paul— Probably used at the feast of these apostles, 
 which was very solemnly observed at Rome in the fourth century 
 
 Eighty glasses have these apostles on them— Inscriptions round 
 
 them— Ancient portraits of the apostles— Valuable bronze medal 
 of them found in cemetery of St Domitilla— They are variously 
 represented on glasses — Sometimes to symbolise the Roman 
 Church with St Agnes and other saints— St Peter under the type 
 of Moses, illustrated by sarcophagi and fresco paintings— Large 
 
XXI 1 
 
 Contents. 
 
 patevuv, with small medallions let into the glass — Whether these 
 glasses have been used for chalices ? — Glass patens and their use 
 in the third century, ...... 27-, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. — Christian Sarcophagi. — Christian use of sar- 
 cophagi dates from apostolic times — Tomb of St Petronilla and of 
 St Linus — It was not a common mode of burial — During the ages 
 of persecution, Christian subjects were not sculptured on sarcophagi, 
 for obvious reasons — But Christians selected from Pagan shops those 
 subjects which suited them — Pastoral scenes — The Good Shepherd 
 — Instances of such subjects as Cupid and Psyche, and Ulysses 
 and the Syrens--Orpheus, &c. — The sarcophagi in the Lateran 
 INIuseuni — Large one from St Paul's described and explained : re- 
 presentation of the Holy Trinity^ — The fall — The adoration of tlie 
 Magi — Christ giving sight to the blind — Eucharistic symbols — 
 Resurrection of Lazarus — St Peter in three scenes — Daniel among 
 the lions, and the prophet Habacuc — Small statues of the Good 
 Shepherd — Sarcophagus, with history of Jonas, Noe, and other 
 subjects — Sarcophagi, with Cain and Abel, the fall, and St Mary 
 Magdalene — Cover with sheep carrying ciavibellc — Sarcophagus 
 which once contained the relics of the Holy Innocents, having 
 figures of Mary nnd Lazarus, St Peter's denial, Moses receiving 
 the law, the sacrifice of Isaac, St Peter as Moses, Daniel, heal- 
 ing of the blind and paralytic, and Zaccheus — Sarcophagus with 
 labaniin, and scenes from the Passion — Sculpture of the Agape — • 
 Sarcophagus under a canopy, representing Christ in glory, sur- 
 rounded by the apostles, St Peter's denial, the smitten rock, and 
 Noli me tangere — Sculpture of Elias ascending into heaven — The 
 pallium — The Nativity — Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, its date, 
 and the subjects on it, especially the lambs in the spandrils of 
 the arches — Statue of St Hippolytus — Of the third century — His 
 canon paschalis — Note on the comparative frequency of the various 
 subjects sculptured, . . . . . .29 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS THEMSELVES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. — Testimony of the Catacombs to their Chris- 
 tian Origin. — Scope of this part of the work— Catacombs used 
 as burial-places by none but Christians — Pagan inscriptions in them 
 accounted for — Their Christian origin first vindicated by Padre 
 Marchi — First proof : the nature of the rock in which the Cata- 
 combs aie excavated — The various volcanic strata of the Roman 
 
Contents, 
 
 xxiu 
 
 Campagna — Second proof: the form of the Catacombs as con- 
 trasted with that of pozzolana quarries — Instance of arenarmm 
 converted into the Catacomb of St Hermes— Grounds of the theory 
 of their Pagan origin stated and examined — Meaning of tlie term 
 cryptce arenarm — Examination of passages in ancient records 
 which seem to identify the arenaruv with the Catacombs, viz., in 
 the case of— I. St Cornelius — 2. The Quattro Coronati — 3. Saints 
 Chrysanthus and Daria — 4. St Crescentianus in cemetery of Pris- 
 cilla — 5. St Hippolytus, &c., on Via Appia. — These apparent 
 exceptions prove the rule, . . . . . '317 
 
 CHAPTER II. — Testimony of the C.vtacombs to the mode 
 OF THEIR Construction and Development. — Scope of this 
 chapter — ^Locality of Christian cemeteries, and distance from the 
 city — On high ground — Excavated in hifa gramilai'e — Systems of 
 galleries, each horizontal, though in different flats, one below 
 another — Section of geological strata — Mode of excavation — Dif- 
 ferent periods to be distinguished in the area in which are the 
 crypts of the Popes and of St Cecilia — First period — Second period: 
 level of galleries lowered — ^Third period : a deeper piano tried, 
 signs of necessity for concealment, connexion with arenarimn — 
 Union with a second area previously distinct — Fourth period : ar- 
 cosoUa — Fifth period: earthing up of galleries during the Diocletian 
 persecution — Sixth period : formation of small galleries upon this 
 earth — Last period : works of St Damasus — Recapitulation and 
 application to development of catacombs generally, . . 333 
 
 CHAPTER III. — Analytical Description of the Plan of the 
 
 most important Area of the Catacomh of St Callixtus, 360 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. — The finding of the body of St Hyacinth (p. 15), . . 379 
 
 Note B.— The Acts of St Cecilia (p. 22), . . . .387 
 
 Note C— St Peter's Chair (p. 68), . . . . .388 
 
 • I. Description of the Chair in the Vatican. 
 
 2. Historical Notices of it. 
 
 3. Another Chair of St Peter in the Cemetery of Ostri- 
 
 anus. 
 
 4. The two Feasts of St Peter's Chair. 
 
 Note D. — Burial near the sepulchres of saints (p. 102), . . 399 
 
 Note E. — Altars in the primitive church (p. 184), . . .401 
 
 Note F.— The origin of the pallium (p. 310), . • • 4^4 
 
 Note G.— Description of the Atlas accompanying this volume, . 406 
 
 INDEX, 409 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 ROMA SOTTERRANEA 
 
 ITS LITERARY HISTORY. 
 
 PART I. 
 MODERN A UTHORS. 
 
 ON the last day of May, a.d. 1578, some labourers, Discovery, 
 who were digging pozzolana in a vineyard (now the 
 property of the Irish College) on the Via Salaria, about two 
 miles out of Rome, came unexpectedly on an old subterra- 
 nean cemetery, ornamented with Christian paintings, Greek 
 and Latin inscriptions, and two or three sculptured sarco- 
 phagi. The discovery at once attracted universal attention, 
 and persons of all classes flocked to see it. " Rome was 
 amazed," writes a contemporary author, " at finding that 
 she had other cities, unknown to her, concealed beneath 
 her own suburbs, beginning now to understand what she had 
 before only heard or read of:" and "in that day," says De 
 Rossi, "was born the name and the knowledge of i?^';^^.^ Of Roma Sot- 
 Sotterraiieay ^ 
 
 It is true that the man who was destined to be the first 
 thoroughly to explore and describe this city of the dead, was as 
 yet only three years old but even then there were not want- 
 ing men whose learning and industry sufficed to keep alive the 
 * Bosio, Rom. Sott., p. 511. 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 Literary Histoiy of Rojna Sotterranea. 
 
 liarlier visits 
 _)f friars. 
 
 and Roman 
 
 Academicians, 
 
 fruitless. 
 
 Pomponio 
 Leto, 
 
 newly enkindled flame of love for Christian antiquities. Nearly 
 one hundred and fifty years before, and at various intervals 
 during half a century, the same, or at least precisely similar, 
 objects had been seen in another vineyard on the opposite side 
 of the city; but those who saw them were either men of reli- 
 gion, attracted by motives of piety, or men of learning, with 
 enthusiasm only for what was Pagan. Among the first class 
 must be reckoned certain Franciscan friars, whose visits to the 
 Catacomb of St Callixtus between the years 1432 and 1482 
 are recorded by scribblings on the walls of two or three cuhicula 
 in one quarter of that cemetery. " Came here to visit this 
 holy place," {fiiit hie ad visitandiDii sanctiivi locum istiun,) 
 writes Brother Lawrence of Sicily, with twenty brethren of the 
 order of Friars Minor, January 17th, 1451. Another visit was 
 made in 1455, " in the week in which Pope Nicholas V. died," 
 {Jiebdomada qua defuntus est pp. N. V.) An abbot of St Sebas- 
 tian's entered with a large party, {cum viagna coudtiva,) May 
 19th, 1469; some Scotchmen in 1467, [MCCCCLXVII. 
 quidem Seoti hie fuerufit,) &c. &c. Not one, however, of these 
 numerous visitors seems to have thought of making any his 
 torical or antiquarian examination of the precious monuments 
 of the past which were before them. The other class of visitors 
 to whom we have alluded belonged to the same period, but were 
 men of a very different character. The names of Pomponio 
 Leto and other littei'ati^ his associates in the famous Roman 
 Academy, may still be read in several places of the same 
 quarter of the Catacombs, written there by themselves, with 
 the addition of their title as Uiianimes antiquitatis Amatores, 
 or Perscrutato7^es ; yet not even one of these seems ever to 
 have made any study of what he saw, certainly none ever 
 wrote about it. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the literary history of the fif- 
 teenth century, will remember how these men fell into disgrace 
 with the Sovereign Pontiff, Paul II., on suspicion both of being 
 infected with heresy and of conspiring against the Government. 
 One of the grounds for the first of these charges was their 
 pedantic conceit of taking old Pagan classical names m place 
 of their Christian ones ; but it has always been a matter of 
 controversy how far the charge of conspiracy was really sup- 
 ported by evidence; and Tiraboschi hardly mentions any 
 
Modern Authors. 
 
 3 
 
 appreciable ground for it at all* We are not here concerned 
 with the rehgious or political integrity of the Academy ; yet, 
 in elucidation of an obscure point in history, it may be worth 
 while to mention that the name of Pomponio Leto is found in 
 these newly-discovered memorials of him, with the title of Fon- 
 tifex Maxhjms, and even Font: Max: regtians ; and that other 
 titles are added to some of the names, showing the dissolute 
 habits of the Academicians, and that they were not ashamed 
 to perpetuate their own memories as lovers, not only of ancient 
 names, but of ancient manners. We must also express both 
 our regret and surprise, that men whose lives were devoted to 
 the revival of learning, and of whose chief it is particularly 
 recorded that he applied himself to the elucidation of Roman 
 antiquities " which were then being disinterred," should have 
 been familiar with these earliest monuments of the heroic age 
 of Christianity, and yet never have felt sufficient interest to 
 excite them to investigate their history, or to publish anything 
 at all about them. Whatever, therefore, they may really have 
 believed, we cannot wonder at the charge brought against them 
 by their contemporaries, and which we find addressed to one 
 of them by a bishop even after their acquittal, that they were 
 more Pagans than Christians. 
 
 We fear, indeed, that this charge might at that time have 
 been justly urged against many more than the members of the 
 Roman Academy. Now, however, in the year of which we 
 first spoke, a.d. 1578, Christian learning and Christian morality 
 were in a far more hopeful condition in the Eternal City. It 
 was the age of St Ignatius Loyola, St Charles Borromeo, and 
 St Philip Neri. Baron ius, the friend and disciple of the latter, Baionius. 
 was already engaged on his immortal work, the " Ecclesiastical 
 Annals," in more than one page of which he shows the warmth 
 of his interest in the new discovery, and his just appreciation 
 of its importance. He was among the first to visit it ; and . 
 had not his time been fully absorbed by his own gigantic work, 
 he might, perhaps, have become its first explorer and historian. 
 As it was, this labour and honour seems rather to have fallen 
 to the lot of foreigners resident in Rome, than to Romans 
 themselves. They were Alfonso Ciacconio, a Spanish Domini- 
 can, and two young Flemish laymen, Philip de Winghe, and 
 * Stovia della Litteratura Italiana, torn. vi. part i. pp. 93-97- 
 
4 
 
 Literary History of Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Joannes Macarius, (the Grecised form of Jean I'Heureux ;) and 
 the labours, even of these, were not destined to be of much 
 service in spreading a knowledge of the Catacombs among 
 their contemporaries. 
 
 Researches of Ciacconio was a man who delighted in investigating and 
 ' collecting curiosities of every kind, and possessed a valuable 
 museum of Christian and Pagan antiquities. He also em- 
 ployed artists to copy for him some of the more remarkable 
 paintings in the Catacombs. Their skill, however, appears 
 hardly to have been equal to their good intentions, since we 
 are told that Noe in the Ark, with the dove bringing him the 
 olive-branch, was represented and explained as " Marcellus, 
 Pope and Martyr, instructed by an angel whilst he is preach- 
 
 De Winghe, ing." De Winghe, not unnaturally, was dissatisfied with his 
 friend's performance, and had the paintings more faithfully 
 re-copied for himself These copies were seen and used both 
 by Macarius and Bosio. All traces of them, however, have 
 now been lost, unless De Rossi be correct in supposing that 
 he has discovered a few in the Imperial Library at Paris ; any- 
 how, they were never made public. Had De Winghe lived, 
 he would, doubtless, have been the first author on Roma Sotter- 
 ranea ; Baronius, Frederic Borromeo, and other good and 
 learned men set their hopes upon him, and his talents and in- 
 dustry seem to have been in every way worthy of their expecta- 
 tions. He died, however, at a very early age at Florence, in 
 the summer of 1592 ; and his MSS., after having formed part 
 of the famous library of the Bollandists, were sold in 1825, 
 with the rest of that magnificent collection, and now remain 
 unedited in the Royal Library at Brussels. The notes of Ciac- 
 conio, exceedingly voluminous and miscellaneous, appear never 
 to have been prepared for publication, and still lie buried in 
 various public and private libraries of Rome and Naples. The 
 
 and Macarius. labours of Macarius were scarcely more fruitful ; they were 
 continued during a residence of twenty years in Rome, and the 
 work in which they resulted was prepared for publication, and 
 even licensed for printing on the 2 2d of June 1605. The 
 author, however, although he lived until 16 14, left his work 
 still in MS. to a public library in Louvain. It was afterwards 
 annotated by Bollandus, who announced its publication, but 
 died before redeeming his promise ; and it is only in our own 
 
Modern Authors. 
 
 5 
 
 day that Padre Garrucci, S.J., has given this precious manu- 
 script to the public* 
 
 The labours, however, of these and some others mentioned 
 by De Rossi, great as they may have been, fade into insigni- 
 ficance when compared with those of Antonio Bosio, who has Antonio 
 justly been called the true Columbus of this subterranean 
 world. He was a man worthy to be had in remembrance. 
 De Rossi seems unable to speak of him without a certain 
 feeling of enthusiastic reverence and devotion, in which all 
 lovers of Christian archaeology can scarcely fail to sympathise. 
 • A Maltese by birth, an advocate by profession, Bosio had His life and 
 resided in Rome from his earliest years with his uncle, who 
 was FrocM'atore or Roman agent for the knights of Malta. 
 His attention was drawai to the subject of the Catacombs, 
 while he was yet very young, and when once he had taken up 
 its pursuit he never abandoned it. The earliest date recorded 
 in his book, and found written on the walls of the Catacombs, 
 is December lo, 1593, the year after the death of De Winghe, 
 when Bosio himself was not yet eighteen ; and his labours 
 were continued both in the cemeteries themselves, and in 
 studying the works of authors from whom he expected to 
 derive information on the subject, for the six and thirty years 
 of his subsequent life. His industry was prodigious ; and the Immense 
 volumes of his MSS., still extant in the Bibliotheca Vallicel- 
 liana (the Oratorian Library) at Rome, are a wonderful monu- 
 ment of it. Two of these volumes, containing upwards of 
 two thousand pages folio, besides fifty pages of mdex, all in 
 his own handwriting, show that he had read carefully through 
 all the fathers, Greek, Latin, and Oriental ; all the collections 
 of canons and councils, ecclesiastical histories, lives of the 
 saints, and an immense number of theological treatises, in- 
 cluding those of the schoolmen ; in fact, every work in which 
 he thought there was a chance of finding anything in illustra- 
 tion of his subject. In two other volumes of the same size he 
 transcribed the " Acts of the Martyrs,'' especially of all those 
 who suffered in Rome, together with other ancient records 
 which bore upon the topography of the Christian cemeteries. 
 
 * Hagioglypta : sivc pictura: ct sciilpfurce sacra antiquiores prcTsertivi 
 qiuc Konuc rcpciinn'ur, cxplicata a Joanne P Ikicreiix {Macario.) Paris. 
 1856. 
 
6 Literary History of Roma Sottei^ra^iea. 
 
 These were taken from MSS. in the Vatican and other libraries. 
 And yet it is certain that even these volumes by no means 
 represent the whole of his writings. He himself refers to other 
 commonplace books of his which are now lost. 
 T.aboui s in the Again, in making our estimate of the labours of this truly 
 Catacombs. g^-gat man, we must never forget the anxious, fatiguing, and 
 even dangerous nature of his subterranean researches. When, 
 from his study of ancient records, he had ascertained some- 
 thing as to the probable position of a Christian cemetery on 
 the Appian or other of the Roman roads, Bosio would explore 
 with the utmost diligence all the vineyards of the neighbour- 
 hood, in order to discover, if possible, some entrance into the 
 bowels of the earth ; and often, after returning again and again 
 to the same spot, his labour would be all in vain. At another 
 time he would hear of some opening having been accidentally 
 made into a Catacomb, by the digging of a new cellar or a well, 
 and would hasten to the spot, only to find that the whole place 
 was so buried in ruins that all ingress was impossible. Even 
 when an entrance was once effected, he still had to force a 
 Dangers of passage, often by the labour of his own hands, through the 
 hih work. accumulated rubbish of ages ; or, if the galleries were tolerably 
 clear, there was the danger of being drawn too far in the 
 eagerness of discovery, and of being unable to retrace his steps 
 through the intricate windings of these subterranean labyrinths. 
 In fact, this danger was actually experienced on his very first 
 visit to the Catacombs, in company with Pompeo Ugonio and 
 others, on the loth of December 1593. They had penetrated 
 into a Catacomb about a mile distant from St Sebastian's, and 
 having forced their way into a lower level, by means of an 
 opening in one of the chapels, they incautiously proceeded so 
 far, that, when they wished to return, they could not recognise 
 the path by which they had come. To add to their perplexity, 
 their lights failed them, for they had remained underground 
 longer than they had intended ; and " I began to fear," says 
 Bosio, " that I should defile by my vile corpse the sepulchres 
 of the martyrs." Taught by this experience, he always in 
 future visits took with him a quantity of candles, and other 
 requisites sufficient for two or three days. 
 
 This indefatigable examination of the Catacombs, and of all 
 ancient documents connected with them, was continued, as we 
 
Modern Authors. 
 
 7 
 
 have said, for six and thirty years, and then Bosio too paid the Publication of 
 debt of nature, without haviner either completed his work, or /vWz 
 
 Sotterranea, 
 
 pubhshed any part of it. It seemed as though Roma Sotterranea a.u. 1632. 
 were never to be revealed to the world at large. The work of 
 Bosio was, however, too important to be allowed to lie buried 
 as had those of his predecessors in these researches. He had 
 also powerful friends, who would not suffer the fruit of so 
 much labour to perish. His papers and other property had 
 been bequeathed to the Order of the Knights of Malta, with 
 whom, as we have seen, his uncle had been officially connected. 
 The ambassador of the Order then at Rome, Prince Carlo 
 Aldobrandini, showed the MSS. to Cardinal Francesco Bar- 
 berini, the librarian of the Vatican, the nephew of the reigning 
 Pontiff, the friend of Galileo, and the Maecenas of those days. 
 The cardinal at once recognised their value, and lost no time 
 in engaging Padre Severano, of the Oratory, to put the finish- 
 ing-stroke to the work. An eminent architect and a mathema- 
 tician were employed to draw the plans and maps which were 
 still wanting ; the Knights of Malta undertook the expense ; 
 and in five years' time the magnificent volume which we now 
 possess was produced and dedicated to Pope Urban VHL* 
 It was welcomed by the whole literary and archaeological world Its success, 
 with the utmost eagerness, and the demand for it was such that 
 a Latin translation was begun almost immediately after its 
 appearance. Bosio himself had at one time intended to com- 
 pose the whole work in Latin, and a portion of it, written in 
 that language, may still be seen among his MSS., although 
 through some oversight this portion was not incorporated into 
 Severano's original edition. Something appears to have pre- 
 vented the publication of Severano's translation ; and it was 
 not until fifteen or sixteen years later that a new translation, 
 with considerable alterations and omissions, was published by 
 Aringhi, in 165 i.t 
 
 Although Bosio's work was never completed according to his Value of 
 own original design, yet the omissions were for the most part ^^^^""'^ 
 
 * Roma Sotterranea, opera post u ma Ji Antonio Bosio compos ta disposta 
 ed accresciuta da Giovanni di Severano, Sacerdote delta Congre^azione delP 
 Oratorio. Roma, 1632. 
 
 + Roma Siibtenanea novissima post Ant. Bosinm et Joan. Severanum. 
 Roma-, 1 65 1. 
 
8 Literary History of Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 such as could be supplied from the works of other authors. 
 Had his life been spared, he intended to have described and 
 illustrated the practice of the earliest ages of the Church with 
 reference to the administration of the sacrament of penance, 
 the viaticum, extreme unction, prayers for the dying and the 
 dead, and other matters connected with the death and burial of 
 Christians. In these particulars his book was deficient, but in 
 its detailed account of each cemetery which he had visited it 
 was most complete ; and the whole was admirably arranged on 
 Its general a very simple principle of topography. He took in order all 
 the great consular roads which led out of Rome, and collected 
 every historical notice he could find concerning the Christian 
 cemeteries on each of them ; their precise position, their 
 names, their founders, and the martyrs or other persons of dis- 
 tinction who had been buried in them. He then by the light 
 of this information examined all the Catacombs he had seen, 
 and endeavoured to assign to each its proper name and history. 
 That his conjectures were often erroneous, is only what might 
 have been expected from the known inaccuracy and sometimes 
 spuriousness of the Acts of the Martyrs and other authorities 
 by which he was led ; but these were the only guides which 
 could then be had ; and the system itself is quite unexception- 
 able, indeed, the only one that can be safely followed in laying 
 a solid foundation for a scientific treatment of the whole 
 subject. 
 
 Destruction of It is much to be regretted, therefore, that the work so wisely 
 
 antiqumes m j^eprun should not have been continued on the same plan and 
 
 Catacombs ° . ^ 
 
 since their re- with the same diligence. But the re-discovery of the Catacombs 
 
 covery ^ matter of merely archaeological interest : the devo- 
 
 tion of the faithful was excited by the report that in those dark 
 recesses might still be lying concealed the remains of saints 
 and martyrs ; and the concessions made to the piety of indivi- 
 duals to search for and extract these relics proved in the end 
 most disastrous to the cemeteries, as authentic records of the 
 early Roman Church. Instead of the ecclesiastical authorities 
 taking this matter into their own hands, as they have since 
 happily done, and proclaiming themselves the watchful and 
 jealous guardians of such precious treasures, they permitted a 
 number of private persons, acting independently of each other, 
 to make excavations. It is true, that rules were laid down, and 
 
Modern AzUkors. 
 
 9 
 
 learned pamphlets were written to prove the value of these 
 rules, for the identification and translation of the relics, and we 
 have no reason to doubt that they were scrupulously observed. 
 But, in the interests of Christian archa3ology, we may justly too long per 
 complain that those engaged in the search had no regard for 
 the preservation of monuments, whether of painting, sculpture, 
 or inscriptions, which came in their way. They did not even 
 care to keep a record of what they had seen, which would at 
 least have provided materials for future litterati to continue the 
 work of Bosio. Many of these permissions to extract relics were 
 given to religious communities ; and all the explorers availed 
 themselves, in their researches, of some of the workmen who 
 had been employed by Bosio. None of them, however, fol- 
 lowed any systematic and comprehensive plan ; and soon after- 
 wards the permissions were all revoked and vigorously repressed stopped at 
 by the Popes. We find traces of them for the last time during p^p^^f ^^howi 
 the pontificate of Urban VIII. ; and under Clement IX., about 1688. 
 A.D. 1668, the arrangements which still prevail were definitely 
 settled. The loss, however, sustained by Christian archaeology 
 in the interval is incalculable ; and all must heartily sympathise 
 with De Rossi, both in his lamentations, and his astonishment 
 that such ravages should have been tolerated in silence under 
 the very eyes, as it were, of such men as Holstenius, Allaccius, 
 and other antiquarians who were then living in Rome. We 
 learn something of the nature and extent of our loss from the Lost treasures, 
 incidental notices which occur in the writings of the archaeolo- 
 gists of the seventeenth century ; thus, we hear of a sepulchre 
 all covered with gold, of a superb cameo, a series of the rarest 
 coins and medals, various ornaments in crystal and metal, &c., 
 besides a multitude of other objects which were secretly sold 
 by the labourers engaged in the excavations ; but we are told 
 nothing as to the precise localities in which any of these things 
 were found. Had but an accurate record been kept of all 
 discoveries, the work of reconstructing the history and topo- 
 graphy of these cemeteries would have been comparatively easy 
 and certain. 
 
 After the works of Bosio and Aringhi, the literary history of Nothing new 
 the Catacombs remains a blank for nearly half a century. They f^'^Qo/^'^'' 
 had taken their place among the mirabilia of Rome, and as 
 such were an object of curiosity to all intelligent travellers ; but 
 
lo Literary Histoiy of Roma Solterranea. 
 
 those who wrote about them were generally more influenced by 
 religious than by scientific motives. Bosio's work had been the 
 means of recalling some learned Protestants to the bosom of the 
 Church f and thenceforward the subject became an arena for 
 John Evelyn, party Strife. John Evelyn, indeed, who visited Rome in 1645, 
 ^^'45- ^yas content simply to record what he saw or heard, but not so 
 
 those who came after him. Evelyn was first taken to the sub- 
 terranean cemetery at St Sebastian's, " where the Fulgentine 
 monks have their monastery." They led us down," he says, 
 " into a grotto which they affirmed went divers furlongs under 
 ground. The sides or walls which we passed were filled with 
 bones and dead bodies, laid as it were on shelves, whereof 
 some were shut up with broad stones, and now and then a 
 crosse or a palme cut in them. At the end of some of these 
 subterranean passages were square rooms with altars in them, 
 said to have been the receptacles of primitive Christians in the ( 
 times of persecution, nor seems it improbable." By and by, 
 being detained in Rome longer than he expected, he was per- 
 suaded to visit another Catacomb. He says, " We took coach 
 a little out of towne, to visit the famous Roma Sotterranea, 
 being much like what we had seen at St Sebastian's. Here, in 
 a corn-field, guided by two torches, we crept on our bellies into 
 a little hole, about twenty paces, which delivered us into a 
 large entrie that led us into several streets or allies, a good 
 dei)th in the bowells of the earth, a strange and fearefull pass- 
 age for divers miles, as Bosio has measured and described 
 them in his book. We ever and anon cam.e into pretty square 
 roomes, that seem'd to be chapells with altars, and some 
 adorn'd with very ordinary ancient painting. Many skeletons 
 and bodies are plac'd on the sides one above the other in 
 degrees like shelves, whereof some are shut up with a coarse 
 flat stone, having ingraven on them Pro Christo,t or a crosse 
 and palmes, which are supposed to have been martyrs. Here, 
 in all likelyhood, were the meetings of the primitive Christians 
 during the persecutions, as Pliny the younger describes them. 
 
 * Bottari, Rom. Sott. t. i. pref. p. v. 
 
 t It would seem that neither Evelyn nor his guides knew Greek. This 
 is clearly their misinterpretation of the monogram -P, and we are afi-aid the 
 same blunder is even now sometimes repeated by persons showing the 
 Catacombs to strangers. 
 
Modern Authors 
 
 As I was prying about, I found a glasse pbiale, fiU'd as was 
 conjectured with dried blood, and 2 lachrymatories. Many of 
 the bodies, or rather bones, (for there appear'd nothing else,) 
 lay so entire as if plac'd by the art of the chirurgeon, but being 
 only touch'd fell all to dust. Thus after wandering two or 
 three miles in this subterranean mgeander, we returned almost 
 blind when we came into the daylight, and even choked by 
 the smoke of the torches." * A very different tone pervades 
 the letters of Bishop Burnet, t who visited the same scenes Burnet, 1685. 
 forty years later. He reckoned upon his countrymen's reli- 
 gious prejudices, on the one hand, and their ignorance of 
 Rome, on the other, with such confidence, that he hazarded 
 the astounding statement that " those burying-places that are 
 graced with the pompous title of Catacombs are no other than 
 the piiticoli mentioned by Festus Pompeius, where the meanest 
 sort of the Roman slaves were laid, and so without any further 
 care about them were left to rot," and that the Christians did 
 not come into possession of them until the fourth or fifth cen- 
 tury. He was followed by some other writers in the same 
 strain, as for example, Misson, who, being unable to deny that Misson, 1714. 
 Christians had certainly been buried here in very ancient times, 
 only insisted that " this was no reason for excluding others 
 from being interred there also, in those holes that were set 
 apart for the dregs of the people." j 
 
 The controversies which arose out of ignorant or malicious 
 falsehoods like these, contributed nothing to archaeological 
 science, and are not therefore worthy of any detailed mention 
 in this place. We repeat, therefore, that there is a blank of 
 half a century in the literary history of the Catacombs, from 
 Aringhi to Fabretti, who, in the year 1700, deserves our grati- Fabretti's 
 tude for having preserved the account of two cemeteries un- ^^^dpUong^ 
 known to Bosio, together with the inscriptions which they a.d. 1700. 
 contained. He had been appointed, in 1688, custode of the 
 Catacombs, and it belonged to his ofiice to superintend the Boldetti on 
 removal of any relics that might be discovered. In this post ties" a.d.' 
 he was succeeded by Boldetti, who held it for more than thirty 1720. 
 
 * Evelyn's Memoirs, edited by Bray, 1819, pp. 153, 164. 
 t Some letters from Italy and Switzerland in the years 1685 and 1686. 
 Rotterdam. P. 209. 
 
 % A new voyage to Italy, &c. London, 1714. Vol. ii. part i. p. 166. 
 
12 Literacy History of Roma Sotterra7iea. 
 
 years, but who, unfortunately, did not possess sufficient know- 
 ledge or love of archaeology to enable him to make the most 
 of the great opportunities he enjoyed. During his time, whole 
 regions of Roma Sotter7'anea were brought to light, galleries of 
 tombs that had remained apparently unvisited since the last 
 corpse was buried in them, a vast number of inscriptions, 
 medals, and other treasures came under his notice : and yet 
 it is doubtful whether any account of these things would have 
 come down to us had he not been commanded to write in the 
 defence of religion. Mabillon's anonymous letter de cultu 
 sanctorum ignotoriun had attracted considerable attention, and 
 the unfair use which had been made of it by Misson and other 
 Protestant controversialists seemed to demand an answer. 
 Boldetti was therefore desired to publish an account of the 
 rules which had been followed by himself and his predecessors 
 in the extraction of relics ; and he accompanied this with a 
 description of the discoveries that had been made in the 
 Catacombs generally during his own time.* The object of 
 his work, however, being not scientific, but religious and 
 apologetic, its contents were arranged with this view, and its 
 value as a contribution towards the complete history of the 
 subterranean city of the dead was proportionably diminished. 
 Buonarrotti Buonarrotti, who had assisted Boldetti in the archaeological 
 
 on the Gilded j.^. j-^-^ ^york, himself wrote a valuable book on the vessels 
 Glasses or the ' 
 
 Catacombs. or fragments of gilded glass found m the Catacombs, t — a sub- 
 ject which has been handled afresh and with great erudition in 
 our own day by Padre Garrucci, S.J. % Another of Boldetti's 
 Marangoni, assistants, Marangoni, who was officially associated with him 
 A.D. 1740. |;^yg]^^y ycars In the guardianship of the cemeteries, seems 
 
 to have intended to carry out Bosio's plan of making a minute 
 and faithful report of every new discovery arranged according 
 to the historical and topographical outHne of that great man, 
 and corrected by any new light thrown upon the subject by 
 later discoveries. After he had continued this plan for about 
 
 * Osservazioni sopra i cemeteri dei SS. Martiri cd antichi cristiani di 
 Roma. Roma, 1720. 
 
 t Osservazioni sopra alctini frammenti di vasi antichi di vetro ornati di 
 figure trovati nei cimeteri di Roma. Firenze, 1 716. 
 
 X Vctri ornati di figure in oro trovati nei cimiteri dei cristiani primitivi 
 di Roma raccolti e spiegati da Raffaele Gairiicci, D.C.D.G. Roma, 1858. 
 
Modern Authoi^s. 
 
 13 
 
 sixteen or seventeen years, an accidental fire destroyed all his 
 papers. " Truly/' says De Rossi, " the history which I am 
 relating seems to be but an Iliad of misfortune and irreparable 
 losses." The little that remained from this fire, together with 
 the results of his subsequent labours, Marangoni published in 
 the Acta Saiicti Victor hii in 1740. 
 
 The Roma Sotten-aiiea of Bottari,* published by command Bottad's A'm.z 
 of Clement XII., was a mere republication of the plates from 
 the work of Bosio, illustrated with great care and learning, but ^ 
 not arranged in any order, nor enriched by any additions, 
 unless we reckon one which we could well have spared, viz., 
 the paintings of a Gnostic sepulchre falsely attributed to the 
 Christians. These have seriously perplexed and misled later 
 authors, especially Raoul Rochette, who founded upon it in 
 great measure his theory as to the origin of Christian art. 
 
 The learned students of Christian archaeology who flourished Latter part of 
 during the latter half of the last century, such as Mamachi, Jlfuiuy"^'^ 
 Olivieri, Zaccaria, Borgia, &c,, made considerable use of the 
 works of Bosio, Aringhi, Boldetti, and Bottari, in their trea- 
 tises on various points of Christian antiquity, but do not 
 appear to have explored for themselves, or even to have taken 
 any notice of the new discoveries that were being made year 
 by year in some part of the ancient cemeteries. Benedict 
 XIV., by founding the Christian Museum in the Vatican Christian Mu- 
 Library, and collecting there the mscriptions that had hitherto Se[°edict^^ 
 been dispersed among the various churches, relieved antiqua- XIV. 
 rians of the labour of examining the places where these in- 
 scriptions were found, and even such an archaeologist as Marini 
 does not appear to have thought it worth while to visit the 
 Catacombs themselves. D'Agincourt, indeed, penetrated their D'Agincourt, 
 recesses to find materials for his History of the decline of the 
 fine arts ; and, by attempting to detach the pictures from the His devasta- 
 walls of living rock on which they had been painted, taught ^(^^"'com^^^ 
 the modern fossors the last lesson in the art of destruction. 
 The attempt signally failed, and was not long persisted in, but 
 it resulted in the ruin of many precious monuments which can 
 never be replaced. Indeed, it is truly lamentable to see what 
 
 * Sadture e Pitture Sacre estratte dai Chniteri di Roma, pidiblicate gia 
 dagli autori delta Ko77ia Sottcrranea ed ora nnoi'amente date in luce colle 
 spiegazioiii. Roma, 1 734-1 754. 
 
14 Liter a7y History of Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 a record of destruction the history of the Catacombs has been, 
 ahuost ever since their re-opening in the sixteenth century. 
 The paintings which were seen at that time in the crypts on 
 the Via Salaria, by Baronius and others, had been destroyed 
 when Bosio revisited the place fifteen years afterwards. 
 Padre Mazzolari, S.J., the pious author of the Vie Sacre^ was 
 only just in time to traverse the gallery accidentally opened 
 near San Lorenzo in 1779, before he saw the work of devas- 
 tation ruthlessly accomplished under his very eyes. The 
 lessons of destruction taught by D'Agincourt have been only 
 too frequently followed even as recently as our own day. The 
 vast extent of subterranean territory that has to be guarded 
 from injury, and the facility with which access may from time 
 to time be gained to the Catacombs in consequence of acci- 
 dental openings in the soil, make it difficult for the authorities 
 to prevent depredations ; still we cannot but regret that there 
 should not have been always a succession of antiquarians, able 
 and willing to transmit to posterity a faithful record of each 
 new discovery as it was made. 
 Padre Marchi, At the begmning of the present century, tokens of a reviving 
 S.J., A.D. 1841. ij^i-gj-ggj- jj^ j-j-^g Catacombs may be traced in some of the pro- 
 ceedings of the Roman Archaeological Society, and in a few 
 other writings. It was reserved, however, for the late Padre 
 Marchi, S.J., to give the first great impulse to that lively 
 interest in the subject which is now so universally felt. In 
 1 84 1, he commenced his great work on the Monuments of 
 early Christian Art.* It is almost needless to enter upon 
 any detailed examination of the labours of this learned 
 Jesuit, since they were interrupted and finally abandoned, 
 partly in consequence of the political vicissitudes of the times 
 by which his own Order was especially affected ; and also 
 because he was conscious that the work of rehabilitating (so 
 to say) these venerable monuments of antiquity, and setting 
 them forth before the public in their original integrity, was 
 necessarily reserved for one who should come after him. He 
 had begun to publish prematurely ; at most he had but broken 
 the soil. He had, however, imparted his own enthusiasm to 
 one of his scholars, who was at first the frequent companion 
 
 * Moimnicnti dclle arti ChrUiiane Primitive ndla Metropoli del Cnsiian- 
 esimo. Roma, 1844. 
 
Modeim Authors. 
 
 15 
 
 of his subterranean exploring expeditions, whom he soon 
 recognised as a valuable fellow-labourer, and whom he finally 
 urged in the most pressing manner to undertake the work 
 which he found too great for his own failing strength. This 
 scholar was De Rossi, of whom it were hard to say whether De Rossi, 
 his talent, learning, and industry have done more for the 
 work of discovery in subterranean Rome, or the discoveries 
 he has made done more for the increase of our knowledge of it. 
 At any rate, the fruits of his labour speak for themselves ; for 
 whereas before his time only two or three important historical 
 monuments* had been discovered in the Catacombs during 
 more than two centuries of examination— and all of these the 
 result of accident, — the excavations directed by the Com- 
 mission of Sacred Archaeology, of which De Rossi is one of 
 the most active members, have brought to light within a few 
 years six or seven historical monuments of the utmost value, 
 and in every instance he had announced beforehand with more 
 or less accuracy what was to be expected. 
 
 We are naturally led to ask after the cause of so great a 
 contrast. From what new sources had De Rossi derived his 
 information ? or what was his new system for extracting ore from His system of 
 old mines ? The answer is soon given, and it is much more research, 
 simple than we might have expected from the magnitude of the 
 effects to be accounted for. He followed the same general 
 plan as had been originally laid down by Bosio ; he studied 
 also the same ancient authorities, but with the addition of two 
 or three more of considerable value which in Bosio's time lay 
 buried in the MSS. of libraries. Father Marchi indeed had 
 known these new authorities ; but he had not adopted Bosio's 
 topographical system. Moreover, the particular object which 
 he had proposed to himself, led him precisely in the opposite 
 direction from that to which these new guides offered to con- 
 duct him. They were, in fact, veritable guides — itineraries or 
 guide-books— written in the seventh and eighth centuries by 
 
 * The baptistery and paintings of SS. Abdon and Sennen, and other 
 crypts in the cemetery of San Ponziano, on the Via Portuensis, discovered 
 by Bosio ; the crypt of SS. Felix, Adauctus, and Emerita, discovered by 
 Marangoni, behind the Basilica of St Paul's, on the road leading to St 
 Sebastian's; and the tomb, the original epitaph, and the body of St 
 Hyacinth, found in the cemetery of St Hermes, by Padre Marchi. (See 
 Note A. in Appendix.) 
 
i6 L iterary History of Roma Sotteri^anea. 
 
 pilgrims from foreign countries, who carefully put on record all 
 the sacred places which they visited in Rome. Especially they 
 enumerated all the tombs of the martyrs, as they lay each in 
 his first resting-place in the different suburban cemeteries. 
 Now these were the precise spots in the Catacombs where St 
 Damasus and other popes had made many material changes. 
 They had built spacious staircases to conduct the pilgrims 
 immediately to the object of their pious search ; opened more 
 liiminaria to supply light and air; widened the galleries, or 
 added vestibules to the chapels ; or raised small basilicas above 
 ground; and for the support of these, solid substructions of 
 masonry had been sometimes necessary in the crypts them- 
 selves. But when the Catacombs ceased to be used, not only 
 were all these works left to perish by a process of natural decay, 
 they also attracted the greedy hand of the spoiler, so that after 
 the lapse of seven or eight hundred years every centre of his- 
 toric interest had become a mass of ruins. Whereas, then, it 
 was the special desire of Father Marchi to recover, if possible, 
 galleries and chambers of the Catacombs in their primitive 
 condition as first they were hewn out of the rock, any appear- 
 ance of bricks and mortar in the way of his excavation was suf- 
 ficient to turn him aside from that part of the cemetery alto- 
 gether. De Rossi, on the other hand, shrewdly judged that the 
 crypts which had been changed into sanctuaries contained the 
 very key, as it were, to the history of each Catacomb. Wher- 
 ever one of these could be recovered and identified, we had a 
 certain clue to the name and history of the cemetery in which 
 it was found. He hailed, therefore, every token of ruined 
 masonry in the heart of a Catacomb with the keenest delight, 
 as a sure sign that he w^as in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 what he most desired to see ; and the results have abundantly 
 proved that he was not mistaken in his reasoning. 
 His sources cf The importance of these results renders it worth our while 
 information. enumerate and give some short account of the authorities 
 which have furnished the clue to their discovery. They are such 
 as the rash criticism of the last century would have contemp- 
 tuously condemned as worthless,— the old Calendars and Mar- 
 tyrologies, the Acts of the Martyrs, the Lives of the Popes, and 
 the Itineraries of pious pilgrims of the seventh, eighth, and 
 ninth centuries. Doubtless there has been need of great 
 
A 7tcieiit Records. 
 
 17 
 
 patience and ingenuity to disentangle the thread of truth from 
 the web of confusion with which it has been sometimes inter- 
 woven in these documents. Nevertheless, they have proved 
 themselves such efficient guides, that hencefonvard no account 
 of Roma Sotterranea can be considered complete that should 
 pass them over in silence. 
 
 PART II. 
 ANCIENT RECORDS. 
 
 PERHAPS the most ancient record of the Roman Church The Martyr- 
 to be found is the so-called Marty rolodum Hieronymi- "^''S'''"^ ^'^r- 
 aimm ; a work which, though not put together in its present form 
 until the end of the sixth or perhaps even the seventh century, 
 certainly contains many portions of far older martyrologies be- 
 longing to the ages of persecution. The exceeding care of the 
 early Church in treasuring up both the acts and the relics of her 
 martyrs, is too well known to require proof. It is sufficient to 
 observe, that it is recorded of St Clement, before the end of 
 the first century, that " he caused the seven regions [of Rome] 
 to be divided among the faithful notaries of the Church, who 
 should, each in his own region, with diligent care and zeal 
 search out the acts of the martyrs and of St Fabian, Pope 
 in the middle of the third century, it is added that " he divided 
 the regions among the deacons, and appointed seven sub- 
 deacons to superintend the seven notaries, that they might 
 collect in all their details {in integrd) the acts of the martyrs.'' t 
 Most of these invaluable records perished in the terrible perse- 
 cution of Diocletian. Still it was impossible but that some few of 
 them should have escaped, and these furn/shed the first ground- 
 work of the martyrology of which we are speaking. The most 
 authentic copies of it, say the Bollandists,:]: make no mention Its antiquity, 
 of a single martyr after the time of the apostate Julian ; not of 
 any, for example, who suffered under the Vandals in Africa. 
 In itself this is no sure criterion of its antiquity; but there are 
 other internal evidences which warrant our assigning one por- 
 tion, or perhaps we should rather say one edition, of it to the 
 
 * Lib. Pontif. c. iv. + Ibid. 
 
 X Acta Sanct. Octol). torn. ix. p. 269. 
 
1 8 Literary History of Rojna Sotterranca . 
 
 earlier part of the third century, another to the beginning of 
 the fourth, and a third to the beginning of the fifth century. 
 An evidence of the first of these dates is, that the anniversary 
 of St Antherus, who was Pope a.d. 235, appears on the 24th 
 November, whereas in all later Martyrologies it is assigned to 
 the 2d of January. Now, the Liber Pontificalis gives as the 
 length of his pontificate " one month and twelve days," which 
 is precisely the interval between the two above-mentioned 
 dates; so that we feel confident that the 24th of November 
 was really the date of his succession to the Chair of St Peter, 
 not of his death. But the anniversary of the accession of a pope, 
 as indeed that of any other bishop, is never celebrated except 
 during his lifetime ; whence it follows that this particular por- 
 tion at least of this ancient Martyrology must have been drawn 
 up during the pontificate of St Antherus. And it is not a little 
 remarkable, that although his pontificate lasted for so short a 
 time, yet the Liber Pouiificalis expressly records of him that 
 " he diligently sought out from the notaries the Acts of the 
 Martyrs, and stored them up in the church;" it goes on also 
 to say, " on account of which he received from the Praefect 
 Maximus the crown of martyrdom." It is by observing similar 
 notes, which only the keenness of modern criticism has taught 
 men to appreciate, that archaeologists have been able to detect 
 the hand of a later compiler or copyist of this Martyrology, who 
 must have lived in the time of Miltiades, or between a.d. 311 and 
 314; and a third in the time of St Boniface I., or between a.d. 
 418 and 422, since festivals are noted here of Or din. Mi/tiadis, 
 on July 2d, and Bonifacii Epi de Ordinatione^ on the 29th of 
 December, besides the depositio of each of these pontiffs on the 
 days on which we still commemorate them. But it would 
 occupy us too long to show in each case how the repetitions, 
 and even the errors and contradictions, of these various 
 copyists, have often proved of service in furnishing a clue by 
 means of which the ingenuity and patience of learned antiqua- 
 rians have succeeded in unravelling the truth. We must con- 
 tent ourselves with observing that this Martyrology is of in- 
 estimable value, as having preserved to us much that would 
 otherwise have perished. 
 Almanac of ^^^^ -^^ chronolodcal order comes the Christian Almanac, 
 
 rur. JJion, ° 
 
 Filocalus. for we can call it by no more appropriate name,) the first edi- 
 
Ancient Records. 
 
 19 
 
 tion of which appears to have been pubHshed in a.d. 336, and 
 the latest, with highly ornamented illustrations, in a.d. 354, by 
 Furius Dionysius Filocalus. This consists of lists of the deaths 
 or burials of the popes from Lucius to Julius — i.e., a.d. 255 to 
 352, — of the principal Christian festivals celebrated during the 
 year, especially of martyrs, but including also Christmas-day, 
 Cathedra Petri, and other immovable feasts; finally, a cata- 
 logue of the popes from St Peter to Liberius." In this last 
 catalogue the deaths of the popes begin to be registered from 
 the time of St Antherus, which would seem to show that the 
 earlier portion of the history had been probably compiled from 
 some older work, such as the Chronicon of Hippolytus. But 
 the most important of these documents is undoubtedly the first 
 of the three. It follows immediately upon the list of prefects 
 of the city, and this list, evidently compiled with great accuracy 
 from contemporary registers, begins in like manner from the 
 year 254. Is this synchronism purely accidental ? or were the 
 two lists really derived from state documents, the public regis- 
 ters of the government ? At first sight it might seem an almost 
 extravagant conjecture to suppose that the names of the popes 
 should have been known to the civil governors of pagan Rome, 
 and officially taken cognisance of. Yet it is certain, that even 
 as early as the beginning of the third century, many churches 
 used to pay a tribute to the government that they might escape 
 from persecution, and for this purpose they were enrolled on 
 the registers of the police (so to speak), where they found them- 
 selves, as TertuUiant takes care to remind them, in very strange 
 company. Again, we read that, after the death of Fabian, 
 Decius strictly forbade the election of a successor, and was 
 greatly enraged when he heard of the appointment of Cornelius. 
 In genuine Acts of Martyrdom the question is sometimes 
 asked, to what church the prisoners belong. When the ecclesi- 
 
 * This catalogue is generally quoted as Liberian, or Bucherian : the 
 latter name being taken from its first editor, T.gidius Bucherus, S.J. De 
 Doctrina temporum. Antwerp, 1634. 
 
 t Non decet Christum pecunia constare. Quomodo et martyria fieri 
 possent in gloriam Domini, si tributo licentiam sectas compensaremus. 
 . . . . Massaliter totee ecclesije tributum sibi irrogaverunt. Nescio dolen- 
 dum an erubescendum sit, cum in matricibus Beneficiariorum et Curioso- 
 rum, inter tabernarios et lanios et fures balnearum et aleones et lenones 
 Christiani quoque vectigales continentur. De fuga in per sec. cc. xii. xiii. 
 
20 
 
 Literary History of Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 astical property is restored after a persecution, it is to the 
 bishops that the surrender is ordered to be made ; from them 
 the sacred books are demanded ; against them and their clerics 
 special edicts are issued. All this seems to indicate a certain 
 knowledge and even recognition of their position in the eccle- 
 siastical hierarchy."' And it is very curious to observe how 
 some of the difficulties in this catalogue are immediately cleared 
 up, if we suppose it to have been derived from civil and official 
 sources. Thus, for instance, it is stated of the year 304, that 
 at this time the episcopacy ceased for seven years, six months, 
 and twenty-five days. This statement cannot be reconciled 
 even with the dates given elsewhere in the same list ; but it is 
 observable that it was precisely during this very time that Dio- 
 cletian confiscated the loca ecdesiasticfl, and that the hierarchy 
 Avas (at least legally) suppressed. Again, we read in the Liber 
 Po?2tijicalis that Maxentius required of St Marcellus that he 
 should deny that he was a bishop, (because he had not been 
 recognised,) and his name accordingly does not appear in this 
 list. However, be this as it may, from whatever source these 
 lists may have been originally procured, it is certain that they 
 have proved to be of the greatest use in fh^ hands of De Rossi, 
 Inscriptions of To these we must next add the numerous inscriptions com- 
 St Damasus. p^^^^ Pope Damasus, engraved by the same Furius Filocalus, 
 and set up by the Holy Pontiff at so many of the martyrs' 
 tombs. Several of these monuments destroyed by the Goths, 
 Lombards, and other sacrilegious barbarians, were restored, 
 more or less correctly, by later popes : many are preserved to 
 us only through the copies that were taken by learned ecclesi- 
 astics or pious pilgrims in the ninth or tenth centuries ; some few 
 yet remain in their original integrity, and some also have been 
 recovered by De Rossi himself These monuments, wherever 
 they are found, are witnesses of the utmost value on questions 
 relating either to the history or the geography of the Catacombs. 
 Liher Pontifi- The Liber Fontificalis, or, as it is sometimes (less correctly) 
 called, the Lives of the Pontiffs by the Librarian Anastasius, is 
 our next authority. It was, from the first, formed out of docu- 
 ments more ancient than itself, like the Martyrologiwn LLierony- 
 
 * De Rossi does not hesitate to say, that the proofs of this new and 
 unexpected fact are so strong that they amount ahuost to a complete 
 demonstration. R. S. II. 372- 
 
Ancient Records, 
 
 mianim, and there had been at least three versions or editions 
 of it before the days of Anastasius. Two of these had been 
 made at the beginning and about the middle of the eighth 
 century, and another in the beginning of the sixth ; but a por- 
 tion of it may even be traced to the times of St Damasus, if 
 not to a yet earlier period. Its statements are often at variance 
 with those o-f the Almanac and the most ancient Martyrology, 
 especially in the matter of dates ; yet these very variations are 
 sometimes useful, and enable us to detect the truth. Often 
 they are accounted for by the fact that they record some 
 translation of the popes' relics, mstead of the day and place of 
 their original burial. Certainly there could be no object in 
 changing the dates without reason ; the compiler can only have 
 followed some other authority. 
 
 The Martyrologies of Bede, of Ado, Usuard and others, are Other Martyr- 
 sometimes useful ; but they are inferior in imiDortance to the 
 Acts of the Martyrs, which, even when not authentic, often Acts of the 
 contain most valuable fragments of truth. Tillemont and other ^^^"-y^- 
 critics of his school have dealt with these venerable m.onuments 
 of antiquity too summarily. Disgusted by the flagrant ana- 
 chronisms, or the barbarous diction, or the tone of legendary 
 exaggeration, or the historical difficulties which abound in 
 them, they have found it easier to reject altogether than to 
 criticise and distinguish ; whilst a more learned and cautious 
 examination not unfrequently succeeds in detecting many 
 traces of a true and genuine story. The Acts of St Cecilia, for 
 example, which were so thoroughly set aside by Tillemont that 
 he questioned whether there had ever been such a virgin and 
 martyr in Rome at all, and suspected that her history might 
 perhaps have been a myth imported from Sicily, are certainly 
 not, in their present form, a genuine and original document ; 
 they are not contemporary with the martyrdom itself ; on the 
 contrary, both in the preface and in the body of the Acts there 
 are clear tokens of a writer in the time of peace, between the 
 fourth and fifth centuries;* nevertheless it is equally certain 
 that they must have been composed upon very minute and 
 truthful records, since a number of circumstances which they 
 narrate were most exactly confirmed on the rediscovery of her 
 
 * The liturgical prayers both of Leo and of Gelasius abound with allu- 
 sions '.o them. 
 
2 2 Litenny History of Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 relics at the end of the sixteenth century, which reUcs were 
 certainly hid from every human eye at the time of the compila- 
 tion of the Acts. Moreover, on a critical comparison of the 
 various readings even of the MSS. which still exist of these 
 Acts, it is easy to detect the little additions and embellishments 
 introduced by later writers.'^ They are precisely such as we 
 might have anticipated ; and it is probable that .the original 
 compiler did not use greater license in dealing with the mate- 
 rials before him, than his own successors used towards himself 
 In either case, it was not such as to destroy the substance of 
 the story, nor to distort its principal features, historical or geo- 
 graphical ; and as most of these spurious Acts (if they must still 
 be branded by this opprobrious epithet) were written before the 
 sacred deposits in the Catacombs had been translated from their 
 first resting-place, they have been of great service in enabling De 
 Rossi to reconstruct both the history and the geography of sub- 
 terranean Rome. The same may be said also of some incidental 
 notices in the ancient Liturgical Books of the Roman Church. 
 Itineraries of All these documents, however, were accessible to the prede- 
 Ui?seventh cessors of De Rossi, and were freely made use of by them. To 
 century. \{■^^^ belongs the credit of having demonstrated by argument, 
 and still more by actual discovery, the immense importance of 
 the information to be derived from the ancient Itineraries or 
 local guide-books to the sanctuaries bf Rome. One of these 
 descriptions may be sefen in the works of William of Malmes- 
 bury, where he records the visit of the Crusaders to Rome, a.d. 
 1095 ;t but as this description speaks of the Saints still resting 
 in their subtert-anean s'epulchres, it is manifest that the chro- 
 nicler has copied it from some docuin'ent written four or five 
 centuries before his own tihie : ahd there is internal evidence 
 that it was written between the years a.d. 650 and 680. An- 
 other of these Itineraries, about a century later, was published 
 by Mabillon, in 1685, from a MS. in Einsiedlen ; and a third, 
 belonging to the tenth century, by Eckart, in 1729, from a MS. 
 in the library of Wurtzburg. These, however, are all surpassed 
 in value by two others which Avere discovered about a hundred 
 years ago in the library of Salzburg, and published as an 
 appendix to an edition of the works of Alcuin, with which the 
 * See Note 1). in Appendix. 
 
 t In the excellent edition of Duffus Hardy, loni. ii. 539 544. 
 
A ncient Records. 
 
 23 
 
 MSS. had been accidentally bound up. It is certain from 
 internal evidence that one of these, and that the most exact, 
 was written between the years 625 and 638, and the other is 
 not many years later. The first is a genuine Itinerary, written 
 on the spot, and abounds with topographical notices of all that 
 the writer saw, abov^e ground or below, on his right hand or 
 his left, to the east or the west. He starts from the centre of 
 Rome, and proceeds northwards tlirough the Flaminian gate ; 
 and in visiting the various roads in order, he does not return to 
 Rome and make a fresh beginning every time, but goes across 
 from one road to another by by-paths, many of which still remain. 
 The second, though following the same general plan and taking 
 each road in succession, is not the real journal or description 
 of what had been seen by the traveller himself ; rather, it bears 
 tokens of being an epitome of some larger work. However, 
 both of tliem were written before the practice of translation of 
 relics had begun^ so that the minute topographical details 
 which they record have reference to the original condition of 
 the Catacombs before their sanctity had been profaned or their 
 traditions obscured. 
 
 In the same category with these Itineraries may be classed Papyr 
 the list of relics collected by the Abbot John, in the days of St 
 Gregory the Great, and sent to Theodelinda, Queen of the 
 Lombards. This list, written on papyrus, together with many 
 of the relics themselves, and the little parchment labels 
 attached to them, is still to be seen in the cathedral of Monza.''' 
 We must not, however, be misled by the word " relics,'' and 
 picture to ourselves, according to modern custom, the bodies or 
 portions of the bodies of saints. St Gregory hmiself specifies 
 the only kinds of relics that in his day were permitted to be 
 carried away by the faithful. He writes to the Empress Con- 
 stantina : " When the Romans present the relics of the saints, 
 they do not touch the bodies : their custom is only to put a 
 piece of linen in a box, which is placed near the holy body, 
 and which they afterwards take away. ... In the time of the 
 Pope St Leo, some Greeks, doubting of the virtue of these 
 relics, brought scissors and cut the linen, from, whence pro- 
 ceeded blood, as is reported by the ancient inhabitants.'" f 
 
 * It has been published 1)y Marini, Papir. Diplom., p. 327, No. CXLIII. 
 See also p. 377. 
 
 t Kpist. lib. iii. ep. 30. The pieces of bnen were called braiidca. 
 
24 Litej^ary History of Roma S otter j^aiiea. 
 
 But besides these, drops of the oil from the lamps which 
 burned before the tombs of the saints were frequently carried 
 away as relics ; and St Gregory often sent these olea in little 
 glass phials to persons at a distance. These latter were the 
 relics collected by John the Abbot ; and in the list of them he 
 carefully records every shrine which he visited, and this (as was 
 natural) in the order of his visits. By comparing this local order 
 with the topographical notices in the Itineraries, De Rossi has 
 been enabled to decide with accuracy many important ques- 
 tions concerning the localities of particular tombs. To follow 
 him into these details would require us to transcribe many 
 entire pages of his work, and would weary the unscientific 
 reader. It is sufficient to say, that a careful study of them will 
 amply repay all who are capable of appreciating the keenness 
 of his criticisms, and the happy boldness with which he fre- 
 quently seizes upon some fact, or hint about a fact, before 
 unnoticed, but which eventually leads to valuable discoveries. 
 This work an These are the principal sources of information of which De 
 De^Rossi's Rossi has made use in his Roma Sotterranea; and by the help 
 of them he has constructed a very full and life-like narrative of 
 its history. The labdur which it has cost him to do this can 
 only be appreciated by those who take the pains to follow him 
 through the slow, deliberate, sometimes almost wearisome 
 method of his operations, and examine in detail the mass of 
 minute criticisms by which he insists upon justifying every step 
 which he takes ; and for this it is indispensable that the whole 
 work should be read exactly as he has himself written it. 
 Many threads of his argument are so subtle, yet so strong and 
 so necessary to the establishment of his conclusions, that they 
 can neither be omitted nor reproduced in any compressed 
 form, without injury to their substance. These, therefore, we 
 must perforce leave untouched ; nevertheless, we hope to be 
 able to extract from his pages sufficient matter to set before 
 our readers an intelligible account of the history of the Cata- 
 combs, sufficiently supported both by the language of ancient 
 documents, and by the remains which his researches have 
 enabled us to see and examine for ourselves. 
 
 * This custom may even now be observed in the Church of Sant' Agostino, 
 where people take oil from the lamp that burns before the statue of tlie 
 Madonna del Parto, and from other shrines. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 OR /GIN OF THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
 
 THE daily-increasing celebrity of the Roman Catacombs General de- 
 . , , , , , . . - scription of 
 
 might almost seem to render a general description oi ^ata- 
 
 them unnecessary ; for who does not know, if not by per- ^o"^'^^- 
 sonal observation, at least from the accounts of friends or from 
 popular literature, the leading features of that marvellous city 
 of the dead which has received the appropriate name of Jiojjia 
 Softer ranea, subterranean Rome ? Nevertheless, so many errors 
 are often mixed up with these popular accounts, and our know- 
 ledge of the subject has been so much improved of late, both 
 in point of accuracy and of extent, that it will conduce to 
 clearness, and the general convenience of our readers, if we 
 set before them at once some outline at least of what is con- 
 tained in the following pages. We shall make our statement 
 as concise as possible, not strengthening it at present by any 
 proofs or arguments, but leaving these to be supplied when we 
 come to fill in the several parts of the picture in detail. 
 
 The Roman Catacombs— a name consecrated by long usage. Their position 
 
 and extent. 
 
 but having no etymological meaning, and not a very determinate 
 geographical one— are a vast labyrinth of galleries excavated 
 in the bowels of the earth in the hills around the Eternal City ; 
 
26 Roma Sotter7^anea. 
 
 not in the hills on which the city itself was built, but in those 
 beyond the walls. Their extent is enormous, not as to the 
 amount of superficial soil which they underlie, for they rarely, 
 if ever, pass beyond the third milestone from the city, but in 
 the actual length of their galleries ; for these are often excavated 
 on various levels, or piaiii^ three, four, or even live, one above 
 
 Fig. I. — Gallery with Tombs. 
 
 the other; and they cross and recross one another, sometimes 
 at short intervals, on each of these levels ; so that, on the whole, 
 there are certainly not less than 350 miles of them; that is 
 to say, if stretched out in one continuous line, they would 
 extend the whole length of Italy itself. The galleries are 
 from two to four feet in width, and vary in height according 
 to the nature of the rock in which they are dug. The walls 
 on both sides are pierced with horizontal niches, like shelves 
 in a book-case or berths in a steamer, and every niche once 
 
Ge uera I Description . 2 7 
 
 contained one or more dead bodies. At various intervals this 
 succession of shelves is interrupted for a moment, that room 
 may be made for a doorway opening into a small chamber; 
 and the walls of these chambers are generally pierced with 
 graves in the same way as the galleries. 
 
 I'hese vast excavations once formed the ancient Christian Their number 
 
 ^ . ^ -p- ^, , . . T and names, 
 
 cemeteries 01 Rome ; they were begun in apostolic times, 
 
 and continued to be used as burial-places of the faithful till 
 
 the capture of the city by Alaric in the year 410. In the 
 
 third century, the Roman Church numbered twenty-five or 
 
 twenty-six of them, corresponding to the number of her titles, 
 
 or parishes, within the city ; and besides these, there are about 
 
 twenty others, of smaller dimensions, isolated monuments of 
 
 special martyrs, or belonging to this or that private family. 
 
 Originally they all belonged to private families or individuals, 
 
 the villas or gardens in which they were dug being the property 
 
 of wealthy citizens who had embraced the faith of Christ, and 
 
 devoted of their substance to His service. Hence their most 
 
 ancient titles were taken merely from the names of their lawful 
 
 owners, many of which still survive ; Lucina, for example, who 
 
 lived in the days of the Apostles, and others of the same family, 
 
 or at least of the same name, who lived at various periods in 
 
 the next two centuries ; Priscilla, also a cotemporary of the 
 
 Apostles ; Flavia Domitilla, niece of Vespasian ; Commodilla, 
 
 whose property lay on the Via Ostiensis ; Cyriaca, on the Via 
 
 Tiburtina ; Praitextatus, on the Via Appia ; Pontian, on the 
 
 Via Portuensis; and the Jordani, Maximus and Thraso, all 
 
 on the Via Salaria Nova. These names are still attached to 
 
 various catacombs, because they were originally begun upon 
 
 the land of those who bore them. Other Catacombs are known 
 
 by the names of those who presided over their formation, as 
 
 that of St Callixtus, on the Via Appia; or St Mark, on the Via 
 
 Ardeatina; or of the principal martyrs who were buried in 
 
 them, as SS. Hermes, Basilla, Protus and Hyacinthus, on the 
 
 Via Salaria Vetus ; or, lastly, by some peculiarity of their 
 
28 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 position, as ad Catacunibas on the Via Appia, and ad diias 
 Laiiros on the Via Labicana. 
 Their origin It has always been agreed among men of learning who have 
 an purpose. ^^^^ opportunity of examining these excavations, that they 
 were used exclusively by the Christians as places of burial and 
 of holding religious assemblies. Modern research has now 
 placed it beyond a doubt, that they were also originally de- 
 signed for this purpose and for no other ; that they were not 
 deserted sand-pits {arenaria;) or quarries, adapted to Christian 
 uses, but a development, with important modifications, of a 
 form of sepulchre not altogether unknown even among the 
 heathen families of Rome, and in common use among the 
 
 Fig. 2. — Plan of Arenaria at St Agnes. 
 
 Jews both in Rome and elsewhere. Our readers may judge 
 for themselves, even from the miniature specimen here set 
 before them, how easy it is to distinguish the galleries of an 
 arenaria from those of a Catacomb. These plans represent 
 a portion of the cemetery, commonly called of St Agnes, in the 
 Via Nomentana, and of a sand-pit which lies over it, (both drawn 
 to the same scale ;) and the greater width of the passages 
 excavated in the sand-pit, and the greater regularity of those 
 in the Catacomb, are characteristics which at once arrest the 
 attention, and suffice to impress upon our minds the essential 
 difference between them. 
 
 At first, the work of making the Catacombs was done openly, 
 without let or hindrance, by the Christians ; the entrances to 
 
General Descj^iption. 
 
 29 
 
 them were public on the high-road or on the hill-side, and the 
 galleries and chambers were freely decorated with paintings of 
 a sacred character. But early in the third century, it became 
 necessary to withdraw them as much as possible from the 
 public eye ; new and often difficult entrances were now effected 
 
 F'iG. 3. — Part 0/ Catncoinh of St Agties. 
 
 in the recesses of deserted arcnarice^ and even the liberty of 
 Christian art was cramped and fettered, lest what was holy 
 should fall under the profane gaze of the unbaptized. 
 
 Each of these burial-places was called in ancient times either 
 hypogceiun^ i.e., generically, a subterranean place, ox cceineteruim, Explanation 
 a sleepmg-place, a new name of Christian origin, which the 
 Pagans could only repeat, probably without understanding;--' 
 sometimes also martyriii;n, or confessio,i (its Latin equivalent,) 
 to signify that it was the burial-place of martyrs or confessors 
 of the faith. An ordinary grave was called locus or loculus, if 
 * Euseb. U.K. vii. 1 1. 
 
 t Hence the crypt under the high altar of the Vatican Basilica is called 
 the Confcss.'on, i.e., the tomb, of St Peter. 
 
30 
 
 Roma Sotteri'a nea . 
 
 it contained a single body ; or bisoniuni^ trisomum^ or quadriso- 
 7num, if it contained two, three, or four. The graves were 
 dug by fossores, and burial in them was called depositio. The 
 galleries do not seem to have had any specific name ; but the 
 chambers were called ciibicula. In most of these chambers, and 
 sometimes also in the galleries themselves, one or more tombs 
 are to be seen of a more elaborate kind ; a long oblong c/iasse, 
 like a sarcophagus, either hollowed out in the rock or built 
 
 FiG. 4. — Arcosoliiun. 
 
 up of masonry, and closed by a heavy slab of marble lying 
 horizontally on the top. The niche over tombs of this kind 
 was of the same length as the grave, and generally vaulted 
 in a semi-circular form, whence they were called arcosolia."' 
 
 
 
 
 
 - ---^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Fig. 5.— Sepolcro a mensa or Table-tomb. 
 
 Sometimes, however, the niche retained the rectangular form, 
 in which case there was no special name for it, but for dis- 
 tinction's sake we may be allowed to call it a table-tomb.t 
 
 * Solium was used to denote the urn of marble or terra cotta, in which 
 the Pagans sometimes buried their dead. 
 + De Rossi calls it sepolcro a mensa. 
 
General Description. -x t 
 
 Those of the arcosolia which were also the tombs of martyrs 
 were used on the anniversaries of their deaths {Natalitia, or 
 birthdays) as altars whereon the holy mysteries were cele- 
 brated ; hence, whilst some of the cubicula were only family- 
 vaults, others were chapels, or places of public assembly. It 
 IS probable that the holy mysteries were celebrated also in the 
 private vaults, on the anniversaries of the deaths of their occu- 
 pants ; and each one was sufficiently large in itself for use on 
 these private occasions ; but in order that as many as possible 
 
 Fig. 6. — Interior of a Cnbicichim in St Agnes, with chairs and betich hc%v7i out oj 
 the rock. 
 
 might assist at the public celebrations, two, three, or even four 
 of the cubicula were often made close together, all receiving 
 light and ventilation through one shaft or air-hole, {Iumi7iai'e^ 
 pierced through the superincumbent soil up to the open air. 
 In this way as many as a hundred persons might be collected 
 in some parts of the Catacombs to assist at the same act of 
 public worship ; whilst a still larger number might have been 
 dispersed in the cubicula of neighbouring galleries, and received 
 
32 
 
 Roma Sottcrranca. 
 
 there the Bread of hfe, brought to them by the assistant priests 
 and deacons. Indications of this arrangement are not only to 
 be found in ancient ecclesiastical writings; they may still be 
 seen in the very walls of the Catacombs themselves, episcopal 
 chairs, chairs for the presiding deacon or deaconess, and 
 benches for the faithful, having formed part, of the original 
 design when the chambers were hewn out of the living rock, 
 and still remaining where they were first made. 
 Catacombs By and by, when peace was restored to the Church, the 
 slmner^^*^ Catacombs were constantly visited as objects of pious interest, 
 and of course the graves of the Popes and other principal 
 martyrs became special centres of attraction. The number 
 of the faithful who flocked to these shrines on the annual 
 recurrence of their respective festivals was immense ; so that 
 it became necessary to provide more commodious means of 
 entrance and exit, and in other ways to enlarge and improve 
 the chapels within. Pope Damasus distinguished himself 
 above others in his devotion to this work : he also set up a 
 number of inscriptions at various places, generally written in 
 verse, and all engraved by the same artist, in which he some- 
 times commemorates the triumphs of the martyrs, and some- 
 times his own M^ork of restoration or decoration at the tomb. 
 The festivals continued to be celebrated here as long as the 
 bodies of the martyrs remained in their original resting-places, 
 till the transla- But these having been desecrated, and sometimes plundered, 
 A.D. 750 ; ' by the Lombards and other invaders of Rome, all the principal 
 ecf ancf for^^" ^^^^^^^ y^^xt removed into the city-churches by the care of succes- 
 gotten. sive Popes, during a period of sixty or seventy years, beginning 
 
 from the middle of the eighth century; and when this had been 
 done, the catacombs were naturally neglected, and by degrees 
 forgotten. They remained in oblivion for nearly seven cen- 
 turies and a half, so that when Onuphrius Panvinius, an 
 Augustinian friar, considered the marvel of his age for learn- 
 ing and industry, published a work in 1578 on the " Ceremonies 
 of Christian Burial and the Ancient Christian Cemeteries," he 
 
Genera I Description . 3 3 
 
 could only gather their names from the Acts of the martyrs 
 
 and other ancient documents. He expressly states that only 
 
 three of them were at all accessible —that at St Sebastian's, 
 
 that at San Lorenzo, meaning (as is clear from his description) 
 
 the single gallery which may yet be seen from the window of 
 
 the chapel of St Cyriaca in the Basilica itself, and that of St 
 
 Valentine on the Via Flaminia, which lay under property 
 
 belonging to his own order. It happened, however, that in 
 
 this same year, 1578, an accident brought to light another of Re-discovcred 
 1 • ■ r . . , . in 1578. 
 
 the ancient cemeteries, far more interesting than either of 
 
 these ; and a desire was soon enkindled, both in the interests 
 of religion and of learning, to know something more about 
 such venerable monuments of antiquity. But this could only 
 be the fruit of much time and labour; it was impossible to 
 reconstruct their history, which had been lost, except by a 
 careful examination of them, and a comparison of their con- 
 tents with the notices to be discovered in ancient books. It 
 has been already shown in our sketch of the Literary History 
 of the Catacombs, how this work has been attempted by many 
 authors, during the last two hundred years, with various 
 degrees of success ; and how, in our own day, the Commen- 
 datore de Rossi, having had his interest awakened to the 
 subject from his earliest youth, having devoted to its study 
 great natural abilities and untiring industry for more than 
 twenty years, and having, moreover, enjoyed some advantages 
 beyond most of his predecessors, has far outstripped them all 
 both in the extent and importance of his discoveries. Hence 
 the opportunity and the necessity for the present volume, which 
 aims only at putting within the reach of English readers the 
 fruit of De Rossi's labours. Treading faithfully in his foot- 
 steps, we propose first to trace the history of the Catacombs 
 from their beginning, and then to describe the cemetery of St 
 Callixtus in particular; after which we shall consider the light 
 which they throw upon early Christian art and doctrine. But 
 in order that this work may be done well, and that we may 
 
34 Roma Sottei^ranea 
 
 satisfy our readers that the history we shall give rests on a sure 
 foundation, it is necessary that we should go back to the first 
 introduction of Christianity into Rome, and make a brief 
 review of the legal and social position of its professors even 
 from the days of the Apostles. 
 
 Fig. 7.- Section of CJiniiibcs in Caiacomh 0/ Sniiits Alarcelliito and Fictro, sJio7viiig 
 lower C7id of the sliaft of the htininnrc, ivith do7'e painted on it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS POSITION OF THE FIRST 
 ROMAN CHRISTIANS. 
 
 THE first sowing of the seed of the gospel in the metro- Among the 
 ^ .... ... first Christians 
 
 polls of the ancient Pagan world is involved m some in Rome 
 
 obscurity. It is certain, however, that it must have been 
 almost simultaneous with the birth of Christianity. For we 
 know that among the witnesses of the miracle of Pentecost 
 were "strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes;"'"' and on 
 the return of these strangers to their homes, the wonderful 
 sight they had witnessed would be at once communicated to 
 others, and the solemn tidings they had heard would be circu- 
 lated from mouth to mouth among the Jews of the capital. 
 Moreover, the Gentile converts in " the Italian band," f of 
 which Cornelius was a centurion, probably returned to their 
 native city soon after the appointment of Herod Agrippa to 
 the kingdom of Judea, at the accession of Caligula, and these 
 too would have given a fresh impulse to the movement : and 
 if St Peter, who had been about the same time miraculously 
 released from prison, accompanied them from Caesarea, this 
 would agree with the tradition which assigns a.d. 42 as the 
 date of the coming of the Prince of the Apostles to Rome. 
 At any rate, the faith of the Roman Christians was " spoken 
 of in the whole world "J as early as a.d. 57; and it is the 
 opinion of learned and impartial judges that, even from the were native 
 first, there were several of noble blood and high rank who Greeks, and 
 made profession of this faith. " From the time of Caesar J^^^^- 
 * Acts ii. 10, II. + Tb. X. i. t Rom. i. 8. 
 
36 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 downwards," says Mr Merivale, " Jews had thrust themselves 
 into every Roman society, and not least into the highest. . . 
 Many citizens of every rank had more or less openly addicted 
 themselves to Jewish usages and tenets ; and when a Jewish 
 sect ventured to transfer its obedience from the law of Moses 
 to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the number of its adherents in 
 the capital of the empire would seem to have embraced Jews, 
 Greeks, and Romans in nearly equal proportions." 
 Scattered We are not unmindful of the Apostle's testimony relative to 
 
 themr ^ ^^-^ Church at Corinth — viz., that " there were not amongst 
 them many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not 
 many noble ;"t nevertheless everything combines to show 
 that the spread of Christianity among the higher classes, and 
 even among the imperial families at Rome, was more exten- 
 sive, from the very earliest times, than either the records of 
 ecclesiastical history or the pious legends of the Church 
 would have led us to expect. Indeed, it is easy to see how 
 scanty and imperfect these are. Thus no memorial has reached 
 us of the names or condition of those " of Caesar's household " 
 to whom St Paul sent a special salutation • of Flavins Clemens, 
 the consul and relative of Domitian, we know little beyond 
 the fact of his martyrdom ; of Apollonius, the senator and 
 martyr under Commodus, we only know that little which 
 Eusebius has told us, writing so long after the event, and at 
 so great a distance from the scene of it. Ancient metrical 
 inscriptions have been found, celebrating the praises of another 
 noble patrician, named Liberalis, holding the highest office in 
 the State, and laying down his life for the faith, whose memory 
 in all other respects is buried in oblivion. Other inscriptions 
 also have been found, in more recent times, recording the 
 burial, by their husbands, of noble Roman ladies of senatorial 
 rank (clarissimcE), in the common graves of the galleries in the 
 most ancient parts of the Roman cemeteries. It was only 
 
 * History of the Romans under the Empire, vii. 380. See also vi. 436, 
 et seq. \ I Cor. i. 26. 
 
Positio7i of the First Rommi Cln^istiaiis. 3 7 
 
 from the pages of a Pagan historian* that we knew of the pro- 
 fession of Christianity, or at least of a great interest in it and 
 partiaUty towards it, by Marcia, concubine of Commodus, 
 until, in our own day, this intelligence has been confirmed and 
 enlarged by the newly-discovered Philosophumena. Ter- 
 tullian,t again, writing at the beginning of the third century, 
 tells us that Septimius Severus protected Christian senators 
 and their wives, but says nothing as to their names or number, 
 excepting indeed that in another place he says boldly, before 
 the whole Pagan world, that not only were the cities of the 
 Roman empire full of Christian people, but even the senate 
 and the palace. 
 
 One cause of the extreme scantiness of our information as chiefly 
 to the early Christians in Rome is doubtless the destruction of ^^'^'^^^ 
 all ecclesiastical records during the last terrible persecution by 
 Diocletian ; and there was nothing in the temper or practices 
 of Christianity to commend it as a special theme for Pagan 
 writers. Nevertheless it was not altogether overlooked by 
 them ; and we know, from the testimony of Eusebius, % that 
 some at least wrote about it whose histories have not reached 
 us. Indeed it is to Pagan rather than to Christian writers that 
 we are indebted for our knowledge of some of the most 
 interesting and remarkable facts in the annals of the early 
 Church. One of these it will be well for us to dwell upon at 
 some length in this place, as the history of a Catacomb depends 
 upon it : we allude to the early conversion of some of the e.g., of 
 family of the Flavii Augusti, that is, of the family which gave 
 Vespasian to the throne. His elder brother, Titus Flavius 
 Sabinus, had been Prefect of the city in the year in which the 
 Princes of the Apostles, Sts Peter and Paul, suffered martyrdom ; 
 and it is certain, therefore, thai he must have been brought into 
 contact with them, and heard something of the Christian faith. 
 He is described by the great historian of the empire as a 
 ♦ Tacitus Hist. iii. 65, 75. t Ad Scapul. c. 4. 
 
Roma Sotterrmiea. 
 
 man whose innocence and justice were unimpeachable;* a 
 mild man, who had a horror of all unnecessary shedding of 
 blood and violence. Towards the close of his life, he was 
 accused by some of great inactivity and want of interest in 
 public affairs ; others thought him only a man of moderation, 
 anxious to spare the lives of his fellow-citizens ; others again 
 spoke of his retiring habits as the natural result of the infirmi- 
 ties of old age. Whilst we hsten to all these conjectures as 
 to the cause of a certain change which seems to have come 
 over him in his declining years, the question naturally occurs 
 to us, whether it is possible that he can have had some lean- 
 ings towards the Christian faith, or even been actually con- 
 verted to it ? It is a question which cannot now be answered ; 
 but at least it is certain that charges of this kind were com- 
 monly urged against Christians ; t and the fact that some of his 
 descendants in the next generation were undoubtedly of this 
 faith, gives a certain degree of probability to the conjecture. 
 Flavins Sabinus seems to have had four children, of whom the 
 most conspicuous was Titus Flavins Clemens, the consul and 
 martyr. He married the daughter of his cousin, who was 
 sister to the Emperor Domitian, and called by the same name 
 as her mother, Flavia Domitilla. Flavia Domitilla the 
 younger bore her husband, the consul, two sons, who were 
 named respectively, Vespasian junior, and Domitian junior, 
 having been intended to succeed to the throne ; and the 
 famous QuinctilianJ was appointed by the Emperor himself 
 to be their tutor. At what time their parents became Chris- 
 tians, and what was the history of their conversion, we do not 
 Flavins know ; but the facts of Clement's martyrdom and Domitilla's 
 
 Clemens. banishment are attested by Dio Cassius.§ His words are, that 
 " Domitian put to death several persons, and amongst them 
 Flavins Clemens, the consul, although lie was his nephew, and 
 
 * Tacitus Hist. iii. 65, 75. 
 
 t " Infructuosi in negotiis dicimur." — TertuU. ApoL, § 42. 
 + Instit. iv. f, >j 2. § Hist. Ixvii. 13. 
 
Position of the Fii'st Roman Christians. 39 
 
 although he had Flavia Domitilla for his wife, who also was a 
 relation of the Emperor's. The charge of atheism was brought 
 against them both, on which charge many others also had 
 been condemned, going after the manners and customs of the 
 Jews ; and some of them were put to death, and others had 
 their goods confiscated ; but Domitilla was only banished to 
 Pandatereia," an island opposite the Gulf of Gaeta, half-way 
 between Ponza and Ischia, now known by the name of Sta. 
 Maria. Learned critics are agreed that the atheism and adop- 
 tion of Jewish manners, here urged against Flavius Clemens 
 and his wife, were in reality nothing else than a profession of 
 Christianity, the charge of atheism never having been brought 
 specifically against the Jews,* Both Christian and Pagan 
 writers alike testify to the persecution which Domitian insti- 
 tuted against Christians towards the end of his life ; and we 
 cannot understand the motives which have led some modern 
 writers to call it in question. However, we are not at present 
 concerned with this fact. We only care to insist upon the 
 Christianity of this branch of the imperial family, and the 
 martyrdom of the consul, facts whose importance will soon be 
 recognised. Had it been handed down in any Acts of the 
 Martyrs that, immediately after the death of the apostles, Chris- 
 tianity was within an ace of mounting the imperial throne, 
 that a cousin and niece of the Emperor not only professed the 
 new religion, but also suffered exile, and even death itself, on its 
 account, we can imagine with what vehemence the pious legend 
 would have been laughed to scorn by many modern critics ; 
 but the testimony of Dio Cassius, to which we may add per- 
 haps that of Suetonius also, is received with greater respect. t 
 
 There was yet a third lady of the same noble family, bearing st Domitilla. 
 the same name of Flavia Domitilla, who was a granddaughter 
 (on the mother's side) of Titus Flavius Sabinus, and conse- 
 quently a niece of the consul. She, too, suffered banishment, 
 like her aunt, and for the same cause— profession of the 
 * Merivalc, vii. 381. t Me accuses the consul conkmptissimtv inertitcy 
 
40 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Christian faith. It is in speaking of this lady that Eusebius 
 has that striking passage to which we have already referred, 
 and which testifies so clearly to the marvellous spread of the 
 Christian religion, even before the expiration of the first 
 century. He has just had occasion to mention the latter 
 part of Domitian's reign, and he says : " The teaching of our 
 faith had by this time shone so far and wide, that even Pagan 
 historians did not refuse to insert in their narratives some 
 account of tiie persecution and the martyrdoms that were 
 suffered in it. Some, too, have marked the time accurately, 
 mentioning, amongst many others, in the fifteenth year of 
 Domitian, (a.d. 97,) Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of a 
 sister of Flavins Clemens, one of the Roman consuls of those 
 days, who, for her testimony for Christ, was punished by 
 exile to the island of Pontia." The same writer, in his 
 " Chronicon," gives the name of one of the authors to whom 
 he refers, and that name is Bruttius. It is worth remembering, 
 for w^e shall meet it again in the cemetery of the very same 
 St Domitilla whose exile he had recorded. He was a friend 
 of the younger Pliny, and the grandfather of Crispina, wife of 
 the Emperor Commodus. 
 
 It is generally supposed that there is another still more 
 ancient notice, by a Pagan writer, of the conversion to 
 Christianity of a Roman lady of rank, which ought not, 
 therefore, to be altogether omitted ; we mean that by Tacitus, 
 of Pomponia Grecina, the wife of Plautius, who conquered 
 Britain under Claudius. We read that, in the year 58, this 
 lady was accused of having embraced the rites of " a foreign 
 superstition ;" that the matter was referred to the judgment 
 of her husband, in the presence of a number of her relations, 
 who pronounced her innocent ; that she lived afterwards to 
 a great age, but " in continual sadness ;" no one, however, 
 interfered with her in this matter any more, and in the end 
 
 * St Hieronym. Inlerp. Chron. Eus. Pani]:)li., 98, Ojiera, toni. viii., 
 p. 605, ed. Migne. 
 
Position of the First Roman Christians. 4 1 
 
 it Avas considered the glory of her character * It must be • 
 confessed that the language in which this history is recorded 
 is not so precise as what we have read from Dio about the 
 Flavii, neither has the history itself so intimate a connexion 
 with the Catacombs ; nevertheless it has its point of contact 
 with them, and the ordinary interpretation of the " foreign 
 superstition," as having been intended for Christianity, has 
 lately received considerable confirmation from an inscription 
 found in the Catacomb of St Callixtus, showing that a person 
 of the same name and family was certainly a Christian in the 
 next generation, and buried in that cemetery. 
 
 These glimpses at the social condition of the first Roman The political 
 
 „, . . . ^ . ^ position of the 
 
 Christians, slight and imperfect as they are, are valuable ; and fi,-st Chris- 
 when we come to study the first period in the history of the 
 Catacombs, they will be found to furnish some very interesting 
 examples of "undesigned coincidences." A still more im- 
 portant subject, however, and one on which it is happily 
 much more easy to throw sufficient light, is the political or 
 religious position of Christians in the eye of the law, and 
 consequently their freedom with reference to the rites and 
 usages of burial. 
 
 It is certain that, at first, the Imperial Government looked They were re- 
 upon the Christians as only a sect of the Jews. Gallio, the fect^of tlie^ 
 proconsul of Achaia, drove both Paul and his accusers from J^^'^- 
 his tribunal, refusing to adjudicate upon " questions of a word 
 and of names, and of your law."t Claudius Lysias wrote to 
 Felix, procurator of Judea, saying that Paul had been accused 
 before him " concerning questions of the Jewish law and 
 Festus explained to Agrippa that the clamours of the Jews 
 against the Apostle were about " certain questions of their 
 * own superstition, and of one Jesus, deceased, whom Paul 
 affirmed to be alive."§ The very terms in which Suetonius || 
 
 * *' Mox in gloriam vertit." — Annal. xiii. 32. 
 X Tb. xxiii. 29. 
 
 II " Imi)uls()rc C'hrcsto."— -W/, /// Claud, xx^• 
 
 + Acts xviii. 12-17. 
 § lb. XXV. 19. 
 
42 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 mentions the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius, 
 and which we know included the Christians Aquila and 
 Priscilla,'^ while they indicate a disturbance raised by the 
 Jews against the faith, show at the same time that, in the eyes 
 of Romans, both the Jews and the Christians were regarded 
 as belonging to one and the same religion. Indeed it is not 
 easy to see how the Romans could take any other view of 
 the matter, since it was notorious that the Christians worship- 
 ped the God of Moses and the Prophets, and claimed that 
 their religion was the fulfilment of all the promises, types, 
 and figures of Judaism, and thus enjoyed the protection 
 afforded to Judaism. 
 
 Now Judaism, both in its national customs and its distinctive 
 religious rites, " even in Rome itself," was expressly recognised 
 and protected by the Roman laws from the days of Julius 
 Csesar;t and though under Tiberius, J and (as we have just 
 seen) under Claudius, the Jews were banished from the city, 
 yet this was merely a temporary suspension of the decree of 
 the same emperor, which permitted " the Jews, who are in all 
 the world under us, to keep their ancient customs without 
 being hindered so to do."§ This is proved by the fact of 
 St Paul, a few years afterwards, finding at Rome very many 
 Jews, and being allowed to assemble them at his lodgings, 
 and preach to them without prohibition. || From inscrip- 
 tions on Jewish Catacombs, and from incidental expressions 
 in Suetonius, it is evident that this protection extended to 
 both classes of proselytes. As long, therefore, as the Christian 
 Church continued to be confounded with the Jewish rehgion, 
 the Christians would enjoy the protection of the law both 
 in their assembUes and in the burial of their dead. They were 
 akin to the Jewish religion, as Tertullian says,ir "and lived 
 
 * Acts xviii. 2. t Joseph. Ant. xiv. lo, 8. J lb. xviii. 3, 5. 
 
 § lb. xix. 5, 3. II Acts xxviii. 17-31. 
 
 H " Nosquoque ut Judaicoe religionis propiuqiios, sub unil^raculo insignis- 
 f^imnc religionis certe licitar — Tertiill. Ad Ahitioncs, i. 11. 
 
Position of the First Roman Christians. 43 
 
 under the shadow of that most famous religion, about whose 
 lawfuhiess there was no question." 
 
 The Jews, however, vigorously denounced their supposed Christian reli- 
 
 . . ^ . ^ gion proscribed 
 
 co-religionists, and became, m Rome, as elsewhere, the first by the Roman 
 cause of the persecution of the Church. * Thenceforward it ^"^^ ^"^^ 
 became necessary that the Roman Government should either 
 legally recognise the Christian religion as well as the Jewish, 
 or else proscribe it.t The burning of Rome by Nero, and his First persecu- 
 false accusations and unjust punishment of the Christians, 
 decided between these alternatives. " This," says Sulpicius 
 Severus, speaking probably with exact historical accuracy, 
 " was the beginning of cruelties against Christians ; afterwards, 
 the religion was forbidden even by express laws, and decrees 
 were published declaring it to be illegal to be a Christian." j 
 It does not appear, however, that there was any further open 
 persecution of Christians for a period of thirty years after 
 Nero, Domitian, as we have seen, renewed it, banishing Domitian. 
 and putting to death even members of his own family. The 
 same Emperor also persecuted the Jews and their proselytes 
 for matters connected with the fiscal regulations. § Both Jews 
 and Christians, however, were protected by his successor, 
 Nerva,|| so that Lactantius, or whoever else may have been Nerva.. 
 the author of the work " De Mortibus Pe7^seaitoru7)i" even goes 
 so far as to say (c. 3) that the Church was then restored to her 
 former condition of Uberty. This, however, must not be inter- 
 preted too strictly, for the statutes which created the distinc- 
 tion between the impiety or " atheism " of the Christians, and 
 the " religion " of the Jews and proselytes, had never been 
 repealed ; and their operation, though for awhile suspended, 
 could be revived at any time, as in fact it was on the death of 
 
 Nerva. Pliny's famous letter to Trajan distinctly says that Pliny's letter 
 
 to Trajan, a.d. 
 
 * Merivale, vi. p. 449, note viii. p. 361 ; Mamachi Orig., torn. i. lib. vi. 5. 104. 
 t " As soon as the Christians established their independence of Judaism, 
 they fell under the ban of an illicit religion." — Merivale, vii. 381. 
 X Sulp. Sev. Hist. ii. 41. § Sueton. in Domit. xii. 
 
 II Tertull. Apolog. 5. 
 
44 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 the Christians worshipped Christ as God; and the Emperor's 
 reply leaves no doubt as to the state of the law, for while he 
 counsels Pliny not to originate active measures against them, 
 nor to seek for them, yet he tells him that if they were denounced, 
 and brought before the tribunal, the laws required that they 
 should be punished, unless they consented to renounce their 
 faith. Non licet esse vos I ^ was the cruel but plain letter of the 
 Roman law against the very existence of the Christians, and their 
 only means of escape were to be found in the hindrances put 
 in the way of accusers by benevolent and tolerant princes. 
 
 And even this did not always prove a sufficient protection, 
 when the malevolence of individuals insisted on pressing the 
 execution of the law. Thus, when the Senator Apollonius, 
 in the reign of Commodus, was accused of Christianity, the 
 informer w^as condemned to be broken on the wheel ; but 
 Apollonius was required to defend himself before the Senate, 
 and suffered martyrdom by decapitation, " as there was a law 
 of long standing with them, that those who had been once led 
 to trial, and would by no means change their purpose, should 
 not be dismissed." f From the time of Nero, then, the sword 
 was always suspended over the Church. "Sometimes it 
 descended, and the disciples, always insecure, were made 
 to suffer ; for, whenever the jealousy of the State was awakened, 
 no special edict was required to drag them before the altar of 
 Jupiter, and invite them to sprinkle it with incense, and con- 
 ceive a vow to the genius of the Emperor," J which, if they 
 refused, they were at once liable to capital punishment as 
 traitors and rebels. It is no part of our present purpose to 
 pursue the history of the Church's fortunes through all its 
 vicissitudes during the first three centuries. It is enough to 
 have given this general outline, and to have pointed out the 
 principle on which they depended. How this affected the 
 origin and development of the Roman Catacombs will appear 
 more clearly in the sequel. 
 
 * Tertull. Apolog. vi. 4. f Euseb. II. E. v. 21. + Merivale, vi. 451. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 I 
 
 ROMAN LAWS AND CUSTOMS AFFECTING BURIAL. 
 
 T does not follow, from the refusal of the Roman law to Christian se- 
 
 , . . . , , , pulchres pro- 
 
 protect, or even to tolerate Christianity, that the sepul- tected bv ordl- 
 chres of those who professed it would be interfered with. "^T J^^^'^ 
 
 ^ burial. 
 
 Neither the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan, nor any other 
 cotemporary document of the first two centuries, can be 
 alleged in proof ot any difficulty attending Christian burial, or 
 any necessity for concealment. In fact, it required a special 
 decree against the Christian cemeteries, such as we first meet 
 with in A.D. 203, to exclude them from the protection ex- 
 tended by law over all burial-places. No classical scholar 
 need be reminded of the sacred character which attached to 
 such places among the civilised peoples of antiquity. In 
 Athens it entered into the preliminary examination of men 
 chosen to fill the highest offices of the State, whether they had 
 been negligent in the care of their father's sepulchre.""' In Privileges of 
 
 Roman tombs. 
 
 Rome, land which had been once used for purposes of burial 
 was protected by special privileges of the law. It did not, 
 indeed, iJ>so facto become sacer^ for this could only be effected 
 by all the ceremonies of a ritual consecration ; but it became, 
 in the technical language of the time, i-eligiosus ;\ and one of 
 the chief consequences of this religious character, which hence- 
 forth attached to it, was its exemption from many of the laws 
 which regulated the tenure or transfer of property. It could 
 
 * Xen, Mem. ii. 2, § 13. 
 
 t " Religiosum locum unusquisque sua voluntate facit, dum mortuum 
 infert in locum '^^wxww — Marcian. Digest, i. 8, 6, § 4. 
 
46 
 
 Ro7na Sotterranea. 
 
 not become the lawful property of a man by usiicapio, or pre- 
 scription and it was inalienable, belonging exclusively and 
 for ever to the famiUes of those who had been buried in it. 
 In times of war, and during any prolonged period of civil 
 disturbance, those rights were probably not always strictly 
 observed ; but the law, at least, remained always the same. 
 Hence the frequent recurrence on ancient Roman monu- 
 ments of these letters, or something equivalent to them — 
 H.M.H.EX.T.N.S., {Hoc monuinentiun hceredes ex testamento 
 ne sequatur •) in other words, " This tomb and all that belongs 
 to it is sacred : henceforth it can neither be bought nor sold ; 
 it does not descend to my heirs with the rest of my property ; 
 but must ever remain inviolate for the purpose to which I have 
 destined it, viz., as a place of sepulture for myself and my 
 family," or certain specified members only of the family \ or, 
 in some rare instances, others also, not of the same family. 
 Thus, without any desire on his part, the Christian, by the 
 mere fact of burying his dead, put his sepulchre under the pro- 
 tection of the Roman laws, and though he himself might be an 
 outlaw, yet his burial-place was secure from disturbance, and 
 under the guardianship of the Pontifices^ who from time to time 
 inspected the tombs, and without whose permission no serious 
 alteration could be made.t 
 
 Christian mar- The Roman Government also permitted the bodies of those 
 
 tyrs allowed , , 
 
 the honours of who had forfeited their lives to the law to be delivered up for 
 
 burial. burial to any who asked for them. J Diocletian and Maximin 
 
 distinctly confirmed, by a new edict, this merciful provision ; 
 
 * Cic. De Legibus, ii. 24. 
 
 t De Rossi {Btdleltino, 1865, pp. 89, 90] shows that this permission was 
 only necessary as far as the portion of the sepulchre above ground was 
 concerned, and that there was a regular system of fees which removed all 
 difficulties. In fact, so insignificant were these, that the Christian Emperor 
 Constans confirmed the Pagan Pontifices in their authority over Roman 
 sepulchres. 
 
 X " Corpora animadversorum quibttslibct petentibiis ad sepulturam danda 
 sunt." — Digest, xlviii. 24, 2. This law illustrates the fact of ''Joseph of 
 Arimathea going in to Pilate and begging the Body of Jesus." 
 
Roman Laws and Customs affecting Burial. 47 
 
 and it was only under very special ciicumstances, says Ulpian, 
 that this permission was ever refused. Of course, we know 
 from ecclesiastical history that some of the Christian martyrs 
 were precisely among the few who were excepted, and the 
 reason of the exception is expressly mentioned, viz., that the 
 faithful who survived might not have the consolation they so 
 highly prized, of preserving and honouring the sacred reHcs. 
 Still there is no trace in the first two centuries of such prohibi- 
 tion ; and, as a matter of fact, some of the most ancient 
 Catacombs had their origin from this very circumstance, that a 
 pious Christian, generally a Roman matron of noble rank, 
 buried the remains of some famous martyr on her own pro- 
 perty. 
 
 The extent to which the private burial-places of Roman Size of Roman 
 Christians could be made available for the necessities of their adapted^for ^ 
 
 brethren in the faith, will appear more clearly if we consider Christian 
 
 ^ ^ ■' cemeteries. 
 
 that not only was the sepulchre itself invested with a sacred 
 character, but the Roman law included in its protection also 
 the area in which the monument stood, the hypogeiim, or sub- 
 terranean chamber, which not unfrequently was formed beneath 
 it, and perhaps even the buildings, gardens, and other pos- 
 sessions attached to it. Letters inscribed upon most of the 
 sepulchral monuments which line the pubHc roads leading 
 into Rome tell us how many feet of frontage, and how many 
 feet backwards into the field, belonged to the monument. 
 IN • FR • P. [so many] ; IN • AG • P. [so many] : /;/ frojite, 
 pedes — / In agi'o, pedes — . From these inscriptions it ap- 
 pears that quite a moderate-sized area for a Roman sepulchre 
 might have extended 125 Roman feet, more or less, each 
 way. The classical example in Horace* gives us 1000 feet 
 by 300. Sometimes of course it was very much less, e.g., 16 
 feet square, 24 feet by 15, &c. Sometimes also it was very Ancient plan 
 
 1 , - . o r . 1 • ^1 of sepulchral 
 
 much larger; for mstance, 1800 feet by 500 is the measure- ^rea. 
 ment given on a marble slab, once a part of the monument 
 
 * I Sat. viii. 12. 
 
48 Roman Lazus and Customs affecting Burial. 
 
 itself, which was dug up many years ago on the Via Labicana, 
 and given to the museum at Urbino. On this slab, not only 
 are the usual measurements of frontage and depth carefully 
 recorded, but also the private or public roads which crossed 
 the property, the gardens and vineyards of which it consisted, 
 the swampy land on which grew nothing but reeds, (it is called 
 Harimdi7ietii7n^) and the ditch by which, on one side at least, 
 it was bounded. Unfortunately the slab is not perfect, so that 
 we cannot tell the exact measurements of the whole. Enough, 
 however, remains to show that the property altogether was not 
 less than twelve Roman y>/c^^r^7,or nearly35o,ooo square feet; and 
 other inscriptions are extant, specifying an amount of property 
 almost equal to this, as belonging to a single monument {e.g.^ 
 Huic monumeiito cedtini agri pari jugera decern)/^ The necessity 
 for so large an assignment of property to a single tomb was 
 not so much the vastness of the mausoleum to be erected, as 
 because certain funeral-rites were to be celebrated there year by 
 year, sacrifices to be offered, feasts to be given, &c. ; and for 
 these purposes semicircular recesses {exedrce) were provided, with 
 sofas, and all things necessary for the convenience of guests. 
 A house also {custodid) was often added, in Avhich the person 
 lived who looked after the monument, and provided the requi- 
 sites for the annual festivals, and for his support the gardens, 
 vineyards, &c., were set apart as a perpetual endowment. 
 
 Plan of Cata- The Catacombs themselves not only illustrate these remarks, 
 combs shows , . , , i i 1 i 
 
 the mode and by showmg the care that was taken lest the subterranean exca- 
 vations should transgress the limits assigned above ground to 
 the area of the sepulchre ; but also show how a comparatively 
 small ai'ca might be made available for the burial of a great 
 number of bodies. The crypt of St Lucina, for example, which 
 now forms part of the Catacomb of St Callixtus, and in which 
 St Cornelius was buried in the middle of the third century, 
 was originally confined within an area the dimensions of which 
 can be exactly determined — 100 feet in f route, 180 in agro ; 
 * Glutei", Inscript. p. cccxcix. I. 
 
 limits of the 
 excavations. 
 
Roman Lazvs a7id CtLstoms affecting Burial. 49 
 
 and there was a building of some kind above it, which in the 
 beginning of the fourth century, (prior to the conversion of 
 Constantine,) if not at a much earher period, was certainly in 
 the possession of the Christians. Now in this crypt M. de 
 Rossi has counted upwards of 700 loculi., and considers that, 
 allowing for galleries destroyed, and others not yet thoroughly 
 explored, 2000 would be a very moderate figure at which to 
 estimate the number of persons buried within this area, which 
 forms a very small and by no means crowded part of the 
 cemetery of St Callixtus. 
 
 Hitherto we have considered the facilities afforded by the Funeral con- 
 Roman laws relating to private mausoleums, under cover of Rome^^^'^^ ^" 
 which individual Christians, possessing property, might, by 
 observing the requisite formalities, secure to themselves and 
 to their poorer brethren an inalienable resting-place for their 
 dead. But though the charity of the more wealthy Christians 
 was in the early ages proverbial, and we may be sure that they 
 took heed to the burial of the poor, and even of the slaves, 
 whose bodies were laid side by side with their masters in the 
 Christian cemeteries,* yet as, from apostolic example, we 
 find that the Church, in its corporate capacity, provided for 
 the maintenance of those Christians who were unable to main- 
 tain themselves, t it is worth while to inquire whether there 
 were any provisions under the Roman laws whereby a society 
 of men might hold a place of burial in the name and for the 
 use of the members of that society. Now, a multitude of tes- 
 timonies have come down to us of the existence, both in 
 republican and imperial Rome, of a number of collegia, as they 
 w^ere called, — corporations, confraternities, guilds or clubs, as 
 we should rather call them, — whose members were associated 
 with a view to the due performance of the funeral-rites. In- 
 
 * " Apud nos inter pauperes et divites, servos et dominos interest nihil." 
 —Lactant. Div. Inst. v. 14, 15. 
 
 t Acts ii. 44, 45 ; iv. 34 37 ; vi. i ; i Tim. v. 16. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 scnptions, which .are still extant, testify to nearly eighty of 
 these collegia^ each consisting of the members of a different 
 trade or profession. There are the masons and carpenters, 
 soldiers and sailors, bakers and cooks, corn-merchants and 
 wine-merchants, hunters and fishermen, goldsmiths and black- 
 smiths, dealers in drugs and carders of wool, boatmen and 
 divers, doctors and bankers, scribes and musicians ; in a 
 word, it would be hard to say what trade or employment had 
 not its collegium. Nor was this the only bond of fellowship 
 upon which such confraternities were built. Sometimes (gene- 
 rally, indeed) the members were united in the worship of 
 some deity. They were cultores Jovis, or Herculis, or Apollinis 
 et Diance. Sometimes they merely took the title of some 
 deceased benefactor whose memory they desired to honour, 
 e.g.., culto7'es statuarum et dipeorum. L. Ahulli Dextri ; and 
 sometimes the only bond of union appears to have been 
 service in the same house or family.* A long and curious 
 
 Description of ^'^^^^^P^^^^^' ^^^^^^gi^g ^ collegium which consisted mainly 
 a funeral con- of slaves, and was erected "in honour of Diana and An- 
 fraternity. 
 
 tinous, and for the burial of the dead,'' in the year a.d. 133, 
 reveals a number of most interesting particulars as to its inter- 
 nal organisation, which it will not be altogether beside our 
 purpose to repeat. A certain fixed sum was to be paid on 
 entrance, with a keg of good wine besides, and then so much 
 a month afterwards. For every member who had regularly 
 paid up his contribution, so much was to be allowed for his 
 funeral, a certain proportion of which was to be distributed 
 amongst those who assisted. If a member died at a distance 
 of more than twenty miles from Rome, three of the confrater- 
 nity were to be sent to fetch the body, and so much was to be 
 
 * One collegmm was '■^ convictortivi qui tma epido vcsci solent!'' Can 
 this vague and ambiguous phraseology have been adopted by some con- 
 gregation of Christians for the purpose of concealment ? See Bulleitino^ 
 1864, 62. A colleghim quod est in dofno Sergice Pmdincv, reminds us of "the 
 Church which is in their house," (Rom. xvi. 5.) It is also worthy of notice 
 that the ancient privileges of these collegia were confirmed by an edict of 
 Septimius Severus about A D. 200. 
 
Ronia7i Laws and Cicstoms affecting Burial. 5 i 
 
 allowed them for travelling expenses. If the master of the 
 slave would not give up the body, the deceased member was 
 nevertheless to receive all the funeral-rites. He was to be 
 buried in effigy. If any of the members, being a slave, 
 received his freedom, he owed the collcgiuni an amphora of 
 good wine. The newly-elected president {inagister) must 
 inaugurate his accession to office by giving a supper to all 
 the members. Six times a year the members dine together 
 in honour of Diana, Antinous, and the patron of the collegium ; 
 and the allowance of bread and wine on these occasions was 
 specified, — so much to every mess of four. No complaints or 
 disputed questions might be mooted at these festivals, " to the 
 end that our feasts may be merry and glad." Finally, who- 
 ever wished to enter this confraternity, was requested to 
 study all the rules before he entered, that he might not 
 grumble afterwards, or leave a dispute as a legacy to his 
 heir. 
 
 In connection with these collegia^ it is to be remarked that. Christians 
 though the ordinary assemblies of the Christians were for- Jhen^seWes of 
 
 bidden by the edicts of Trajan against clubs Uietoirue), as ^1^^ legal sane 
 ^ JO \ ^jQj^ these 
 
 appears from Pliny's letter, yet an exception was expressly societies, 
 made in favour of associations which consisted of "poorer 
 members of society, who met together every month to make a 
 small contribution towards the expenses of their funerals." t 
 To understand how Christians might shelter their funeral- 
 rites under this exception, we have only to recall the words in 
 which Tertullian describes to a heathen ruler the habits of 
 Christians at the end of the second century: "Every one 
 makes a small contribution, o)i a certain day in the month, or 
 when he chooses, provided he is only willing and able ; for no 
 one is compelled, all is voluntary. The amount is, as it were, 
 a common fund of piety ; since it is expended, not in feasting 
 
 * " Les Antonins," par le Cte. de Champagny, torn, iii., Append. 399. 
 t " Permittitur tenuioribus stipein menslruam conferre, dum tamen semel 
 in mense coeant." — Digest, xlvii. 22, I. 
 
52 
 
 Roma Sotter7'anea. 
 
 or in drinking, or in indecent excesses, but in feeding and 
 burying the poor','' &c.* 
 and even of This subject has lately received still further important illus- 
 iii^connS;don^ trations from a Pagan will, which had once been engraved in 
 with funeral- marble on a Roman sepulchre in Langres ; was copied thence 
 by some disciple of the school of Alcuin in the eighth or ninth 
 century ; and now two pages of his copy have been discovered 
 in the binding of a MS. of the tenth century in the library at 
 Basle. This curious document begins by ordering the com- 
 pletion of the cella memorice which the testator had already 
 commenced. It was to be finished in exact accordance with 
 the plan he should leave behind him ; in it were to be set up 
 two statues of himself of a certain size — the one in bronze, the 
 other in marble — and in front of it, an altar of the finest Carrara 
 marble, in which his bones should be laid. Provision was to 
 be made for the easy opening and shutting of this cdla ; 
 couches and benches also were to be provided for those days 
 on which it was to be opened, and even garments for the 
 guests. t Orchards and other property were assigned for the 
 maintenance of the sepulchre, which was left in charge of two 
 freedmen, who are named, and certain fines imposed upon the 
 heirs if they should allow this duty to be neglected. Finally, 
 all the testator's freedmen were to make a yearly contribution, 
 
 * " Modicam nnusquisque stipcDi Jiicnstnia die, vel quum velit, et si 
 modo velit, et si modo possit, apponit .... Nam inde non epulis . . . . 
 sed egenis alendis Jmmandisqite,''' Scc—Tcrt. Apol. 39. 
 
 + This reminds us of the history of the man in the gospel who "had 
 not on a wedding-garment." In the legal inventory of the goods which were 
 confiscated under Diocletian in Cista, "in the house where the Christians used 
 to meet," besides two chalices of gold, and six of silver, and six cruets, and 
 seven candlesticks, all of the same metal, small brazen candlesticks and lamps 
 with their chains, there were found also eighty-two garments for women, six- 
 teen for men, thirteen pairs of men's shoes, forty-seven of women's, &c. — Acta 
 Purgat: Coccil: post Optati Opera, ed. Dupin, 168. Nor is this the only 
 feature in this description whereby the reader will be reminded of the 
 agapa, or Christian love-feasts, which, before they had degenerated into the 
 scenes of excess and superstition so feelingly deplored and condemned by 
 the Fathers of the fifth century, were held at the tombs of the martyrs and 
 others of the faithful. 
 
Roman Laws ajid Cnsto77is affectijig Biirial. 5 
 
 out of which a feast was to be provided on a certain day, and 
 
 duly consumed by them on the spot. 
 
 The constitution of the coliegiwn, of which we have already 
 
 said so much, gives a long ordo ccenan/m, or list of days on 
 
 which convivial entertainments were to be celebrated ; and in 
 
 this ordo there are such entries as the following : — viii Idus ^-S-^ Ordo coe- 
 
 Martias iiatali CcBseimi pair is . . . xiii k. Sept. natali Ccesevni 
 
 Silvani fratris . . . xix /an. 7iatali Casenni Rufi patroiii 
 
 rntijiicipi. Even the anniversary of the dedication, or first Anniversaries, 
 
 &c. 
 
 opening of the monument itself, seems sometimes to have been 
 celebrated : Natalis uionumenti v. Id. Maias was lately found 
 on a pagan inscription. The eye-witnesses of St Ignatius' 
 martyrdom testify to the Christian practice of observing the 
 natalitia of the martyrs, for they make known " the day and 
 the time, that being assembled together at the season of his 
 martyrdom, we may communicate with the combatant and 
 noble martyr of Christ and it must be obvious to all what 
 an admirable cover for this and other pious practices of 
 Christianity was provided by the existence of such institutions 
 as we have described. That they were actually so used by instance of 
 Christians seems almost certain when we compare with the 
 foregoing inscriptions the following Christian monument, dis- 
 covered recently in the ruins of Cresarea, one of the Roman 
 towns in Africa : — 
 
 ARKAM AT [AD] SEPVLCHRA CVLTOR VEREI CONTVLIT 
 ET CELLAM STRVXIT SVIS CVNCTIS SVMPTIBVS 
 ECCLESI^ SANCTTE HANC RELIQVIT MEMORIAM 
 SALVETE FRATRES PVRO CORDE ET SIMPLICI 
 EVELPIVS VOS SATOS SANCTO SPIRITV 
 
 HCCLKSIA FRATRVM HVN'C RESTITVIT TITVLVM. MA. I. SEVERIAXI . C. V 
 EX ING . ASTERI.t 
 
 " Euelpius, a worshipper of the Word, has given this area for sepulchres, 
 
 * Mart. vS. Ignat., 9, A.D. 107. 
 
 t Ex Jnovnio Asteri denotes tliat Asterius was the poet who composed 
 this epitaph. Cf. Tertull. Apol., c. 39. 
 
54 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 First express 
 edict against 
 Christian 
 cemeteries, 
 A.D. 257. 
 
 and has built a cella entirely at his own cost. He left this mcmoria to the 
 Holy Church. Hail, brethren ! Euelpius with a pure and simple heart 
 salutes you, born of the Holy Spirit." 
 
 The identity of the expressions adtor verbi, aream^ cellam^ 
 memoria7n^ with the corresponding terms used by the collegia, 
 can hardly be the result of accident. It is true that this in- 
 scription, as we now have it, is not the original stone ; it is 
 expressly added at the foot of the tablet, that Ecclesia frati'unv' 
 has restored this titnli(s, at a period subsequent to the perse- 
 cution, during which the original had been destroyed; but both 
 the sense and the words forbid us to suppose that any change 
 had been made in the language of the epitaph, to which we 
 cannot assign a date later than the middle of the third cen- 
 tury. It may have been destroyed either in the persecution 
 of A.D. 257 or of 304. 
 
 From all that we have said, then, it appears certain that 
 in the earliest ages there was no special interference with 
 Christians in their burial of the dead, and therefore no special 
 necessity for secresy and concealment. In fact, the assemblies 
 of the Christians would be less liable to interruption at the 
 buildings erected over the burial-places than anywhere else. 
 And it seems that the fact of these assemblies being frequently 
 held there was the cause of the invasion of the sanctity of 
 Christian graves by popular violence and express legal enact- 
 ments. The first historical notice of such an invasion which 
 has come down to us, belongs to Africa in the year a.d. 203. 
 We are then told by Tertullian, that at Carthage there was a 
 popular outcry raised de areis sepulturaf'um nosti'arum, and a 
 demand for their destruction.t These, however, were not 
 subterranean cemeteries, and probably differed externally in 
 little or nothing from the burial-places of the heathen which 
 surrounded them ; still they were known to belong to the 
 Christians as their exclusive property. The first general edict 
 
 * This very term, unknown to theology, savours of being adopted for 
 sake of concealment and its similarity to collegium couvictortim, &c. 
 t Arece non sint !" — Tertull. ad Scapula ?n, c. 3. 
 
Roman Lazvs and Ctistoms affecting Bnrial. 55 
 
 by which the Roman Catacombs were affected was published 
 by the Emperor Valerian, ad. 257, and was aimed rather at 
 their use as places of worship, or at least of secret assembly, 
 than as mere places of burial. After this, they enter expressly 
 into most, if not all, of the imperial edicts concerning the 
 Christians, so that the relations between the Roman laws and 
 the Christian cemeteries will henceforward be most conve- 
 niently considered in our direct chronological account of the 
 Catacombs themselves. 
 
 VNI 
 
 FfO. Sepulchral Stove found iii a ccntcicry on the Via Lntinn. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 Roman burial- T T has been shown that there was nothmg, either in the 
 mural.' ^^^^^ social or religious position of the first Christians in Rome 
 
 to interfere with their freedom of action in the mode of dis- 
 posing of their dead. The law left them entire liberty, and 
 there were not wanting to them either the means or the will 
 to discharge this duty in the most becoming way. There was 
 indeed one limit set to their liberty, viz., as to the choice of 
 place ; but this attached to all Roman sepulchres alike,* and 
 was not peculiar to the Christians. It was strictly forbidden 
 by the ancient laws to bury within the walls of the city ] and, 
 excepting in one or two instances w^here the pressure of per- 
 secution forced them for a while to unusual secrecy, the 
 Christians seem never to have disregarded this prohibition. 
 The law was really restricted in its application to the old walls 
 of Servius Tullius ; but with the exception of the burial of Saints 
 John and Paul in their own house on the Cselian, and the bodies 
 secretly buried by St Pudentiana, we do not find any trace 
 of a Christian cemetery within the circuit of the walls of 
 Aurelian and Honorius. Beyond these limits they were free 
 to consult their own convenience, laws, or tastes, in this 
 matter; and being a mixed company of Greeks, Romans, and 
 Jews, they had the examples of various nations from w^hich 
 to choose. Among the Greeks, the corpse was either buried 
 or burnt ; both practices appear to have been always used 
 
 ■* Even the few privileged families who had a legal right of burial within 
 the walls did not avail themselves of it. — Cic. de Leg. ii. 23. 
 
Beginning of the Catacombs. 5 7 
 
 to a greater or less extent at different periods. In Rome, 
 the ordinary custom, at least from the later times of the 
 Republic, was not to bury, but to burn, the bodies of the dead, 
 and to enclose the ashes in an urn. The urn was then placed 
 in a recess in the family sepulchre, which, from its containing Pagan coinm- 
 a number of these litde niches, like so many pigeon-holes, was other\oml)s 
 called a columbarium or dove-cot. This, however general, and 
 latterly almost universal, was not the primitive custom.* 
 Warriors, lying at full length in their armour, have been found 
 in Etruscan tombs, and outside the ancient Porta Capena 
 (though within the present walls of Rome) may still be seen 
 the sepulchre of the Scipios, with its full-sized sarcophagi, 
 showing that that great family followed the ancient practice. 
 Fabretti gives another example, which he saw four miles out of 
 Rome, on the Via Flaminia, on which road are also the sepul- 
 chres of the Nasones, described by Bartoli. These latter, and 
 some others that might be named, resemble the plan which was 
 adopted by the Christians more closely than do the tombs 
 of the Scipios, inasmuch as they have chambers cut in the 
 tufa^ with horizontal niches for bodies ; whereas the tombs of 
 the Scipios are both irregular in form, as though the place 
 had been a deserted quarry, and have no graves cut in the 
 wall, but only recesses for sarcophagi, which are half-buried, 
 as it were, in the living rock.t The principal marks which 
 
 distinguish these Pagan sepulchres from the Christian ceme- contrasted 
 
 with Christian 
 
 teries are — their comparatively small size ; their exclusiveness cemeteries, 
 in containing only the remains of a single family, as contrasted 
 with the all-embracing catholicity of the Christian cemetery ; 
 and that the loculi of the Pagan sepulchre were often left open, 
 because it was their custom to close the chamber for ever when 
 it had once received its destined occupants, while the Christian 
 loadi were always hermetically sealed, since the chambers in 
 which they were situated were frequently visited by the faithful. 
 
 ^ Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 55. 
 
 f OiKTC (li Ennio Yisconti, i. 10, Milano. 
 
58 Roma Sotterranca. 
 
 These particulars, however, are not of the essence of this mode 
 of burial ; and the examples referred to are abundantly suffi- 
 cient for the purpose for which they have been alleged, viz., 
 to show that the practice of burying in sepulchres hewn out 
 of the rock was not altogether unknown even to the Pagans 
 Jewish cata- of Rome. To the Jews it had always been familiar, and 
 
 combs 
 
 numerous examples are to be found m every part of the world, 
 
 wherever they have settled themselves and the nature of the 
 
 soil permitted it— in Palestine, in Southern Italy, and in Rome 
 
 in Vigna Ran- itself. One was discovered not long since on the opposite 
 danini, o 1 i 
 
 side of the Via Appia from the Church of St Sebastian, and 
 somewhat nearer to Rome, in the Vigna Randanini. Here 
 the galleries resemble those of the Christian cemeteries very 
 closely, except that they are not quite so regular. The loculi 
 are closed with stone and terra-cotta, hke those in the Cata- 
 combs ; but the lowest range are sunk beneath the floor, and 
 the stone closing these leans against the wall in a slanting, 
 instead of an upright position. There are no cubictila^ properly 
 so called, but sometimes an opening leads to a small recess 
 where two or three graves are sunk behind the ordinary range 
 of loaili. The inscriptions are in Greek, with unmistakeable 
 Jewish expressions and symbols, amongst which the seven- 
 branched candlestick hplds the first place. From the variety 
 of names, and the absence of the usual exclusive occupation 
 of the tombs by one family which characterises most Jewish 
 sepulchres of a similar kind, it has been conjectured that here 
 the Jews rather imitated than set an example to the Christians. t 
 Bosio,J however, describes a Jewish Catacomb which he saw 
 and at Monte on Monte Verde, outside the Porta Portese, which was far more 
 ^^'^ ^' ancient, and seems certainly to have been of an earlier date than 
 
 the Christian cemetery of San Ponziano on the same hill. How- 
 ever, it is not worth while to discuss minutely the chronology 
 
 " See Murray's Handbook for Southern Italy, 361. 
 
 f Cimitero degli Antichi Ebrei, &c., per P. Garrucci, Roma, 1862. 
 
 ^ Bosio, Rom. Sott. 142. 
 
Beginning of the Catacornbs. 59 
 
 of the specimens of Jewish Catacombs to be seen in Rome. We 
 need only refer to the language of the prophets when speaking 
 of places of burial in the Old Testament,"'' or quote the instance 
 of the Father of the F'aithful himself, whose only possession in 
 the land of promase was " the field wherein was the double 
 cave, which Abraham bought for a possession of a burying- 
 place."t It is, of course, still more to the purpose to name 
 the new sepulchre hewn out in a rock in which Joseph of 
 Arimathea laid the Body of our Lord — an example which was 
 not likely to be without effect on His earliest disciples. 
 
 A modern writer, indeed, has ventured to say of the first 
 Christians in Rome, that as they continued to dwell in the 
 midst of their unconverted countrymen, so they continued also 
 their ordinary usages of daily social life ; in particular, " that 
 they burnt their dead after the Roman fashion, gathered their Chrisiians did 
 
 . . , , , r 1 • 1 • -1 T "ot^ buin, Inil 
 
 ashes mto the sepulchres 01 their patrons, and mscribed over buried, their 
 them the customary dedication to the Divine Spirits^ % The 
 only authority given for this statement is " the frequent occur- 
 rence of the letters D. M. on the tombs of the early Christians," 
 which is certainly quite inadequate to support the weight of so 
 new and startling a theory. We do not for a moment doubt 
 that wherever these letters were used, they were intended to 
 stand for Dis Manibiis, and not (as Pjoldetti, Fabretti, and 
 others have tried to maintain) for JDco Maximo. But it is one 
 of the discoveries for which we are indebted to the skill and 
 diligence of De Rossi, in attempting a chronological arrange- 
 ment of the Christian inscriptions of Rome, that we are able 
 to fix the date of the Christian epitaphs on which these letters 
 have been found— and they are extremely rare,§ not frequent- 
 to the end of the third century, by which time they may per- 
 haps have been almost accounted a characteristic of mortuary 
 inscriptions, and so have been used thoughtlessly, without any 
 
 * Isaias xxii. i6. t Gen. xxiii. 17-20. % Merivale, vi. 444. 
 
 § Quam rarissimc, ])artim oscitantia, partim aliis de causis, Christianis 
 adhibitam epitaph! is fuisse satis constat," says De Rossi. — .S"//r. Solesiii. 
 iii. 55'- 
 
6o 
 
 Roma Sotterraiica. 
 
 advertence to their real meaning,"' e.g.^ they are found, in one 
 instance, coupled with the sacred monogram itself, D. M. ^ S. 
 Or the tombstone may have been bought with the letters 
 already inscribed ; the surviving relatives who put it up may 
 have been ill-instructed in the faith ; or many other explanations 
 might be given, any one of which seems to us more easily admis- 
 sible than that suggested by Mr Merivale. For whilst, on the 
 one hand, it is not pretended that among the innumerable cinerary 
 urns of the Roman colimibaria,-\ a single specimen has yet been 
 found with Christian emblems or inscriptions, we have very 
 distinct testimony, on the other hand, that the Christians con- 
 demned the destruction of dead bodies by fire, and insisted on 
 restoring them to the earth, whence they came. J 
 
 We conclude, then, that there was nothing strange or un- 
 natural in the mode of burial adopted by the early Christians 
 of Rome, although the spirit of Christianity soon made itself 
 felt in the characteristics which distinguish its cemeteries from 
 the sepulchres both of Jews and of Pagans, just as the Christian 
 Church itself grew up, men knew not how, in the midst of 
 
 * They only came into use among the heathen themselves mider the 
 first Caesars. 
 
 f Mr Merivale, indeed, in another place, refers to the insci iptions in the 
 columbaria of Claudius, recently discovered, as containing several of the 
 same names as occur in the salutations of St Paul to his fellow-countrymen 
 in Rome, and he considers that one at least, Sentia Renata, bespeaks a 
 Christian baptism. The whole of the inscription referred to stands thus — 
 
 Senti'je RenatiC 
 q. V. Ann. iiii. vi. xi. d. 7'iii. 
 Seniius Fclicissivuis 
 Et Amabilis Filicc 
 Dulcissinuc. 
 
 We do not know of any Christian inscription in which the title ainabilis is 
 assumed by the survivor ; it is, of course, often given to the deceased. 
 The instances of identity of name are only seven or eight out of 250, and 
 seem to prove nothing but that such names were not uncommon in Rome. 
 — Di due Sepolcri Romani del Secolo di AJtgusto, &^c., da Gio. Pietro Cam- 
 pona, ed. 2da., Rotna, 1852. 
 
 X Execrantur rogos et damn ant ignium sepulturas. — Minuc Felix- 
 Octav. c. ii. 451, ed. 1838. Vetcrum et meliorum consuetudinem humandj 
 frequentamus. — IIj., c. x. 468. 
 
Beginning of the Catacombs. 6 1 
 
 Judaism and Paganism, claimed as its own all that was good 
 
 and true in the religions around it, and, at the same time, 
 
 preserved intact its own identity as a " holy nation," the 
 
 kingdom of God which shall stand for ever. But in the 
 
 beginning of the Christian Catacombs, there was absolutely First cata- 
 
 - . . . , . ^ r • -K r combs, siTiall 
 
 nothmg extraordmary or requirmg explanation ; the faithful and private. 
 
 did but use their liberty in the way that suited them best, 
 burying their dead according to a fashion to Avhich many of 
 them had been long accustomed, and which enabled them at 
 the same time to follow in death the example of Him who was 
 also their model in life. Accordingly, they began cemeteries 
 here and there on different sides of the city, as occasion 
 required and opportunity served, not at all foreseeing the 
 enormous proportions which their work would ultimately 
 attain, nor the manifold uses it would serve. It is quite pos- 
 sible that some of these cemeteries may always have remained 
 the burial-place of single families, as in point of fact Christian 
 subterranean sepulchres have really been found in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Rome, consisting each of a single chamber only. 
 Others again, begun Avith the same intent, may have been 
 afterwards indefinitely enlarged, and particular portions only 
 appropriated to private use by means of inscriptions, such as 
 that recently discovered in the Catacomb of St Nicomedes, F:xamples. 
 in the garden of the Villa Patrizi, just outside the Porta Pia;'"' 
 
 MONVMENTVINI - VALERI - M 
 ERCVRI - ET - JVLITTES - JVLIAN 
 I - ET - QVINTILIES - VERECVNDES 
 LIBERTIS-LIBERTABVSQUE-POSTE 
 RISQUE - EORVM - AT - RELIGIONE 
 M - PERTINENTES - ME A - M - HOC - A 
 MFLIVS - IN - CIRCVITVM - CIRCA - 
 MONVMENTVM - LATI - LONGI - 
 PER - PEDES - BINOS -QUOD-PERTIN 
 ET - AT - IPSVM - MONVMENT - 
 
 * It i.s btated in liis Acts that he was buried " in the garden of Justus, 
 
62 
 
 Roma Sotterranea, 
 
 or this other, which may yet be seen in a most ancient part of 
 the Catacomb of Sts Nereus and Achilles, at no great distance 
 from the sepulchre of those saints. 
 
 M 
 
 ANTONI 
 
 VS 
 
 - RESTVTV 
 
 S - FECIT - YPO 
 
 GEV 
 
 - SIBI - ET - 
 
 SVIS 
 
 - FIDENTI 
 
 BVS- 
 
 IN-DOMINO. 
 
 Both of these monuments are very ancient. Neither of 
 them seems to have contemplated the existence of penal laws, 
 proscribing the free exercise of the Christian religion, or inter- 
 fering with the privacy and sacredness of their graves. They 
 merely announce with simplicity and candour, as an inscription 
 on a pagan monument might have done, for whose benefit 
 that place of burial had been provided. Each desires to 
 include those only who belong to his own religion, and it is 
 attempted to secure the fulfilment of this desire, in the one 
 case by limiting the use of the hypogeuin to those relatives 
 " who believe in the Lord," in the other, by declaring that the 
 monument is for the use only of those of my dependents " who 
 belong to my religion." No precedent can be found for such 
 a phrase as this amid the tens of thousands of pagan epitaphs 
 which are still extant. It is doubtful whether it would have 
 conveyed any meaning at all to a pagan mind ; it could have 
 been used by a Jew or a Christian, but by no one else, and 
 even a Christian could not have used it in public when once 
 his religion had been condemned and declared unlawful by the 
 state. It might have been used, therefore, before persecution 
 was begun by Nero, or, again, between his death and the 
 accession ot Domitian, or under Nerva and in the earlier part 
 of the reign of Trajan, and it is very possible that to one of 
 these periods this inscription really belongs. 
 
 near the city -walls.'" The author quoted by William of Malmesbury also 
 places his tomb very near this gate of the city. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 HIS TOR Y OF THE CA TA COMBS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CATACOMBS IN THE FIRST AGES. 
 
 WE now enter upon a most interesting portion of our Apostolic 
 origin of son 
 subject; on which, however, Httle rehable information of the Cata- 
 
 could be obtained until the archaeological genius of De Rossi ^""^^^ 
 succeeded in reducing to order the fragments of tradition 
 scattered through the writings of antiquity, so laboriously 
 collected by Bosio and others, and verifying these by the 
 monuments found in the Catacombs themselves. By these 
 means we have at length the outlines at least of a chrono- 
 logical history of Roma Softer ra?iea, which we may hope that 
 future discoveries will correct and enlarge. Our readers will 
 not expect us to produce the testimony of cotemporaneous, 
 or nearly cotemporaneous authors, for the history of the 
 Catacombs during the first ages. So terrible was the tenth 
 and last persecution under Diocletian, that hardly any of the 
 ancient records of the Roman Church escaped destruction. 
 We have already enumerated the principal documents from 
 which the early history of that Church is to be reconstructed ; 
 and all that can now^ be done is briefly to collect the informa- 
 
Roma Sotterra7iea. 
 
 tion we derive from those sources, and then to examine the 
 Catacombs themselves for whatever confirmation of it they 
 may be able to give. 
 
 It has been said or implied that the history of the Cata- 
 combs probably dates from the burial of the first Roman 
 Christian. Are there, then, to be found in any of the exist- 
 ing Catacombs traces of apostolical antiquity? De Rossi 
 replies : — " Precisely in those cemeteries to which history or 
 tradition assigns apostolic origin, I see, in the light of the 
 most searching archaeological criticism, the cradle of Christian 
 art and of Christian inscriptions; there I find memorials of 
 persons who appear to belong to the times of the Flavii and 
 of Trajan ; and finally, I discover precise dates of those 
 times."* This is a bold statement, and we purpose in the 
 present chapter to bring together some at least of the proofs 
 upon which it is based. 
 
 Papal crypt on Among the cemeteries ascribed by tradition to apostolic 
 the Vatican. 
 
 tunes, the crypts of the Vatican would have the first claun on 
 our attention, had they not been almost destroyed by the 
 foundations of the vast basilica which guards the tomb of 
 St Peter. We cannot, however, pass them by altogether, 
 especially as the most ancient notice of them that we have 
 confirms in some degree what has been said as to the perfect 
 liberty of the first Christians in the burial even of their martyrs. 
 The Libel' Pontificalis states that Anacletus, the successor of 
 Clement in the Apostolic See, built and adorned the sepul- 
 chral monument {construxit memoriam) of blessed Peter, since 
 he had been ordained priest by St Peter, and other burial- 
 places where the bishops might be laid." It is added that he 
 himself was buried there; and the same is recorded of Linus 
 and Cletus, and of Evaristus, Sixtus I., Telesphorus, Hyginus, 
 Pius I., Eleutherius, and Victor, the last of whom was buried 
 A.D. 203 ; and, after St Victor, no other Pontiff is recorded to 
 * R. S. i. 185. 
 
The Catacombs in the First Ages. 65 
 
 have been buried at the Vatican until St Leo the Great was 
 laid in St Peter's, a.d. 461. The idea conveyed by the words 
 constj'uxit memoriam is that of a monument above ground 
 according to the usual Roman custom ; and we have seen that 
 such a monument, even though it covered the tombs of Chris- 
 tian bishops, would not be likely to be disturbed at any time 
 during the first or second century. For the reason we have 
 already stated, it is impossible to confront these ancient 
 notices with any existing monuments. It is worth mentioning, 
 however, that De Rossi believes that the sepulchre of St 
 Linus was discovered in this very place early in the seven- 
 teenth century, bearing simply the name of LINUS.* 
 
 From St Peter's on the Vatican the mind passes naturally St Paul's on 
 to the resting-place of the apostle of the Gentiles on the other g^^i^^''^ ^^^^ 
 side of the river and of Rome. But here, too, the hill has 
 been cut away to make room for the Basilica of St Paul extra 
 nuiros ; and hence the greater part of the Catacomb of St 
 Lucina, or of St Commodilla, as it is sometimes called in 
 ancient records, has been destroyed, and what galleries yet 
 remain are so choked with earth and ruins of various kincls 
 as to be almost impassable. Nevertheless, it must not be for- 
 gotten that Boldetti read within this Catacomb the most 
 ancient inscription with a consular date that has come down 
 to us.f It was scratched on the mortar of one of the loculi, 
 and the consulate of Sura et Senecio marks the year a.d. 
 107. A second was also found in the same place, in marble, 
 recording the names of Piso et Bolano, consuls a.d. no. 
 The same explorer discovered here also yet a third inscrip- 
 
 * BuUcttitio, 1864, p. 50. 
 
 t There is, indeed, a more ancient dated Christian inscription of the 
 third year of Vespasian, i.e., A.D. 72; but, unfortunately, it is no longer 
 possible to ascertain to what cemetery this inscription belonged. It must 
 be remembered that a very small proportion of the inscriptions have the 
 date of the year upon them. The day of the month was sufficient to mark 
 the anniversary ; the particular year was regarded as of less import- 
 ance. 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 Roma Sottcin-anca. 
 
 tion, which De Rossi considers one of the most ancient in 
 Rome : — 
 
 DORMITIONI 
 T . FLA . EVTY 
 CHIO . QVI . VT 
 XIT . ANN . XVIIII 
 MES.XI.D.III 
 HVNC . LOCVM 
 DONABIT . M 
 ORBIVS HELI 
 VS . AMICVS 
 KARISSIMVS 
 KARE BALE 
 
 " As a resting-place for Titus Flavins Eutychius, who lived nineteen 
 years, eleven months, three days. His dearest friend, Marcus Oibius, 
 gave this spot. Farewell, beloved." 
 
 The place where it was found, and certain symbols rudely 
 carved at the bottom (apparently intended to represent loaves 
 and fishes), show this inscription to be Christian ; while the 
 style, the ancient nomenclature differing from the usual Chris- 
 tian epitaphs, and the prsenomen, T. Flavius, point to the 
 age of the Flavian emperors, the end of the first century. 
 It can hardly be a mere accident that these rare and cotem- 
 poraneous dates should have been discovered in the same 
 place, and precisely in the cemetery where less than forty 
 years before had been deposited the body of the aposde Paul. 
 They may be taken as certain proofs that a Catacomb was 
 begun here not long after his martyrdom. 
 St I'risci lla on The cemetery of St Priscilla^ on the Via Salaria Nova, is said 
 theViaSalana. |^^^^ dug in the property of the family of Pudens, con- 
 verted by the apostles ; and a particular chapel in it, known, 
 from the language of its inscriptions, as the Cappella Greca^ is 
 supposed to have been the burial-place of St Pudentiana, St 
 Praxedes, and other members of the family. The classical 
 style of the frescoes, the scenes depicted in most of them 
 differing widely from the usual well-known subjects which in 
 after-times repeat themselves so frequently, when Christian 
 symbolism had assumed a more fixed and stereotyped charac- 
 
The Catacombs in the First Ages. 67 
 
 ter; the beautiful ornaments in stucco, like those in the baths 
 of Titus ; a special family of mscriptions traced in vermUion 
 on the tiles, and unlike later Christian epigraphs in their 
 language (being sometimes bare names, sometimes the apos- 
 toHc salutation PAX TECVM, very often the symbol of the 
 anchor) ; the classic forms of the characters of the inscriptions 
 on marble ; the name TITO FLAVIO FELICTSSIMO ; the 
 construction of the principal crypt, which is not excavated in 
 the Uifa^ but regularly built, and, without any loculiis in the 
 walls, was evidently intended for the reception of sarcophagi ; 
 — all these variations from the uniformity of Christian subter- 
 ranean cemeteries, such as we find them in the third century, 
 point to a date anterior to any such systematic arrangement, 
 and confirm in a remarkable manner the high antiquity assigned 
 to this cemetery by tradition. 
 
 In certain acts of Pope Liberius mention is made of the Cemetery of 
 
 - ^ . , • r r 1 Ostrianus or 
 
 cemetery of Ostrianus as bemg not far from the cemetery Yow^ Petri, 
 of Novella, which was on the third mile of the Via Salaria." 
 When Panvinius compiled his catalogue of the cemeteries,* he 
 set down this as having been the oldest of all, " because it was 
 in use when St Peter preached the faith to the Romans." 
 Bosio, however, and all other antiquarians have failed in any 
 attempt to identify it ; whilst De Rossi's more scientific mode 
 of procedure seems to have been more successful. He ob- 
 served that the Abbot John, in the papyrus MS.t at Monza, 
 in which he gives a list of oils from the lamps before the cele- 
 brated shrines of Rome which he visited, after " the oil of St 
 Agnes and many others" on the Via Nomentana and before 
 " the oil of St Vitalis, St Alexander, and others on the Via 
 Salaria," mentions " oil from the chair where Peter the apostle 
 was first enthroned {prius scdit)," as though this were situated 
 somewhere between the roads that have been named. In like 
 manner, in the index of the cemeteries in the Liber Mirabiliiim^ 
 between that of St Agnes and that of St Priscilla, that is, be- 
 * See iiage 32. t See page 23. 
 
68 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 tweeii the same two roads, is placed the cemetery of the font of 
 St Peter {foutis S. Petri — in other copies Ad Nyinphas S. Fet?'i), 
 near the basihca of St Emerentiana. Now, this situation ex- 
 actly corresponds with that of the cemetery upon which Father 
 Marchi bestowed all his labours, and which has therefore be- 
 come so familiar to all Roman visitors under the name of the 
 Catacomb of St Agnes ; but the galleries and chambers which 
 are at present accessible there do not bear marks of greater 
 antiquity than the third century. Bosio, however, tells us that 
 he went down by a square hole (which is at present undis- 
 covered), and found a crypt, also unknown to us, evidently of 
 an historical character, from the frequency of the huniiuwia 
 and the beauty of the ornamentation. Near one of these 
 light-holes, which he found still open, " without the light of a 
 candle," he writes, " one sees a large niche like a tribune, with 
 leaves in stucco-work, and within the niche are seen some red 
 letters, which, being almost all obliterated, are illegible, but 
 some few whicli remain are beautifully formed ; under that 
 niche must anciently have been the altar, the place being 
 sufficiently spacious."* De Rossi observes that it is now well 
 ascertained that the ancient custom was to place in the tribune, 
 not the altar, but the pontifical chair; and this passage from 
 Eosio seems to him to read like an account of the crypt 
 where was formerly venerated on the i8th of January, " the 
 chair in which Peter was first enthroned " — scdes iibi prius 
 sedit — and which was also known in the martyrologies of Ado 
 and Bede as the Ca^nietcrium ad Nyniphas uhi Petri is baptizabat.^ 
 The extreme antic^uity of some cemetery in this neighbour- 
 hood is still further confirmed by the inscriptions which have 
 been found here ; their classical and laconic style, form, and 
 nomenclature, all betoken a most ancient date. In nearly a 
 hundred instances the names are of Claudii, Flavii, Ulpii, 
 Aurelii, and others of the same class ; once the deceased is 
 stated to have been the freedwoman (iiberta) of Lucius Clo- 
 * Roma Sotl. 438. t See Note C in Appendix. 
 
The Catacombs in the First Ages. 69 
 
 (lius Crescens ; often nothing whatever is added to the names, 
 or only the relationship between the deceased and the person 
 setting up the tablet, with perhaps the epithet of affection, 
 dulcissimo or diilcissimce. In fact, these epitaphs vary so little 
 from the old classical type, that had they not been seen by 
 Marini and other competent witnesses in their original posi- 
 tion, and some of them been marked with the Christian sym- 
 bol of the anchor, we might have hesitated whether they ought 
 not rather to be classed among pagan monuments. 
 
 The Cemetery of St Domitilla, or of her chamberlains, Saints St Domitilla 
 Nereus and Achilles, on the Via Ardeatina, claims to be of the 
 same age, and its claim deserves a more detailed examination, 
 as it is connected with what has been already mentioned as 
 one of the most remarkable facts in tlie annals of the early 
 Church, the profession of the Christian faith by some of tlie 
 Imperial family. For this Domitilla was the same of whom 
 we have spoken in a former chapter as having been banished " 
 to the island of Ponza. St Jeromef tells us that in his days 
 this island was frequented by pious Christian i)ilgrims, " who 
 delighted to visit with devotion the cells in which Flavia 
 Domitilla had suffered a life-long martyrdom." Whether she 
 really shed her blood at the last for the faith is uncertain, the 
 acts of Saints Nereus and Achilles being of doubtful authen- 
 ticity. They state, however, that she and two of her female 
 companions were buried in a sarcophagus at Terracina, but 
 that her chamberlains suffered death by the sword, and were 
 buried in a cemetery about a mile and a half out of Rome, on 
 the Via Ardeatina, in a farm belonging to their mistress. The 
 farm, now known by the name of Tor Marancia, is situated 
 just at this distance from Rome, and on the road named ; and 
 inscriptions which have been found there show clearly that it 
 once belonged to this very person, Flavia Domitilla. One of 
 them gives the measurements of a sepulchral area of 35 feet 
 in front and 40 into the field, whether for a pagan or a Chris- 
 ■■■ See.jiagc 39. f Kp. ad Eustoch. 86. 
 
70 
 
 Roma Sot terra nea . 
 
 tian monument we cannot say ; but at all events the ground 
 had been granted ex indidgentiCi Flavice Doinitillce^ iieptis Ves- 
 pasiani ; another is ex beneficio of the same, and the others 
 also are equally unequivocal. Moreover, within the cemetery 
 which underlies this farm, or at least in its immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, two or three other inscriptions have been found 
 of a Bruttia Crispina and others of the Gens Bruttia, from 
 which we may infer that there was some sort of connexion 
 between the two families, and that this was the reason 
 which induced Bruttius the historian to make special men- 
 tion of the exile of Domitilla in his narrative of the public 
 events of his day.* Although, therefore, no historical monu- 
 ments have been found within the cemetery itself, which 
 like those in the cemetery of St Callixtus, declare its iden- 
 tity beyond all power of reclamation, yet nobody now 
 doubts but that at Tor Marancia we have certainly recovered 
 that cemetery which, in ancient times, was sometimes called 
 by the name of St Domitilla, and sometimes of Saints Nereus 
 and Achilles. 
 
 One of the chapels, in the second story, at the left-hand 
 side after you have descended a very handsome flight of 
 steps from the open air, is pointed out as the probable scene 
 of the burial of the two saints. This, however, does not 
 now concern us ; a recent discovery on the outer surface 
 of the hill, and at no great distance from this part of the 
 cemetery, claims all our attention. Ue Rossi unhesitatingly 
 introduces it to us as a monument of some member or 
 special friend of the Flavian family, who lived and died in 
 the days of Domitian. It is certainly one of the most 
 ancient and remarkable Christian monuments yet discovered. 
 Its position, close to the highway; its front of fine brick- 
 work, with a cornice of terra-cotta, with the usual space 
 for an inscription (which has now, alas ! perished) ; the 
 spaciousness of its gallery, with only four or five separate 
 * See page 39. 
 
TJic Catacombs in the First Ages. 71 
 
 niches prepared for as many sarcophagi ; the fine stucco on 
 the wall ; the eminently classical character of its decorations ; 
 all these things make it perfectly clear that it was the monu- 
 ment of a Christian family of distinction, excavated at great 
 cost, and without the slightest attempt at concealment. On 
 each side of the entrance there was a small chamber; the one 
 on the right {c) was probably for the sc/iota, as it was called, or 
 place of meeting for those of the ge?is or religio, whose duty it 
 was to assemble here on the anniversaries, to do honour to the 
 deceased ; that on the left {I)) bears evident tokens of having 
 
 Fig. 9. — Entrance to a most cmcieut Christian Sepulchre at Tor Marancia. 
 
 been a place of residence, probably for the guardian of the 
 monument, just as we find attached to so many pagan monu- 
 ments of the same period. 
 
 After descending two steps from the portico, the pathway 
 slopes gradually for a short distance, leaving, as we have 
 said, only a few recesses, capable of receiving each a large V 
 sarcophagus, all of which however have long since been re- 
 moved. One of these recesses was enlarged at a subsequent 
 period, and a tomb m the form of an arcosolium made in 
 it; and the whole Jiypoga'.tiin was ultimately united by addi- 
 tional galleries to the adjacent catacomb. Before this was 
 
72 
 
 Roma So tt err a nea . 
 
 done, however, the vestibule had been filled with sarcophagi 
 of various sizes, of which numerous fragments may still be 
 seen lying about ; we find them also (of terra-cotta) buried 
 underneath the ground ; and the date even of the last of these 
 seems not to come below the middle of the second century. 
 
 Fig. io. — Painting on 7-oof of most ancient />m~t af Cemetejy of St Doiiiitilla. 
 
 In passing from the vestibule into the catacomb, we recognise 
 the transition from the use of the sarcophagus to that of the 
 common lociihts ; for the first two or three graves on either 
 side, though really mere shelves in the wall, are so disguised 
 
The Catacombs in the First Ages. 73 
 
 by painting on the outside as to present to passers-by the 
 complete outward appearance of a sarcophagus. Some few 
 of these graves are marked with the names of the dead, 
 written in black on the largest tiles— just like those which we 
 have seen in the most ancient part of the Catacomb of St 
 Priscilla; and the inscriptions on the other graves are all of 
 the simplest and oldest form. Lastly, the whole of the vaulted 
 
 Fig. \\.~l''ragincitt of l^anicl in the Lions' Den, from most ancient fart of 
 Cemetery of St Domitilla. 
 
 roof is covered with the most exquisitely graceful designs, of 
 branches of the vine (with birds and winged genii among them) 
 trailing with all the freedom of nature over the whole walls, 
 not fearing any interruption by graves, nor confined by any of 
 those lines of geometrical symmetry which characterise similar 
 productions in the next century. Traces also of landscapes 
 may be seen here and there, which are of rare occurrence 
 
74 
 
 Roma Sotterr, 
 
 anea. 
 
 General con- 
 clusions from 
 an examina- 
 tion of these 
 cemeteries. 
 
 anywhere in the Catacombs, though another specimen may 
 be seen in the chamber assigned by De Rossi to Sts Nereus 
 and Achilles. The Good Shepherd, an Agape, or the hea- 
 venly feast, a man fishing, and Daniel in the Hons' den,'"' are 
 the chief historical or allegorical representations of Christian 
 mysteries which were painted here. Unfortimately they have 
 been almost destroyed by persons attempting to detach them 
 from the wall ; a process which, while it effectually ruined 
 them for those who should come after, can never have yielded 
 anything but a handful of mortar and broken tufa to the 
 plunderers themselves. Would that we could have seen this 
 chamber or vestibule in its original condition ! Perhaps 
 we should have found, as De Rossi conjectures, that it was 
 the very ineuwi'ia of Flavius Clemens himself, the martyred 
 consul, whose remains were afterwards translated to the 
 Basilica of St Clement within the walls. At any rate we are 
 quite sure that we have been here brought face to face with 
 one of the earliest specimens of Christian subterranean burial 
 In Rome. 
 
 We have now visited tlie principal Catacombs for which a 
 claim is made to apostolic antiquity ; and it will be well for 
 us to take a brief review of the results that may be gathered 
 from our visits. They may be stated thus : — 
 
 The local traditions of ancient Christian Rome have come 
 
 down to us, partly embodied in the Acts of the Martyrs; partly 
 
 in the stories that were told to foreigners visiting the city in 
 
 the seventh and eighth centuries, and by them committed to 
 
 writing in itineraries; partly in the " Books of Indulgences" and 
 
 in the " Book of the Wonders of Rome," compiled both for the 
 
 use of strangers and of citizens ; partly also, but more sparingly, 
 
 in the scattered notices of a few mediaeval writers. From a 
 
 diligent comparison of all these various authorities, it is 
 
 * The fragment which remains of this picture, and which is given on 
 the preceding page, small as it is, displays a much higher skill in execution 
 than any other representation of the same su])ject tliat we have seen 
 throughout the Catacombs. 
 
The Catacombs in the First Ages. 75 
 
 gathered that some five or six of the subterranean cemeteries 
 of Rome were beheved to have had their origin in apostolic 
 times; and in every one of these instances, so far as we have an 
 opportunity of examining tliem, something pecuhar has been 
 either noted by our predecessors, or seen by ourselves, which 
 gives countenance to the tradition. When these peculiarities 
 are brought together, they are found to be in perfect harmony, 
 not only with one another, but also with what we should have 
 been led to expect from a careful consideration of the period 
 to which they are supposed to belong. The peculiarities are 
 such as these : — paintings in the most classical style, and 
 scarcely inferior in execution to the best specimens of cotem- 
 porary pagan art ; a system of ornamentation in fine stucco 
 such as has not yet been found in any Christian subterranean 
 work later than the second century ; crypts of considerable 
 dimensions, not hewn out of the bare rock, but carefully, and 
 even elegantly, built with pilasters and cornices of bricks or 
 terra-cotta ; no narrow galleries with shelf-like graves thickly 
 pierced in their walls, but s})acious a//ibii/acra, with painted 
 walls, and recesses provided only for the reception of sarco- 
 phagi ; whole families of inscriptions, with classical names, and 
 without any distinctly Christian forms of speech ; and lastly, 
 actual dates of the first or second century. It is impossible 
 that such a marvellous uniformity of phenomena, collected 
 with most patient accuracy from different and distant ceme- 
 teries on all sides of the city, and from authors writing at so 
 many different periods, should be the result of accident or of 
 preconceived ojjinion. There never was any opinion precon- 
 ceived on the subject ; or rather, the opinion that was in 
 general vogue a few years ago was diametrically opposed to 
 this. But the opinion which has now been enunciated by De 
 Rossi, and is gaining universal acceptance among those who 
 have an opportunity of examining the monuments for them- 
 selves, has been the result of careful observation ; it is the fruit 
 of the phenomena, not their cause. Whereas then former 
 
76 
 
 Roma Sotten^anea. 
 
 writers have always taken it for granted that the first beginnings 
 of Ro7na Sotter7^anea must have been poor and mean and insig- 
 nificant, and that any appearance of subterranean works on a 
 large scale, or richly decorated, must necessarily belong to a 
 later and more peaceful age, it is now certain that this state- 
 ment cannot be reconciled with the monuments and facts 
 that modern discovery has brought to light. All who have 
 any knowledge of the history of the fine arts are agreed 
 that the decorations of the many remarkable crypts lately 
 discovered are much more ancient than those which form 
 the great bulk of the paintings in the catacombs with which 
 we were familiar before, and which have been always justly 
 regarded as the work of the third century. Nor can any 
 thoughtful and impartial judge fail to recognise in the social 
 and political condition of the first Roman Christians, and in 
 the laws and usages of Roman burial, an adequate cause for 
 all that is thus thrown back on the first and second centuries. 
 On the subject of Christian art we shall have to speak more 
 fully hereafter, and the architectural analysis which we propose 
 to give of . a part of the cemetery of St Callixtus will furnish 
 a convenient occasion for distinguishing the various features 
 which characterise the work of successive periods in the 
 construction of subterranean Rome. 
 
 Our present chapter will be fittingly concluded by some 
 account of another cemetery, which, though we have no 
 authentic record of the precise date of its commencement, 
 was certainly in use in the middle or before the end of the 
 second century ; that is to say, it was made whilst yet there 
 had been no legal interference, and (so far as we know) no 
 outbreak of popular violence against the liberty of Christian 
 burials. We have a right, therefore, to look for some, at 
 least, of the same characteristics which we have already seen 
 in the first and most ancient of the cemeteries, nor will this 
 expectation be disappointed. 
 
 The Catacomb to which we refer is that of St Prsetextatus, on 
 
The Catacombs in the First Ages. 77 
 
 the Via Appia, nearly ojjposite to the Catacomb of St Callixtus. St Prjetexta- 
 It has only lately been recovered. An accidental opening App^" ^^^^ ^' 
 into it was effected in 1848, and as a painting of St Sixtus 
 (identified by the legend SVSTVS) was found on one of the 
 sepulchres, it was conjectured that this must be the cemetery 
 of that martyr. In 1850 another crypt in it was brought to 
 light, ornamented with some of the oldest and most classical 
 paintings that had yet been seen; and in 1852, De Rossi 
 read a paper to the Fontificia Acadania di Arc/ieoiogia, in 
 which he argued, solely on topographical grounds — i.e., on 
 arguments derived from the position of the cemetery, as com- 
 ])ared with other cemeteries, and with the descriptions given 
 in the old itineraries — that this must certainly have been a 
 part of the cemetery anciently known by the name of St 
 PriEtextatus, and which was famous as the scene of St Sixtus's 
 martyrdom, and as the place of burial of St Januarius, the 
 eldest of the seven sons of St Felicitas, who laid down their 
 lives for Christ on July 10, a.d. 162 ; also of St FeHcissimus 
 and Agapitus, deacons of St Sixtus, and many others. At the 
 same time, he insisted upon identifying the ruins of two 
 buildings, the one round, the other rectangular, which still 
 remain in the vineyard above ground, as having once been 
 the basiliac dedicated to Saints Tiburtius, Valerian, and 
 Maximus, companions of the martyrdom of St Cecilia, and to 
 St Zeno. Later discoveries completely established the truth 
 of his reasoning. In 1857 the labourers employed in the 
 Catacombs came here to seek for stones, tiles, or other mate- 
 rials for repairs which were being executed in St Callixtus', 
 and in the course of their quest they opened a way to the ruins 
 of a very large and beautiful crypt. As soon as De Rossi had 
 scrambled through the opening, he looked about for the usual 
 arcosoUiim ; but of this there was no sign. Nevertheless, it 
 was clear that the absence of this ordinary feature of a chapel 
 in the Catacombs in no way detracted from its value, nor 
 indicated that this was a chamber without a history. On the 
 
78 
 
 Roma Soiter7'a7iea. 
 
 contrary, further and more careful examination revealed the fact 
 that this crypt was not -hewn out of the living rock, but that, 
 though underground, it had been all built with solid masonry, 
 and that its three sides had been originally intended only for 
 three sarcophagi. It had once been lined throughout with 
 Greek marble, and its internal face (towards the cemetery) 
 was a piece of excellent yellow brickwork, ornamented with 
 pilasters of the same material in red, and cornices of terra- 
 cotta. The workmanship points clearly to an early date, and 
 specimens of pagan architecture in the same neighbourhood 
 enable us to fix the middle of the latter half of the second 
 century (a.d. 175) as a very probable date for its erection. 
 The Acts of the Saints explain to us why it was built with 
 bricks, and not hewn out of the rock — viz., because the Chris- 
 tian who made it (St Marmenia) had caused it to be excavated 
 immediately below her own house ; and now that we see it, 
 we understand the precise meaning of the words used by the 
 itineraries describing it — viz., " a large square cavern, most 
 firmly built " {ingens miti'um qiLad7'atum^ et firiiiissimcE fabricce). 
 The vault of the chapel is most elaborately painted, in a style 
 by no means inferior to the best classical productions of the 
 age. It is divided into four bands of wreaths, one of roses, 
 another of corn-sheaves, a third of vine-leaves and grapes (and 
 in all these, birds are introduced visiting their young in nests), 
 and the last or highest, of leaves of laurel or the bay-tree. Of 
 course these represent severally the seasons of spring, summer, 
 autumn, and winter. The last is a well-known figure or symbol 
 of death ; and probably the laurel, as the token of victory, was 
 intended to represent the new and Christian idea of the ever- 
 lasting reward of a blessed immortality. Below these bands is 
 another border, more indistinct, in which reapers are gathering 
 in the corn ; and at the back of the arch is a rural scene, of 
 which the central figure is the Good Shepherd carrying a 
 sheep upon his shoulders. This, however, has been destroyed 
 by graves pierced through the wall and the rock behind it, 
 
The Catacombs in the First Ages. 79 
 
 from that eager desire, of which we shall have occasion to 
 speak elsewhere, to bury the dead of a later generation as near 
 as possible to the tombs of the martyrs. As De Rossi pro- St Jan 
 ceeded to examine these graves in detail, he could hardly 
 
 Fig. 12. — Pai)iti)ig on. I'ault of an AnosoliiDU in Cemetery of St Prcetextatns. 
 
 beiieve his eyes when he read around the edge of one of them 
 these words and fragments of words: — . . . mi Rcfri^cri Jajmarius 
 Agatopus Fdicissivi inartyrcs — " Januarius, Agapetus, Felicis- 
 simus, martyrs, refresh the soui of . . ." The words had been 
 scratched upon the mortar whilst yet it was fresh, fifteen centuries 
 ago, as the prayer of some bereaved relative for the soul of him 
 whom he was burying here, and now they revealed to the 
 antiquarian of the nineteenth century the secret he was in 
 quest of — viz., the place of burial of the saints whose aid is 
 here invoked ; for the numerous examples to be seen in 
 other cemeteries warrant us in concluding that the bodies of 
 
8o 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 the saints, to whose intercession the soul of the deceased is 
 here recommended, were at the time of his burial lying at no 
 great distance, and the reader will have observed that they are 
 three of the very martyrs whose relics once rendered famous 
 the cemetery of St Pr^textatus. De Rossi, therefore, really 
 needed no further evidence in corroboration of the topo- 
 graphical outline which he had sketched five years before to 
 the Roman archaeologists ; yet further evidence was in store 
 for him, though it did not come to light until six years later, 
 when the commission of Sacred Archeology were persuaded to 
 take this cemetery as the special scene of their labours. Then, 
 amid the soil which encumbered the entrance to this crypt, 
 three or four fragments were discovered of a large marble slab, 
 Damasine in- marked by a few letters of most certain Damasine form, but of 
 sciiption. unusual size. More fragments* have been discovered since, so 
 that we are able to say with certainty that the whole inscrip- 
 tion once stood thus : — 
 
 St Quirinus, The excavations of the commission revealed the existence 
 A.D. 130. of another crypt on the opposite side of the gallery, which is 
 still older than that of St Januarius ; so that, whereas the 
 martyrdom of St Januarius belongs to the year a.d. 162, De 
 
 * Only those letters, or parts of letters, which are in darker tints, have 
 been found ; but in inscriptions executed with such mathematical precision 
 as these, they are quite enough to enable us to restore the whole. 
 
The Cataco}7ibs in the First Ao-cs. 8r 
 
 o 
 
 Rossi does not fear to designate this second crypt as the pro- 
 bable burial-place of St Quirinus, somewhere about a.d. 130. 
 We have no detailed account as yet of its contents or even its 
 principal characteristics ; nor has it been possible, for want of 
 funds, to continue the work of excavation in this cemetery. 
 Most heartily do we repeat the wish, so modestly expressed by 
 De Rossi,* that some generous souls could be found who 
 would do for the advancement of Christian archaeology in 
 Rome what so many— and some of our own country, as the 
 Duchess of Devonshire — have done there at various times in 
 the interests of Pagan antiquity, viz., place funds at the dis- 
 posal of the proper authorities to enable them to resume their 
 suspended labours both here and elsewhere, and to begin them 
 de novo in those many other places which our present improved 
 knowledge, both of books and of the locality, enable us to 
 point out as promising a plentiful harvest. 
 
 There is yet another catacomb belonging to the second StAlexander's, 
 century which deserves to be mentioned, though the particular JJigntaiia^^' 
 portion of it which was of that date has undergone so much 
 alteration since that time as to be no longer capable of recog- 
 nition. It is recorded in the Liber Pontificalis that St Alex- 
 ander, Bishop of Rome, who suffered martyrdom a.d. 132, was 
 buried on the Via Nomentana, where he was beheaded, not 
 far from the seventh milestone ; and there, accordingly, an 
 ancient Christian cemetery was discovered some twelve or 
 fourteen years since ; and amid its ruins a portion of an 
 epitaph, or rather of an inscription set up in honour of St 
 x\lexander, in very ancient times, in a basilica which was then 
 built over his grave, and has lately been restored. In the 
 small subterranean galleries round this basilica, many of the 
 lociili have remamed undisturbed to the present day ; but 
 these scarcely belong to the oldest part of the cemetery. 
 Moreover, this whole cemetery lay beyond the limit we have 
 assigned to the Roman Catacombs proper ; and therefore we 
 * BnUcltiiio, 1865, 99. 
 
82 
 
 Roma Sotterrtmea. 
 
 do not at present care to examine it. We only mention it at 
 all as an additional instance of the trustworthiness of the 
 ancient documents whose guidance we have been following. 
 We have seen how, in six several instances, an examination of 
 the actual condition of a Catacomb most singularly confirms 
 what the language of these old authorities taught us. There 
 yet remain two or three others which are attributed by the 
 same writers to the apostolic, or immediately post-apostolic 
 times, but as these have not yet been identified, there is no 
 occasion to enumerate them. 
 
 Fig. XL — Tombstone from the -very ancient Cryj>t of St Lucijta, now united 'with the 
 Catacomb of St Callixtus. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE 
 THIRD CENTURY TO CONSTANTINE.'s EDICT OF PEACE, 
 A.D. 312. 
 
 JYj have now brought our history of the Catacombs down Public Chris 
 to the period when, as w^e said before, they first |eries^™^' 
 come under the express notice of the Roman law. The 
 popular violence against the Christian burial-grounds in Africa, 
 at the beginning of the third century,* reveals the fact of the 
 Christians there possessing a common burial-place ; and it is 
 impossible to suppose that so great a Church as that of Rome 
 should not also by this time have possessed some common 
 cemetery. The memoria of St Peter must have been known to 
 be the common burial-place of his successors ; and, in fact, 
 Caius, a priest of this same period, disputing with a heretic, 
 Proclus, says, " I can show the trophies of the Apostles. For 
 if you go to the Vatican, or to the Via Ostiensis, you will find 
 the tj'ophies of those who have laid the foundation of this 
 Church." t It is a remarkable coincidence that the date of 
 Tertullian's mention of the popular outbreak against the 
 African Christian cemeteries, a.d. 202, should synchronise so 
 exactly with the death of St Victor, the last Pope who was 
 buried in the public vicmoria on the Vatican. Victor's sue- Cemetery of 
 cessor, Zephyrinus, as we are informed by the author of the '^^^ 200 
 Philosophiunena^ " intrusted Callixtus with the government of 
 the clergy, and set him over the cejneteryT % These words 
 naturally excite our curiosity, and require comment. What 
 
 * See page 54. t I'Aiscb. Mist. Kccl. ii. 25. % Philosoph. ix. 1 1. 
 
84 
 
 Rovia Sotterranca. 
 
 was the cemetery of Rome ? Rome had already many ceme- 
 teries on all sides — of St Priscilla on the Via Salaria, of St 
 Lucina on the Via Ostiensis, of St Praetextatus on the Via 
 Appia, of St Domitilla on the Via Ardeatina, and several 
 others. What was the distinction between them ? and what 
 was there so special and singular about any that it should 
 have been put under the charge of one of the highest eccle- 
 siastical authorities after the Pope, the same as was entrusted 
 also with " the government of the clergy " ? We shall have no 
 difficulty in solving these questions, if we call to mind what 
 was said in a former chapter * about the burial-confraternities 
 in Rome, and the solemn renewal, or at least renewed publi- 
 cation of their rights and privileges, precisely at this time, by 
 Septimius Severus. Let us set side by side with this fact the 
 words of Tertullian, also written about the same time, in which 
 he describes the Christian society as it might have appeared, 
 and as he wished to make it appear, to their heathen neigh- 
 bours and rulers. " There preside over us," he says, " certain 
 approved elders, who have attained that honour, not by pur- 
 chase, but by the good testimony of others. . . . And if there 
 be any kind of treasury {arcce) among us, ii is made up, not of 
 fees paid by these presidents or others on their appointment,! 
 as if religion were bought and sold among us, but each person 
 contributes a small sum once a month, or whenever he likes, 
 and if he likes, and has the means. . . . All these contribu- 
 tions are, as it were, pious deposits ; for they are spent, not on 
 feasting, but on feedmg the hungry, on burying the poor, on 
 orphans, old men confined to their houses, and shipwrecked 
 persons, and if any are condemned to the mines, or exiled, or 
 in prison, provided only that it be on account of God's sect, 
 these also become the foster-children of their confession," i.e.^ 
 
 * See page 49. 
 
 t This has now been clearly ascertained from ancient inscriptions found 
 in Africa and elsewhere, to be the true meaning of TertuUian's words, de 
 honoraria sumyna, which have been the cause of so much perplexity to 
 earlier commentators. — Bullett., 1866, 11. 
 
The Catacombs in the Third CentiLry. 85 
 
 provided they suffer these punishments for the profession of 
 Christianity, they are supported by the Church, 
 
 It is clear from this passage, and from all that has been said 
 elsewhere, that it would have been easy for the Roman Chris- 
 tians of the third century, under cover of a mere burial-con- 
 fraternity, to make collections for other charitable purposes, 
 and even to meet together for purposes of religious worship ; 
 and we can hardly doubt that they did so. Moreover, we 
 know, from the history of St Laurence and many other sources, 
 that the care of the poor and distribution of alms was the 
 special province of one of the deacons. Indeed, the very 
 office of deacon had been originally instituted for this purpose. 
 But not the poor only, the clergy also received what was 
 necessary for their sustenance out of this common chest, and 
 the deacon kept the register [viatricula) of their numbers and 
 offices. By and by, in obedience to that law whereby the 
 moral and the material life of any society are so intimately 
 linked together, that he who provides for the one is sure to 
 gain a powerful influence over the other, the first deacon grew 
 into an archdeacon ; that is to say, he became, in some sense, 
 the guardian and judge of the other clergy, and his authority 
 was inferior to none, save only the bishops. Hence it came 
 to be almost a law in Rome, that on the death of the Pope, 
 not a priest, but the first deacon, succeeded to the vacant see ; 
 and to promote this deacon to the priesthood was sometimes 
 resented, because it seemed to shut the door against his attain- 
 ment of the highest rank in the hierarchy. 
 
 These considerations will enable us to appreciate more 
 justly the import of the words we have quoted from the 
 author of the PJiilosopJiuincna, viz., that St Zephyrinus " in- 
 trusted Callixtus with the government of the clergy, and set 
 him over the cemetery." The Christian community in Rome 
 was entering at this time upon a new phase of its existence ; 
 it availed itself of the ])rotection which tlie laws afforded to 
 * ApoL, c. 39. 
 
86 
 
 Roma Sotteri^anea. 
 
 certain corporate bodies, and, as those laws required,* one of 
 its members was appointed as the agent, or syndic, in whose 
 name the common property should be held, and by whom its 
 business should be transacted. The cemetery, therefore, en- 
 trusted to Callixtus was one common to the Christians as a 
 body ; and it was " the cemetery on the Via Appia," which the 
 Liher Pontijicalis states that Callixtus " made, where many 
 priests and martyrs repose, and which is called, even to the 
 present day, the cosmeternim Callixti!^ This also explains to us 
 Popes buried why henceforward the Popes were buried here, and no longer at 
 the Vatican ; out of the eighteen, from Zephyrinus to Sylvester, 
 thirteen having certainly been laid in this cemetery, according 
 to the testimony of the same Liber Pontificalis. And it is a 
 striking confirmation of De Rossi's conjecture that this was 
 the first common cemetery given to the Pope by some noble 
 Other ceme- family for the whole Christian community, when we find that 
 mm?ure'"of°the Fabian, A.D. 238, " divided the regions among the Deacons, 
 Church. .... and ordered numerous buildings [fabricas) to be con- 
 structed in the cemeteries.'' ] It seems to imply that other 
 wealthy Christians soon followed the example of those who 
 had given the cemetery of Callixtus to the Church ; and these 
 fabricce were probably little oratories constructed above the 
 cemeteries, either for purposes of worship, or the celebration 
 of the agaj)ce., or of mere guardianship of the tombs, according 
 to the common practice of the Romans, of which we have 
 probably seen an instance in the more ancient fabricce attached 
 to the Catacomb of St Domitilla. % The long peace from the 
 
 * " Quibus permissum est corpus habere collegii, societatis sive ciijiisquc 
 altcrius eoritni nomine, proprium est . . . liabere res communes, arcam 
 communem, et actorem sive syndicum, per quern, quod communiter agi 
 fierique oporteat, agatur, fiat." — Digest, iii. 4, I, § i. Compare with this the 
 words of the letter of Licinius and Constantine, {apiid Lactant., De Mort. 
 Persec, § 48, andEuseb., Hist. Eccl, x. 5) : — " Quoniam Christian! non ea 
 loca tantum, ad quae convenire consueverunt, sed alia etiam habuisse nos- 
 cuntur, ad jus corporis eorujh, id est, EcclcsiarJivi, non hoininum singiilorum 
 pertinentia,''' &c. Also the words, used in the case of Paul of Samosata, 
 " Tov rrjs eKKK-qaias olkov." — Eiiscb. Iltsf. Eccl. vii. 30. 
 
 t Lib. Pont., EabiaitHs. % !^c<^ ^S- ^, at page 71. 
 
The Catacombs in the Third Century. 87 
 
 reign of Caracalla to that of Deciiis might well have encour- 
 aged the Christians to erect such buildings, and allowed them 
 to make frequent use of them, notwithstanding occasional dis- 
 turbances from popular violence, the short persecution of 
 Maximin, and other similar interruptions. 
 
 In January a.d. 250, St. Fabian fell a victim to the persecu- a.d. 250. 
 tion of Decius \ but it does not appear either from the edicts Dedus^^'^" ^'^ 
 of that Emperor, from ecclesiastical history, or from the Acts 
 of the Martyrs, that Decius made any special decree against 
 the cemeteries. Not so, however, in the persecution of 
 
 Valerian, which broke out in a.d. 257. Although the edict a.d. 257. 
 
 , - , , - 11, Edict of Valer- 
 
 itsell has not come down to us, yet, irom words spoken by ian forbidding 
 
 Emilianus, Prefect of Alexandria,* and by Aspasius Paternus, ^^^'^J ceme- 
 Pro-consul of Africa, we learn that it forbade the .sacred assem- 
 blies, and all visits to the sepulchres in the cemeteries. In 
 fact. Pope Sixtus 11. was, with his deacons and sacred ministers, 
 (St Laurence was the chief of them, and we have seen the 
 tombs of two others, t) hunted out, surprised, and beheaded in 
 the cemetery of Pr3etextatus,:j: " because he had set at nought 
 the commands of Valerian.'' § 
 
 In A.D. 260, Gallienus revoked the edicts of persecution, 
 and sent throughout the empire a rescript by virtue of which 
 the possessors of loca rcligiosa belonging to the Christians and 
 confiscated by Valerian, were to make restitution to the bishops 
 of each church. By loca rcligiosa seem to have been meant all 
 churches or places of assembly ; for besides this general order, 
 he directed rescripts to particular bishops by which they might 
 recover the free use of " what they call their cemeteries.'''' \\ And 
 both the one and the otlier enter into the account which has 
 reached us of the acts ofDionysius, the successor of Sixtus II., 
 
 * "Neither you nor any others shall in anywise be permitted either 
 to hold assemblies or to enter 7vhat you call your cemeteries.''' (These ex- 
 pressions prove the exclusively Christian origin of the word "cemetery.") — 
 Letter of St Dionyshis of Alexandria in Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vii. c. ii. 
 t See page 80. X -St Cypr. Ep. 82. 
 
 § Lib. Pout. II P^uscb. Hist. Eccl., vii. c. H- 
 
88 
 
 Ronia Sotterra nea . 
 
 of whom it is recorded/" tiiat " he divided the churches and 
 cemeteries among the priests, and constituted parishes and 
 dioceses." 
 
 It was, however, only too evident to the Christians that 
 henceforward they could not reckon upon the inviolability of 
 their graves ; and it is from this period that we must date 
 those studious efforts to conceal the entrance to the cemeteries 
 which are visible even now in the staircases leading from the 
 arenaj'icE, and in other ways. Even at a much earlier period, 
 TertuUian testifies to the occasional interruption of Christian 
 worship by a sudden invasion of the heathen. " We are daily 
 besieged," he says, " and betrayed and caught unawares in our 
 very assemblies and congregations and again, in another 
 place, still addressing the heathen, J he says, "You know the 
 days of our meetings ; hence we are besieged, entrapped, and 
 often detained in our most secret congregations." But it is 
 specially to the latter half of the third century that those 
 accounts belong which have come down to us of Christians 
 being pursued and overtaken and sometimes martyred in the 
 ai-enarice. Thus, in an account preserved by St Gregory of 
 Tours, we are told that, under Numerianus, the martyrs Chry- 
 santhus and Daria were put to death in an arenaria, and that 
 a great number of the faithful having been seen entering the 
 subterranean crypt on the Via Salaria to visit their tombs, the 
 heathen Emperor ordered the entrance to be hastily built up, 
 and a vast mound of sand and stones to be heaped in front of 
 it, so that they might be all buried alive, even as the martyrs 
 whom they had come to venerate. St Gregory adds, that when 
 the tombs of these martyrs were re-discovered, after the ages of 
 persecution had ceased, there were found with them, not only 
 the relics of those worshippers who had been thus cruelly put 
 to death, skeletons of men, women, and children lying on the 
 floor, but also the silver cruets {itrcci argcntei) which they had 
 taken down with them for the celebration of the sacred mys- 
 
 * ^.^\^. Pont., Dionysiiis. f A]X)1., \'\\. X -^<^ Naliones, i. 7. 
 
The Catacombs in the Third Centtuy. 89 
 
 teries.'" St Damasas was unwilling to destroy so touching a 
 memorial of past ages. He abstained from making any of 
 those changes by which he usually decorated the martyrs' 
 tombs, but contented himself with setting up one of his in- 
 valuable historical inscriptions, and opening a window in the 
 adjacent wall or rock, that all might see, without disturbing, 
 this monument so unique in its kind — this Christian Pompeii 
 in miniature. These things might still be seen in St Gregory's 
 time, in the sixth century ; and Ue Rossi holds out hopes that 
 some traces of them may be restored even to our own genera- 
 tion,! some fragments of the inscription perhaps, or even the 
 window itself through which our ancestors once saw so moving 
 a spectacle, assisting, as it were, at a mass celebrated in the 
 third century. Instances like these explain the common re- Catacom])s 
 proach of the Pagans at this time, that the Christians were ^J^^^^^ 
 "a skulking, darkness-loving race;"J and the numerous tra- 
 ditions of the same period, even though the authenticity of 
 many of them may be doubtful, of Christians and even Popes § 
 taking refuge in the crypts, testify the importance attached by 
 the faithful to their cemeteries, and the jealousy with which 
 they were now regarded by their enemies. 
 
 The edicts of Aurelian, a little before his death, against the From Aurel- 
 Church which he had legally recognised, even to the length c^"tiaii^^^" 
 of ordering the buildings occupied by Paul of Samosata at 
 Antioch " to be given up into the hands of those in communion 
 with Christian bishops of Italy and Rome,"|| show how pre- 
 carious a security for the cemeteries was even that legal re- 
 cognition ; still we find the Christians taking courage, at the 
 commencement of the reign of Diocletian, to pull down the 
 
 * St Greg., Turon., De Gloria Mart., i. c. 28. 
 
 t " Cette esperance est fondle ; j'oserais presque dire, elle sera remplie," 
 are De Rossi's words in " Rome dans sa Grandeur,'' part 2me, p. 6, Cliar- 
 pentier, Nantes. 
 
 X Latebrosa et lucifugax natio." — Mimic. Felix. 
 
 55 " Caius . . . fr.giens persecutionem Diocletiani in cryj^tis habitando, 
 martyrio coronatur." Lib. Pont. 
 II luiseb. Hist; Eccl., vii. c. ;o. 
 
90 
 
 Roma Sottej^ranea. 
 
 Cemeteries 
 confiscated, 
 A.D. 303. 
 
 Restored to 
 Church, A.D. 
 311- 
 
 Testimony of 
 St AuGfustine, 
 
 old churches and to build new ones, and we shall presently 
 see the deacon Severus about the same time constructing a 
 large double sepulchral chamber, with its open light-hole, in the 
 cemetery of St Callixtus. 
 
 The storm of the tenth persecution, under Diocletian, burst 
 upon the Church with frightful violence in a.d. 303. The 
 churches erected during the peace were burned and demolished, 
 the farms or gardens under which the cemeteries lay were con- 
 fiscated ; and though the acts of confiscation in Rome have 
 perished, yet a significant trace of them is left in the fact that 
 Pope Marcellinus, and his successor Marcellus, were neither of 
 them buried in the Papal crypt of St Callixtus, but the former 
 reposed in " a ciibiculum which he himself had prepared in the 
 cemetery of Priscilla : " and the latter " requested leave from 
 a matron named Priscilla, and made a c(Emetei'iitni on the Via 
 Salaria." And a vast region of the deepest level of that 
 cemetery, of a lineal regularity hitherto unique in Roma Sotter- 
 ranea^ bears witness to the efforts of the Pope, while persecu- 
 tion was raging, to provide for the necessities of the faithful 
 in some other place than that which had been discovered and 
 forfeited to the Government, on the Via Appia. 
 
 At the close of a.d. 306, Maxentius put a stop to the per- 
 secution, but the property of the Church was not restored until 
 the Pontificate of Melchiades, a.d. 311. St Augustine tells 
 us that the Donatists recited the Acts in which it was read 
 how Melchiades sent deacons with the letters of the Emperor 
 Maxentius and the letters of the Prasfect of the praetorium to 
 the Praefect of the city, that they might receive the property 
 which the aforesaid Emperor had commanded to be restored 
 to the Christians, as having been taken from them in time of 
 persecution. . . . The Donatists said that the deacon 
 Strato, whom Melchiades had sent with the rest to receive the 
 Joca ccdesiasfica, was declared in the above acts to be a traditor 
 and . . . the Donatists also calumniated Melchiades on 
 account of Cassian. because this name is found also amonjr the 
 
The Catacombs hi the Thii^d Century, g i 
 
 deacons whom Melchiades sent to the Praefect," (Sec* In fact, 
 this Pontiff having recovered the cemetery of St Calhxtus 
 through his deacons, two of whom were named Strato and 
 Cassian, buried there the body of his predecessor Eusebius, 
 who had died in exile in Sicily, and placed him in one of the 
 largest crypts in the Catacomb. But even while the persecu- 
 tion w^as raging, Marcellus had provided, as best he could, for 
 the re-organisation of the parishes and their cemeteries ; for 
 we readt that " he constituted the twenty-five ///?/// in the city 
 of Rome as parishes {dioeceses) for the reception by baptism 
 and penance of the multitudes who were converted from 
 among the Pagans, and for the burial-places of the mar- 
 tyrs." 
 
 Titles were, of course, of much older date than the time of 7" //^-j-. or parish 
 Marcellus, though their number might have varied according ^^^"^^-'^^^s, 
 to the increase in the number of the faithful. Thus, it is 
 recorded in the Liber Poniificalis, that Evaristus, the sixth from 
 St Peter, divided the titles in the city of Rome among the 
 priests, and appointed seven deacons. St Fabian, nearly a 
 century and a half later, is said by the same authority to have 
 divided the fourteen regions of Rome among the deacons ; and 
 now Marcellus constitutes (or more probably restores) twenty 
 five, which is the number most frequently met with in all the 
 most ancient notices on the subject.:j: The objects which are 
 contemplated in this arrangement are stated to be the admin- 
 istration of the sacraments and the burial of the dead ; and 
 this is not the only occasion on which we learn from authentic 
 records that the care of the cemeteries entered into the details 
 
 of ecclesiastical management. It seems probable that, at least ^"^^^ each its 
 
 own cemcttry. 
 
 from the time of St Fabian, each within the city had its 
 corresponding cemetery or cemeteries, outside the walls, and 
 the priest or priests of the title had jurisdiction over the 
 cemetery also. In the time of St Damasus, each church had 
 
 * St Aug-. I'rcv. Cull, cum llonat., iii. 34-3^. 
 X IMancliiiiii, Anasl. X'it. I'oiit., ii. .^7. 
 
 t Lib. Tout. 
 
92 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 two priests,* and even in the days of St Cypriant we find two 
 priests attached to the same church, one as a subordinate to 
 the other. If we might suppose the number of titles in the 
 time of St CorneHus to have been twenty-three, (or, if more, 
 that some of them were vacant,) this would account for the 
 number of Roman priests, which he sets down at forty-six,J 
 two for each title, one of whom might well have ministered at 
 the cella or oratory (in later times basilica §) above the ceme- 
 tery, whilst the other ministered in the city. It is not difficult 
 to understand, after what has been said upon the Roman law 
 respecting burials and burial-confraternities, how this system of 
 administration might, under ordinary circumstances, have been 
 carried on without any interference from the Government, even 
 during the ages of persecution. And perhaps the following 
 inscription on a grave-stone, in the cemetery of St Domitilla, 
 may be quoted in illustration and confirmation of the theory 
 that is here suggested, ///x^// being the official expression in use 
 among the heathen magistrates of that time for a command or 
 permission given by one having jurisdiction, and Archelaus 
 and Dulcitus being the two priests of the title to which that 
 cemetery belonged. 
 
 ALEXIVS ET CAPRTOLA FECERVNT SE VIVI 
 IVSSV ARCHELAI ET DVLCITI PRESBB 
 
 Moreover, if we suppose, as we very reasonably may, that the 
 
 * " Nunc aiitem septem diaconos esse oportet et aliquantos presbyteros, ut 
 bini sint per Ecclesias." — Ainbros. [Hilar.], in i Tim. iii. 
 
 f Ep. xviii., " Felix qui presbyteriuni subministrabat sub Decimo." 
 
 % " There were forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty- 
 two acolytes, exorcists, lectors, and ostiarii, in all fifty-two ; widows, with 
 the afflicted and needy, more than 1 500, all of v^diich the goodness and love 
 of God doth nourish." — Cornelius to Fabius of Antioch, apud Euseb., H. 
 T'".., vi. 43. See also the qziadragijtfa et quod cxciirrit basilicas,^'' men- 
 tioned by Optatus, c. Don. ii. 4. 
 
 ^ This name seems to have been in occasional use from the days of 
 Diocletian. — A'. .S'. i. 205. 
 
The Catacombs in the Third Centu7y. 93 
 
 Popes who succeeded Zephyrinus continued to retain the 
 
 cemetery of St Callixtus under their own immediate jurisdic- Cemetery of 
 
 tion, administered by their chief deacon (or archdeacon, as he under the'"^ 
 
 was afterwards called), we have another illustration of the same ^V*^^^^ ^^^^ 
 .... . the Pope, 
 
 system in the following inscription, belonging to the time of 
 
 Marcellinus, which records that Severus, his deacon, made, by 
 
 the perinissio7i of his Pope^ {jiissic papce sui,) a double chamber, 
 
 with arched tombs and light-hole, for himself and his relations : — 
 
 CVBICVLVM DVPLEX CVM ARCISOLIIS ET LVMINARE 
 IVSSV PP SVI MARCELLINI DIACONVS ISTE 
 SEVERVS FECIT MANSIONEM IN PACE QVIETAM 
 SIBI SVISQVE. . . . 
 
 It would be easy to show, from a multitude of testimonies Reflections on 
 belonging to the fifth and sixth centuries, that each suburban [lie ifistory' of 
 cemetery was at that time dependent on some particular parish theCatacombs. 
 within the walls. But about this there can be no dispute. It 
 is only when we seek to penetrate the thick, darkness which 
 envelopes the history of the earlier ages, that it is difficult to 
 find clear and abundant proofs ; and the precise province of 
 an archaeologist is to supply these deficiencies, not out of his 
 own imagination, but by acute and cautious induction, based 
 on a most careful examination of every fragment that remains. 
 If we set before a skilful professor of comparative anatomy a 
 few bones dug out of the bowels of the earth, he will recon- 
 struct the whole form of the animal to which they belonged ; 
 and it often happens that these theoretical constructions are 
 singularly justified by later discoveries. The work of an 
 archaeologist is much of the same kind. An historian only 
 rearranges, transcribes, or interprets annals already composed 
 and faithfully transmitted by his predecessors. He may have 
 to gather his materials from various sources ; must be able to 
 distinguish the true from the false, and give form, consistency, 
 and life to the whole ; but, for the most part at least, he has 
 little to supply that is new from his own resources. An archae- 
 ologist, on the contrary, if he be really a man of learning and 
 
94 
 
 Roma Sottcrranea. 
 
 science, and not a mere collector of old curiosities, aims at 
 discovering and restoring annals that are lost, by means of a 
 careful and intelligent use of every fragment, often of hetero- 
 geneous materials, that the most unwearied diligence has been 
 able to bring together. 
 
 This remark seems not uncalled for, at the end of a chapter 
 in which we have professed to set before our readers a con- 
 tinuous history of the subterranean cemeteries of Rome during 
 the ages of persecution, and even to unfold the system of their 
 ecclesiastical administration. Such a history has never been 
 written before, and some readers may be disposed to think 
 that even now the materials for it are too scanty. De Rossi 
 frankly acknowledges that each fact that he has been able to 
 collect, if taken alone, throws but a faint and uncertain light 
 upon the obscurity of the subject ; but he justly argues that 
 the wonderful harmony which he has been able to establish 
 between facts and documents, so unlike one another, and 
 separated so far asunder, both in point of time and place, are 
 a very strong presumption of truth. The " Lives of the Popes," 
 compiled in the seventh or eighth century ; the Philosophii- 
 viena^ written in a spirit of bitter personal hatred against a Pope 
 of the third century, and only brought to light in the nine- 
 teenth j sepulchral inscriptions also, of the third century, in like 
 manner unknown before our own time ; ecclesiastical historians 
 and learned commentators of different times and countries ; 
 each of these has been made by De Rossi to contribute its 
 quota to this chapter of history as it stands in his own volumin- 
 ous work ; and even in this imperfect abridgment of it, the 
 readers will have been struck with the number and variety of 
 fragments out of which so complete a skeleton, if we ought 
 not rather to say so full and life-like a body, has been com- 
 posed. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FROM THE EDICT OF MILAN, A.D. 3 1 2, TO THE SACK OF KOME 
 BY THE GOTHS, A.D. 41O. 
 
 W TITH the conversion of Constantine and the Edict of (iradual disuse 
 
 combs. Melchiades, the first Pope who sat in the Lateran, ^f^^^ P^^^f 
 
 was the last who was buried in the subterranean cemetery of Church. 
 St CalHxtus — /;/ coemeterio Callixti in crypta. Sylvester, his 
 successor, had his sepulchre in conmeterio Friscil/ce, not, how- 
 ever, in crypta, but in a basilica, which, having always pre- 
 served his name, had probably been built by him. The next 
 Pontiff, Mark, was in like manner buried i?i ccenietei'io Balbince, 
 explained by the Liber Pontificalis to be a basilica qiiain coeme- 
 teriiim consUtuit ; that is to say, he probably built a small basilica 
 or cella ?nemorice, near the entrance of a subterranean cemetery 
 already existing, to which he now assigned its own priest and 
 guardian, as the other principal cemeteries had already had. 
 Other instances might be given to show that the cemeteries in 
 which succeeding Pontiffs are said to have been buried were 
 really basilicas above ground ; and though subterranean burial 
 continued to be practised, yet the example set by the Pontiffs 
 was not long in being followed, and graves within and around 
 the basilicas gradually superseded the /ocn/i of the Catacombs, 
 The inscriptions with consular dates probably furnish us with 
 a sufficiently accurate guide to the relative proportions of the 
 two modes of burial. From a.d. 338 to a.d. 360 two out of 
 three burials appear to have taken place in the subterranean 
 portion of the cemeteries, while from a.d. 364 to a.d. 369 the 
 proportions are equal. During the next two years hardly any 
 
 Milan a new era opens in the history of the Cata- 
 
 of subterran- 
 ean cemeteries 
 
 given to the 
 
96 
 
 Roma Softer? 
 
 a?iea. 
 
 Basilicas 
 erected over 
 tombs of mar 
 tyrs, 
 
 caused much 
 damage to 
 Catacombs, 
 
 Devotion of St 
 Damasus to 
 Catacombs ; 
 
 notices of burials aboTC ground appear, but after that the sub- 
 terranean crypts fall rapidly into disuse. This marked and 
 sudden change demands an explanation, and history at once 
 supplies it. 
 
 The first care of the Christians, when peace and liberty had 
 been secured to the Church by the conversion of Constantine, 
 was to honour those illustrious martyrs whose bodies lay con- 
 cealed in the recesses of the various Catacombs. Basilicas more 
 or less sumptuous began to be erected over their sepulchres, 
 and as the faithful shrank from disturbing their original resting- 
 places, it became the ordinary custom to cut away the surface 
 of the ground on the side of the hill in which the galleries had 
 been excavated, and thus gain access to the martyr's tomb. 
 The Vatican hill behind St Peters, the hill opposite to St 
 Paul's outside the walls, the galleries and chambers still 
 visible in the hill cut away for the site of San Lorenzo in 
 Agro Verano, are witnesses to this practice. Sometimes, as 
 in St Agnese fiwri le miu^a^ it was necessary to go down to 
 a great depth ; for the martyrs had perhaps been buried in the 
 second floor of the Catacomb ; and hence the long flight of 
 steps by which we descend to that church at the present 
 day. Such a wholesale sacrificing of hundreds of graves 
 for the sake of one illustrious sepulchre must have been dis- 
 pleasing to many ; and St Damasus in particular, ardently as 
 he laboured in the search for the bodies and the furthering of 
 the devotion to the remains of the martyrs, yet found means to 
 encourage that devotion without destroying the character of 
 the subterranean cemeteries. When the cemeteries had been 
 taken from the Christians, and made over to other hands by 
 Diocletian, there is evidence to show that the Church pro- 
 vided for the inviolability of the tombs of her more venerated 
 heroes by blocking up the galleries which led to them ; and it 
 was a labour of love in after-years to re-discover* these tombs, 
 
 * " ( )uceritur, inventus colitur" is the language of St Damasus' inscrip- 
 tions. 
 
The Catacombs in the Foitrth Century. 97 
 
 the precise situation of which was only known by tradition. 
 St Damasus then removed the earth, widened the passages so his labours 
 as to make them more serviceable for the crowd of pilgrims, dom"^^"^' 
 constructed flights of stairs leading to the more illustrious 
 shrines, and adorned the chambers with marbles, opening 
 shafts to admit air and light where practicable, and supporting 
 the friable iu-fa walls and galleries, wherever it was necessary, 
 with arches of brick and stone work. Almost all the cata- 
 combs bear traces of his labours, and modern discovery is 
 continually bringing to light fragments of the inscriptions 
 which he composed in honour of the martyrs, and caused to 
 be engraved on marble slabs, in a peculiarly beautiful charac- 
 ter, by a very able artist, Furius Dionysius Filocalus. It is 
 a singular fact that no original inscription of Pope Damasus 
 has ever yet been found executed by any other hand, nor 
 have any inscriptions been found, excepting those of Damasus, 
 in precisely the same form of letters. Hence the type is well 
 known to students of Christian epigraphy as the Damasine 
 characters.'^ 
 
 Now, the sudden return to the subterranean mode of burial Catacombs as 
 in the years a.d. 370, 371, exactly corresponds with the time gj-jj^f^^^l^ ^^'^ 
 of the labours of St Damasus, and it is obvious to conjecture, 
 that the faithful who visited the tombs of the martyrs, came 
 away with a desire to lay their own bones beside theirs. 
 Some, as the priest St Barbazianus, even made little cells 
 underground, and led the lives of hermits in their immediate 
 neighbourhood, and all were assiduous in visiting them. St st Jerome, 
 Jerome gives a vivid description of a devout Roman youth's 
 feelings on such a visit ; but his words seem more immediately 
 applicable to the ordinary condition of the common galleries, 
 than to any that had been specially decorated by the Pope. 
 " When I was a boy," he writes, " being educated at Rome, 
 I used every Sunday, in company with other boys of my own 
 age and tastes, to visit the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, 
 
 * Specimens may be seen in Plates I. and III. al the end of the volume. 
 
Roma Sottci^ranea. 
 
 and to go into the crypts excavated there in the bowels of the 
 
 earth. The walls on either side as you enter are full of the 
 
 bodies of the dead, and the whole place is so dark, that one 
 
 seems almost to see the fulfilment of those words of the pro" 
 
 phet, ' Let them go down alive into Hades.' Here and there 
 
 a little light, admitted from above, suffices to give a momentary 
 
 relief to the horror of the darkness ; but as you go forwards, 
 
 and find yourself again immersed in the utter blackness of 
 
 night, the words of the poet come spontaneously to your 
 
 mind : ' The very silence fills the soul with dread.' " ''^ On the 
 
 Prudentius on contrary, the words of the poet Prudentius, written about the 
 cemetery of ... ^ ^ r i 
 
 StHippolytus. same time, clearly commemorate the results oi some such 
 
 labours as we have been describing those of St Damasus to 
 have been. He is writing of the tomb of St Hippolytus, and 
 his description runs thus : — 
 
 " Not far from the city walls, among the well-trimmed 
 orchards, there lies a crypt buried in darksome pits. Into 
 its secret recesses a steep path with winding stairs directs 
 one, even though the turnings shut out the light. The light 
 of day, indeed, comes in through the doorway, as far as 
 the surface of the opening, and illuminates the threshold of 
 the portico ; and when, as you advance further, the dark- 
 ness as of night seems to get more and more obscure through- 
 out the mazes of the cavern, there occur at intervals aper- 
 tures cut in the roof which convey the bright rays of the 
 sun upon the cave. Although the recesses^ twisting at ran- 
 dom this way and that, form narrow chambers with dark- 
 some galleries, yet a considerable quantity of light finds its 
 way through the pierced vaulting down into the hollow bowels 
 of the mountain. And thus throughout the subterranean crypt 
 it is possible to perceive the brightness and enjoy the light of 
 the absent sun. To such secret places is the body of Hip- 
 polytus conveyed, near to the spot where now stands the altar 
 dedicated to God. That same altar-slab {//ic/isa) gives the 
 
 * St Tlicion. in ]"",zech. c. Ix. 
 
The Catacombs in the Fourth Century. 99 
 
 sacrament, and is the faithful guardian of its martyr's bones, 
 
 which it keeps laid up there in expectation of the eternal 
 
 Judge, while it feeds the dwellers of the Tiber with holy food. 
 
 Wondrous is the sanctity of the place ! the altar is at hand for 
 
 those who pray, and it assists the hopes of men by mercifully 
 
 granting what they need. Here have I, when sick with ills 
 
 both of soul and body, oftentimes prostrated myself in prayer 
 
 and found relief Yes, O glorious priest ! I will tell with what 
 
 joy I return to enjoy the privilege of embracing thee, and that 
 
 I know that I owe all this to Hippolytus, to whom Christ, our 
 
 God, has granted power to obtain whatever any one asks of him. 
 
 That little chapel {cEdicida) which contains the cast-off garments 
 
 of his soul [his relics] is bright with solid silver. Wealthy Shrine richly 
 
 hands have put up tablets glistening with a smooth surface fievoutly^^' 
 
 [of silver], bright as a concave mirror ; and, not content with visited. 
 
 overlaying the entrance with Parian marble, they have lavished 
 
 large sums of money on the ornamentation of the work." He 
 
 goes on to describe the pilgrimages to the shrine, and with 
 
 somewhat of poetic licence continues : " Early in the morning 
 
 they come to salute [the saint] : all the youth of the place 
 
 worship there : they come and go until the setting of the sun. 
 
 Love of religion collects together into one dense crowd both 
 
 Latins and foreigners ; they imprint their kisses on the shining 
 
 silver ; they pour out their sweet balsams ; they bedew their 
 
 faces with tears." His description of the scene on the festa of 
 
 the martyr, his dies iiatalis, reminds one forcibly of the way in 
 
 which the modern Romans stream out to San Lorenzo, or to 
 
 San Paolo fuori le mura, or to any other of the old churches, 
 
 when a festival or a station is held there. " The imperial city ^^cene on the 
 
 festa of the 
 
 vomits forth her stream of Romans, and the plebeian crowd, saint, 
 animated by one and the same desire, jostle on equal terms 
 their patrician neighbours, faith hurrying them forward to the 
 shrine. Albano's gates, too, send forth their white-robed host 
 in a long-drawn line. The noise on the various roads on all 
 sides waxes loud : the native of the Abruzzi and the Etruscan 
 
lOO 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 peasant come, the tierce Samnite, the countryman of lofty 
 Capua and of Nola, is there ; each with his wife and children 
 delights to hasten on his road. The broad fields scarcely 
 suffice to contain the joyful people, and even where the space 
 is wide, the crowd is so great as to cause delay. No doubt, 
 then, that that cavern, wide though its mouth be stretched, is 
 too narrow for such crowds ; but hard by is another church 
 {iemphi?n), enriched with royal magnificence, which this great 
 gathering may visit ; " * and then follows the description of a 
 basilica, supposed by many to be the basilica of San Lorenzo 
 in Agro Verano. 
 
 Damage done This devotion to the cemeteries, which, as we have seen, 
 to Catacombs 
 
 by indiscreet caused them to be used again as burial-places so frequently 
 devotion. ^j^^ t\xnQ of St Damasus, was not always regulated by prud- 
 
 ence. In the anxiety of Christians to be buried as near as 
 possible to the saints, they excavated loadi at the back of the 
 arcosoHa, not sparing even the most beautiful paintings with 
 which their forefathers had adorned them. They destroyed the 
 symmetry of the chapels with new monuments and sarcophagi, 
 and often endangered the safety of the constructions by indis- 
 Examples. creet excavations. One ancient inscription speaks of a new 
 crypt behind the saints," in which two ladies bought a bisommn 
 for themselves during their lifetime from two fossores. 
 
 IN CRYPTA NOBA RETRO SAN 
 CTYS EMERVM SE VIVAS BALER 
 RA ET SABINA MERVM LOG 
 V BISOM AB APRONE ET A 
 BIATORE 
 
 Here is another inscription which testifies to a similar pur- 
 chase " from Quintus the fossor^' of a single grave near St 
 Cornelius. 
 
 SEREPENTIV 
 S EMIT LOG 
 M A QUINTO 
 FOSSORE AD 
 SANTVM G 
 RNELIVM 
 
 * I'rudent. Peiistei)h. xi. 11. 153, cK:c. 
 
The Catacombs iii the Fourth Century. loi 
 
 A third records the purchase of a grave for a father and 
 mother and one daughter, " above the arcosoliwn^' at the very 
 tomb of St Hippolytus, of which we have heard so much from 
 Prudentius {at Ippolytv svper aj^cosoliv). 
 
 A fourth inscription of the year 381 (during the Pontificate 
 of Damasus) tells us of one who obtained the privilege of 
 burial " within the thresholds of the saints, a thmg which 
 many desire and few obtain " {intra limina saiictoriwi^ quod 
 miilti ciipiunt et rari accipiunt). 
 
 It appears that, at this time, the work of excavation was no Theyaieunder 
 longer continued at the public expense under the special care menTof the 
 of the parish priests, but that it was left as a matter of P^^^'^^c-^^^-^^^^'V^^^"'^ 
 bargain between the deceased's friends and the fossores. No 
 vestige of contracts of this kind with fossors has been found 
 earlier than the last years of the fourth century, and no record 
 of the existence of this body of men has come to light later 
 than the first quarter of the fifth century. But the monuments 
 are very numerous during this short period which testify to 
 their having had in their own hands the disposal of new graves 
 in the Catacombs. It is no longer jussu of the Pope or of the 
 priests that such and such a tomb has been made, but the 
 names of both buyers and sellers are recorded on the tomb- 
 stone, together with the witnesses to the contract, and even 
 the price that was paid ; and the sellers are always fossors. 
 It is generally supposed that the fossors were themselves 
 clerics, the lowest order in the hierarchy. But even though 
 it should be considered that there is not sufticient ground for 
 this opinion, yet, at least, it is obvious, that, in the earHer ages, 
 they must have been on very intimate relations with the clergy, 
 and, no doubt, were supported by the Church, whose most 
 devoted and laborious servants they were. It is not difficult, 
 therefore, to understand how, under the altered circumstances 
 of the times, the whole matter had been allowed to fall more 
 entirely under their management. Nevertheless, we must be 
 
 * laser. Christ, i. 142. 
 
I02 Ro7na Sotterranea. 
 
 allowed to regret that they should not have used a more whole- 
 some severity in withstanding the pious but indiscreet desires 
 of the faithful. How common those desires were is sufficiently 
 attested, not only by these and other similar inscriptions, but 
 still more by the fact that it forms the subject of a long letter, 
 or short treatise, by the great St Augustine, written at the 
 request of his friend, St Paulinus of Nola, in which he explains 
 and justifies them.* Nevertheless we may easily imagine the 
 displeasure with which so ardent a lover of the cemeteries as 
 St Damasus would regard a system which tended to their 
 destruction. His own example spoke more eloquently than 
 any words could do. No one had a greater right to be buried 
 there than he, and yet he was content to build himself a tomb 
 above the cemetery of St Callixtus, and to write upon a tablet 
 in the papal crypt the reason for his not being buried within 
 it : — 
 
 HIC FATEOR DAMASVS VOLVI MEA CONDERE MEMBRA, 
 SED TIMYI SANCTOS CINERES VEXARE PIORVM, 
 
 " Here I, Damasus, wished to bury my limbs, but I was afraid of dis- 
 turbing the holy ashes of the saints." f 
 
 The archdeacon Sabinus, in his epitaph lately found at San 
 Lorenzo, tells the faithful plainly, that the only way to obtain 
 a place near the saints is to imitate their lives : — 
 
 NIL JVVAT IMMO GRAVAT TVMVLIS H^RERE PIORVM 
 
 SANCTORVM MERITIS OPTIMA VITA PROPE EST. 
 CORPORE NON OPVS EST, ANIMA TENDAMVS AD ILLOS 
 QU^ BENE SALVA POTEST CORPORIS ESSE SALVS. 
 
 "It nothing helps, but rather hinders, [merely] to stick close to the 
 tombs of the saints ; a good life is the best approach to the saints' 
 merits. Not with the body, but with the soul, we must make our way to 
 them ; when that is well saved, it may prove the salvation of the body 
 also." X 
 
 Rapid disuse Whether in consequence of any direct prohibition, or merely 
 of Catacombs . , , , 
 
 for burial. from dimculties bemg putm the way, whatever cause may have 
 
 produced the result, the evidence of the dated inscriptions makes 
 
 * See Note D. in Appendix. + Rom. Sott. i. 214. 
 
 + Bullcttino, 1864, 33. 
 
The Catacombs in the Fourth Century, 1 03 
 
 it clear, that after the brief furore for subterranean interment 
 
 during the years 370 and 371 there was a rapid disuse of that 
 
 mode of burial. Between a.d. 373 and 400, the subterranean 
 
 epitaphs are only one out of three. From a.d. 400 to 409, Rome taken 
 
 the decrease is still more rapid, until, after a.d, 410, scarcely ^^^^^^1^^' 
 
 a single certain example is to be found.'"'" In that fatal year, 
 
 to use the language of St Jerome, " The brightest light of all 
 
 the world was extinguished ; the Roman empire lost its head ; 
 
 and, to speak more truly, in one city the whole world perished." t 
 
 Rome was taken by Alaric ; the citizens were reduced, many 
 
 by slaughter, some by captivity, all by loss of wealth, and 
 
 there was neither time nor means to adorn the sepulchres or 
 
 even to pay the customary honours to the departed. 
 
 * Inscr. Christ, i. 117, &c. 
 
 t Hieron. Proleg. in lib. i. Ezech. v. 16, ed. Migne. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM THE YEAR A.D. 410 UNTIL THEIR FINAL ABANDONMENT, 
 
 A.D, 410. 
 
 Catacombs 
 abandoned as 
 burial-places. 
 
 Still fre- 
 quented as 
 shrines. 
 
 A.D. 537. 
 
 Profaned by 
 Goths under 
 Vitiges. 
 
 SERIOUS as was the ruin and damage done to the Eternal 
 City by the Goths in a.d. 410, yet neither then nor at 
 their second sack of Rome, in a.d. 457, do we find any record 
 of their having destroyed either the cemeteries or the basiHcas 
 of the martyrs. Still the use of the subterranean cemeteries 
 as places of burial was never after this resumed, and the in- 
 scriptions and notices which seem to refer to them will, on 
 closer examination, be found to relate to basilicas and ceme- 
 teries above ground. The fossors' occupation was gone, and 
 after a.d. 426 their name ceases to be mentioned. The 
 liturgical books of the fifth century refer constantly, in the 
 prayers for the dead and benediction of graves, to burials in 
 and around the basilicas, never to the subterranean cemeteries. 
 
 The Catacombs, however, though they ceased to be used 
 for burial, yet continued to be frequented as shrines and places 
 of pilgrimage. Occasionally, in times of popular tumult, they 
 seem to have been used also as places of refuge. Thus Boni- 
 face 1. was concealed for a time in the Cemetery of St Felicitas, 
 which he afterwards ornamented. " Pope Symmachus, towards 
 the end of the fifth century, is said, in one copy of the Liber 
 Fontijicalis, to have restored and beautified the cemeteries of 
 the martyrs. The irruption of the Goths under Vitiges, in a.d. 
 537, carried havoc even into the peaceful sanctuaries of the 
 saints.f As soon, however, as the storm passed over. Pope 
 * Lib. Pont. 
 
 f '* Ecclesiee et corpora Martyrum exterminata sunt a Gothis." — Lib. Font. 
 
The Catacombs Rifled and Abandoned. 105 
 
 Vigilius repaired the damage which, we are told, saddened 
 him to see, and replaced some of the broken epitaphs of St 
 Damasus by copies, often very imperfect, some of which still 
 remain."^ About this time, when necessity had compelled the 
 citizens to relax the strictness of the ancient laws against bury- 
 ing within the walls, cemeteries began to be formed on the 
 Esquiline and on the site of the old Praetorian camp. It was 
 becoming dangerous to venture far outside the walls. 
 
 The Pontiffs, however, continued their care for the ancient Repaired by 
 
 ^r, ,, 1, • the care of 
 
 cemeteries. John 111., about a.d. 568, "restored the cemeteries popes. 
 
 of the holy martyrs, and ordered that oblations, cruets, and ^^^^^ ^^^^ ' 
 candles [for the holy sacrifice] should be supplied from the 
 Lateran Palace throughout the cemeteries every Sunday, "f 
 This was after tlie desolation of Rome by Totila. But the re- 
 turn to the old custom of the priests of the city-title serving the 
 extra-mural cemetery every Sunday did not last long. It is re- 
 corded in the seventh century, to the special praise of Sergius I., 
 that, "during the time of his priesthood, he used diligently 
 to celebrate the solemnities of mass through different ceme- 
 teries." X As titular of St Susanna, he would, according to the 
 ancient practice, have been confined to the cemetery belonging 
 to that title. Sixty years later, about a.d. 735, Gregory III., 
 a zealous restorer and builder of churches, " instituted a body 
 of priests to celebrate masses every week, and arranged that in 
 
 * e.g., The inscription in honour of Eusebius in the cemetery of San 
 Callisto, presently to be seen. A copy of some verses of Pope Vigilius, refer- 
 ring to this practice, may be seen in the third column of the collection 
 in the gallery at the Lateran. It runs thus : — 
 
 " Dum peritura GetcX posuissent castra sub urbem, 
 Moverunt Sanctis bella nefanda prius. 
 Totaque sacrilege verterunt corde sepulcra, 
 Martyribus quondam rite sacrata piis. 
 Quos monstrante Deo Damasus sibi Papa probatos 
 Affixo monuit carmine jure coli. 
 Sed periit titulns coiifracio marmore sandus, 
 Nec tamen his iterum posse latere fuit. 
 Diruta Vigilius nam posthaec Papa geraiscens, 
 Hostibus expulsis oimie novavit opus." 
 t Lib. Pont. X lb. 
 
io6 
 
 Roma Sottem^anea. 
 
 the cemeteries situated all round Rome, the lights for keeping 
 
 the vigils on the days of their natalitia, and the oblation for 
 
 the celebration of the masses, should be carried down from the 
 
 palace by the oblatioiiaiHiis^ through whom the Pontiff would 
 
 name the priest who should officiate on the occasion."* 
 
 A.D. 756. There is ground for supposing that some few bodies of 
 
 d^on of bodks ^^.ints had been in Rome, as we know they were in other 
 
 of saints from cities.f removed from their original resting-places to churches 
 Catacombs, ' , . ^ ^ ^ 
 
 prepared for their reception, even as early as the fifth century. J 
 
 One of the itineraries, which describes the martyrs' shrines, 
 distinctly mentions the bodies of some saints being in basilicas 
 above ground, whom we know to have been originally buried 
 in the subterranean cemeteries. It was, however, with great 
 reluctance, and not until after the devastations and sacrileges 
 committed by the Lombards under Astolphus, a.d. 756, that 
 by Paul I. Paul I., elected in the following year, resolved upon translating 
 on a large scale the relics of the saints, in order to save them 
 from profanation. 
 
 In a constitution, dated June 2, 761, he complains that, 
 whereas, even before the siege of Rome by Astolphus, some of 
 these subterranean cemeteries had been neglected and ruined, 
 yet by the impious Lombards this ruin had now been made 
 more complete; for they had broken open the graves and 
 carried off some bodies of the saints. " From that time for- 
 ward," he says, " people have been very slothful and negligent 
 in paying due honour to the cemeteries ; animals have been 
 allowed to have access to them ; even folds have been pur- 
 , posely set up in them, so that they have been defiled with all 
 
 * Lib. Pont. 
 
 t e.g., Milan in the time of St Ambrose. 
 
 X Rom. Sott. i. 219. In the " Sacramentary of St Leo," in the Preface 
 for Saints John and Paul, it is said, "Of Thy merciful providence Thou 
 hast vouchsafed to crown not only the circuit of the city with the glorious 
 passions of the martyrs, but also to hide in the very heart of the city itself 
 the victorious limbs of Saints John and Paul." This looks as if these martyrs 
 were then the only saints whose bodies rested within the walls ; and they 
 had never been anywhere else. 
 
The Catacombs Rifled and Abandoned. 107 
 
 sorts of corruption. Seeing, then, and deeply lamenting this 
 
 careless indifference to such holy places, I have thought it 
 
 good, with God's help, to remove the bodies of the martyrs 
 
 and confessors and virgins of Christ, and with hymns and 
 
 spiritual songs I have brought them into this city of Rome, 
 
 and I have placed them in the church which I have lately 
 
 built, in honour of St Stephen and St Sylvester, on the site of 
 
 the house in which I was born and bred, which has now 
 
 descended to me by inheritance from my father." Lists of 
 
 the saints, whose relics were thus translated, have come down 
 
 to us,"* and there must have been more than a hundred in all. 
 
 The example set by Paul was not followed by either of his 
 
 immediate successors, Stephen III. or Adrian I. ; in fact, the 
 
 latter strained every nerve to bring back the ancient honour 
 
 and magnificence of the cemeteries. Nearly all of them bore 
 
 witness to his zeal ; and his restorations were continued by his 
 
 successor, Leo ITLt Notwithstanding all the efforts of these 
 
 Popes to revive the interest in these sacred crypts, Paschal L Paschal T. and 
 
 others. 
 
 was constrained to imitate the example of Paul, because the 
 crypts of the martyrs were being destroyed and abandoned. 
 The inscription in Sta Prassede still attests how he translated 
 thither two thousand three hundred bodies on July 20, 817. 
 Sergius II. and Leo IV. continued the same work, for the 
 greater dignity of the churches which they had either built or 
 restored, viz., SS. Silvestro and Martino, and Santi Quattro 
 Coronati ; they also re-translated to these churches relics 
 which had already been removed from the Catacombs and 
 deposited elsewhere in Rome. To these times also doubtless 
 belongs the account of many cart-loads of relics of martyrs 
 being carried to the Pantheon ; a record which has been con- 
 founded with that of the rdiquicE placed there by Boniface IV. 
 long before the tombs in the subterranean cemeteries were 
 touched. 
 
 * Mai. Script. Vet. v. 56. 
 
 + See the long enumeration of their works in Lib. Pont, xcvii. xcviii. 
 
io8 Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 Final aban- All the documents which mention these translations assign 
 donment of 
 
 Catacombs. the cause of them to the abandonment and rum of the ceme- 
 teries ; and, of course, the translations, in their turn, still further 
 hurried forward and completed the work of ruin and abandon- 
 ment. The sacred treasures which had caused them to be 
 regarded with so much love and veneration having been 
 removed, there was no longer the same motive for protecting 
 or ornamenting them ; and thus the first half of the ninth 
 century may be said to have ended the history of the Cata- 
 combs as shrines or places of pilgrimage, just as the beginning 
 of the fifth had ended their history as cemeteries. Pope 
 Nicholas I., a.d. 860, is said to have visited them, and to have 
 restored in some of them the celebration of mass {qiiod multos 
 per temporw7i cursus ab eo discesserit) ; and in the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries we still read of visits to the cemeteries, and 
 of lamps kept burning in some of them which were near to 
 monasteries. But these insignificant exceptions to the general 
 oblivion into which they fell are the last and only records 
 which remain to us of any attempt to keep up the ancient 
 glories of the Catacombs of Rome. Henceforward only those 
 in the vicinity of some church or monastery were visited out 
 of curiosity by occasional travellers, as we find the cemetery 
 of St Valentine, on the Via Flaminia, noticed by a pilgrim of 
 the eleventh, and again by a writer of the twelfth century. 
 Like the cemetery of St Agnes, it lay under property belong- 
 ing to the Augustinian Order, and hence was not utterly lost 
 sight of In a statistical account of the Roman churches and 
 clergy, written in the fourteenth century, only three of the 
 suburban churches attached to the cemeteries are mentioned, 
 viz., those of St Hermes, St Valentine, and St Saturninus. 
 When we come to the fifteeenth century even these disappear, 
 and only one subterranean cemetery remained always open 
 and frequented by pilgrims, the same which may still be seen 
 beneath the Church of St Sebastian, and which was called in 
 all ancient documents, coejneferium ad cataciniibas. 
 
The Cataco7nbs Rifled and Abandoned. \ 09 
 
 This is an important fact to be noticed, because it accounts Origin of the 
 both for the use of this word, Catacomb^ as applied to the comb." ^^'^^ 
 Roman cemeteries, and also for the very grave topographical 
 error respecting the cemetery of St Callixtus, which has per- 
 plexed and misled all Roman archaeologists until the present 
 day. The earliest document now extant in which the word 
 catacumbas is used as descriptive of the locality of St Sebas- 
 tian's belongs to the sixth century, where we read in a list of 
 the Roman cemeteries cimeteriiiin catecumbas ad St Sebastianum 
 Via Appia. But it was used before this, apparently, as the 
 name of that part of the campagna in which St Sebastian's is 
 situated, for the Roman circus built by Maxentius, and whose 
 ruins in this neighbourhood are so well known, was anciently 
 called the circus ad catacumbas. When, then, the locality of 
 the other Roman cemeteries was forgotten, and this alone 
 remained known, (because it was still open, and always 
 retained its place in the Libri Indulge?itia?'um, composed at 
 various times and in different languages for the use of pilgrims,) 
 the names of all the other cemeteries, occurring so frequently 
 in the Martyrologies and Lives of the Popes, appear to 
 have been ignorantly confused with this particular spot ; a 
 visit to the cemeteries became synonymous with a visit ad 
 catacumbas, and the term Catacomb gradually came to be 
 regarded as the specific name for all subterranean excavations 
 for purposes of burial, not only in the neighbourhood of Rome, 
 but also in Naples, Malta, Paris, Sicily, and wherever else 
 similar excavations have been discovered. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 CATACOMB OF ST CALLIXTUS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ITS DISCOVERY AND IDENTIFICATION. 
 
 Pre-eminence " T N the history of Pagan Rome," says Father Marchi/"" 
 Appia, both in " ^'^^ Appia bears the proud title of Queen of 
 
 Pagan and Roman roads ; and it makes this boast with good reason, 
 Christian ^ ° ' 
 
 Rome. both because of the grander scale on which it was constructed, 
 
 the greater magnificence of the buildings and sepulchres which 
 adorned it, the greater variety of conquered nations who used 
 it, and the number and celebrity of the events connected with 
 it. The history of Christian Rome gives to this same road 
 titles of glory incomparably more solid, just, and indisputable. 
 We are forced to acknowledge it as the Queen of Christian 
 roads, by reason of the greater number and extent of its 
 cemeteries, and still more for the greater number and celebrity 
 of its martyrs." And in another place + he speaks of one of 
 the cemeteries upon this road as standing to other cemeteries 
 much in the same relation as St Peter's to other churches; he 
 says it is "the colossal region of Roma Sotterranea^ all the 
 others are only small or middling provinc.es. Unfortunately 
 * Monum. Art Crist. Prim. 73. t P. 172. 
 
Discovery and Identification of San Callisto. 1 1 1 
 
 the plan of his own work was complete, and most of it already 
 executed, before he effected an entrance into the cemeteries 
 which so strongly impressed his imagination ; and the won- 
 ders we have now to narrate have been the discovery of De 
 Rossi. Indeed this has been the especial field of his labours, 
 and the two volumes of his great work already published have 
 not exhausted his narration of them. We shall not be doing 
 justice either to the subject or to our author, unless we enter 
 into the details of the cemeteries on the Via Appia at some 
 length ; and first, we will hear what our ancient guides of the 
 seventh and eighth centuries have to tell us upon the subject, 
 for so we shall be better able to follow the course of De Rossi's 
 investigations, and to appreciate both their ingenuity and im- 
 portance. 
 
 One of these guides, then, the most ancient and accurate of 
 all, describing what he himself saw and visited at some time 
 between the years 625 and 638, writes as follows: — " After- Testimonies of 
 wards, you arrive by the Via Appia at St Sebastian, martyr, amhors 
 whose body lies in a very low spot ; and there are the sepul- 
 chres of the Apostles Peter and Paul, in which they rested 
 forty years ; and you go down by steps on the western side 
 of the church, where St Cyrinus, Pope and martyr, rests. And 
 on the north side of the same road you come to the holy 
 martyrs, Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus. There you will 
 enter into a great cave, and you will find there St Urban, 
 bishop and confessor ; and in another place, Felicissimus and 
 Agapitus, martyrs, and deacons of Sixtus ; and in a third place, 
 Cyrinus, martyr; and in a fourth, Januarius, martyr; and in 
 a third church again, St Zeno, martyr, rests. On the same 
 road, at St Cecilia's, there is an innumerable multitude of 
 martyrs : first, Sixtus, Pope and martyr ; Dionysius, Pope and 
 martyr; Julian, Pope and martyr; Flavianus, martyr; St Cecilia, 
 virgin and martyr. Eighty martyrs rest there below [in the 
 subterranean cemetery] ; Zephyrinus, Pope and confessor, rests 
 [in a church] above. Eusebius, P()i)e and martyr, rests in a 
 
I I 2 
 
 Roma Sotterrmtea. 
 
 cave some way off. Cornelius, Pope and martyr, lies in an- 
 otlier cave some way off. After this, you come to the holy 
 virgin and martyr, Soteris, whose body lies towards the north 
 side ; and then you leave the Via Appia, and arrive," &c. 
 
 The route described by the next witness" proceeds in the 
 opposite direction. He has just described what was to be seen 
 on the Via Ardeatina, and then he continues: — " Near the Via 
 Appia, on the eastern side of the city, is the Church of St Soteris, 
 martyr, where she lies with many other martyrs ; and near the 
 same road is the Church of St Sixtus, Pope, where he sleeps ; 
 there also St Cecilia, virgin, rests ; and there St Tharsicius 
 and St Zephyrinus lie, in one tomb ; and there St Eusebius, 
 and St Calocerus and St Parthenius lie, each apart ; and 800 
 martyrs rest there. Not far from thence, in the cemetery of 
 St Callixtus, Cornelius and Cyprian sleeps \sic\ in a church. 
 Tliere is also near the same road a church of many martyrs, 
 i.e.^ of Januarius, who was the eldest of the seven sons of 
 Felicitas ; of Urban, of Agapitus, Felicissimus, Cyrinus, Zeno, 
 the brother of Valentine ; Tiburtius and Valerian, and many 
 martyrs rest there. And near the same road is the Church of 
 St Sebastian, martyr, where he himself sleeps ; where are also 
 the burial-places of the Apostles, in which they rested forty 
 years. There also the martyr Cyrinus is buried. By the same 
 road also you go to the city of Albano," &c. 
 Division of Without entering into the minute details of any apparent 
 subject. discrepancies between these two accounts, their substantial 
 
 agreement is abundantly manifest. Nobody can read them 
 attentively without observing that they describe four distinct 
 groups, or centres, of martyrs' tombs on the Appian road. 
 One, the most distant from Rome, as you go towards Albano, 
 is the Church of St Sebastian, with the cemetery belonging to 
 it. Another, on the north side of the road, contained the 
 graves of St Cecilia's husband and brother-in-law, Valerian and 
 Tiburtius ; of FeUcissimus and .\gapitus, two of St Sixtus's 
 
 * 'Fhese arc the two itineraries mentioned in p]-). 22, 23. 
 
Discovery aiid Identification of Sait Callisto. 1 1 3 
 
 deacons ; of Januarius, the eldest of the seven sons of St 
 Felicitas ; and of many other martyrs. The third is described 
 in stili more glowing terms, as containing an innumerable 
 multitude of martyrs;" amongst whom are specified several 
 Popes, St Cecilia, St Tharsycius, and others. Lastly, there is 
 the church and cemetery of the holy virgin and martyr, St 
 Soteris, before you leave this road and cross over to the Via 
 Ardeatina. It is only with the third of these groups that we 
 are more immediately concerned ; nevertheless, it wall be 
 necessary that we should begin by saying a few w^ords about 
 the first." 
 
 The basilica of St Sebastian, built by Constantine over the St Sebastian's, 
 tomb where the body of this martyr still rests, is well known 
 to every visitor of Rome. It stands on the Appian road, be- 
 tween two and three miles out of the city ; and a friar from the 
 adjoining monastery being always ready to act as guide and 
 descend into the extensive subterranean cemetery, this has 
 been more visited perhaps than any other portion of the 
 Roman Catacombs. He cannot, indeed, show you " the steps 
 on the western side of the church, whereby we descend to the 
 gr-ave of St Cyrinus, Pope and martyr," though De Rossi is of 
 opinion that these also might now be found without much diffi- 
 culty ; but we can still read the inscription with which Pope 
 Damasus adorned his tomb. We can also go round to the 
 back of the high altar and examine the semi-subterranean 
 building in which, according to a very ancient and authentic 
 tradition, the bodies of St Peter and St Paul once found a Temporary 
 temporary resting-place. The form of this building is so of\\\Tre/ics^of 
 
 irregular that it would never have been selected by any archi- Saints Peter 
 
 ^ ^ _ ana Paul, 
 
 tect for its own sake, bat seems manifestly designed to inclose 
 
 some particular point or points of interest, without interfering 
 
 more than w^as absolutely necessary with what lay around it. 
 
 * The second has been already spoken of, under the name of St Prcetex- 
 tatus, in page 77 ; and the fourth will be described, as far as our present 
 knowledge of it extends, in the next chapter, pat^e 128 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 We cannot therefore assent to the theory which would recog- 
 nise in it some ancient heathen temple ; but think it more 
 probable that it was erected merely for the sake of com- 
 memorating a spot endeared to the Church by associations 
 connected with her days of persecution. It seems probable 
 that it was begun by Pope Liberius ; it is certain that Damasus 
 provided a marble pavement for its floor, and otherwise adorned 
 it, at the same time setting up one of his usual metrical and 
 historical inscriptions, which may still be seen there.'" A low 
 step, or seat of stone, runs round the interior, destined (Father 
 Marchi conjectures) for the use of those who recited here in 
 choir the psalms and public offices of the Church. In the middle 
 of the area is a small square aperture, Avidening at the depth of 
 about two feet into a large pit or double grave, measuring between 
 six and seven feet both in length, breadth, and depth. This pit 
 is divided into two equal compartments by a slab of marble ; 
 its sides are also cased with marble to the height of three feet, 
 and its vaulted roof is covered with paintings of our Lord and 
 His apostles. This, then, is the spot where, according to the 
 testimony of both our ancient witnesses, " the bodies of St 
 Peter and St Paul rested for a period of forty years." 
 Their first There is some difficulty in unravelling the true history of this 
 
 rebLing here, i^xn^oxdjj translation of the bodies of the apostles. We have 
 seen that they were originally buried, each near the scene of 
 
 * Hie habitasse prius- Sanctos cognoscere debes, 
 Nomina quisque Petri pariter Paulique requiris. 
 Discipulos Oriens misit, quod sponte fatemur, 
 Sanguinis ob meritum Christumque per astra sequuti, 
 Aetherios petiere sinus et regna piorum. 
 Roma suos potius meruit defendere cives. 
 Hcec Damasus vestras referat nova sidera laudes.'' 
 
 " Here, you must know, that saints once dwelt. If you ask their names, 
 they were Peter and Paul. The East sent disciples, as we willingly acknow- 
 ledge. The saints themselves had, by the merit of their bloodshedding, 
 followed Christ to the stars, and sought the home of heaven and the king- 
 doms of the blest. Rome, hov/ever, obtained to defend her own citizens. 
 May Damasus be allowed to record these things for your praise, (!) new 
 stars [of the heavenly host]." 
 
Discovery and Identification of San Callisto. 1 1 5 
 
 his own martyrdom, the one on the Vatican Hill, the other on 
 the Ostian Way. But we learn from other equally authentic 
 sources, that as soon as the Oriental Christians had heard of 
 their death, they sent some of the brethren to remove the 
 bodies and bring them back to the East, where they claimed 
 them as their fellow-citizens and countrymen. These mes- 
 sengers so far prospered in their mission as to gain a moment- 
 ary possession of the sacred relics, which they carried off along 
 the Appian Way, as far as this spot which we have been just 
 now examining, adjoining the basilica of St Sebastian. This 
 was probably their appointed place of rendezvous before start- 
 ing on their homeward journey by way of Brundusium ; for just 
 at this point a cross-road, coming directly from St Paul's, joins 
 the Appian and Ostian Ways, by which ways the bodies of St 
 Peter and St Paul respectively must have been brought. 
 What happened to them whilst they rested here we cannot 
 exactly tell. The language of Pope Damasus, which we have 
 given above, while it hints at the claim of the Orientals and 
 the successful opposition of the Romans, bears evident tokens 
 of reserve, and we can easily understand his unwillingness to 
 perpetuate on a public monument, which would be seen by 
 pilgrims from all parts of the world, a history that might here- 
 after become a subject of angry and jealous recrimination 
 between the Eastern and Western Christians. But St Gregory 
 the Great, writing two centuries later, and only in a private 
 letter, had no such motive for reticence. A chapel having 
 been built in the Imperial Palace at Constantinople, to be 
 dedicated to St Paul, the P^mpress Constantina wished to 
 enrich the altar with some considerable relic, and begged' from 
 the Sovereign Pontift' nothing less than the head of the great 
 apostle. St Gregory, in justification of his refusal to comply 
 with her request, relates the story of the attempt of the 
 Oriental Christians to carry off his relics soon after his martyr- 
 dom, and says, — " It is well known that at the time when they 
 suffered, Christians from, the East came to recover their bodies 
 
ii6 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 as [the relics] of their fellow-citizens, and having carried them 
 as far as the second milestone from the city, laid them in the 
 place which is called ad catacwnbas ; but when the whole mass 
 of them assembled together and attempted to take them up 
 from hence, a storm of thunder and lightning so greatly 
 terrified them and dispersed them, that after that they durst 
 not make any more attempts. The Romans, however, then 
 went out and took up their bodies, having been counted 
 worthy to do this by the goodness of the Lord, and laid them 
 in the places where they are now buried." These last words 
 of St Gregory do not seem to be quite accurate. There is no 
 doubt that the Romans first buried them where they recovered 
 them, in or near the cemetery ad catacurnbas, and there was an 
 old tradition, embodied in one of the lessons formerly used 
 on St Peter's Feast in the French Church, which said that they 
 were restored to their original places of sepulture after the 
 lapse of a year and seven months ; nor is there any reason to 
 suppose that the body of St Paul was ever again removed. 
 Second trans- Of the relics of St Peter there are faint traces of a second 
 Peter's^^refics. translation, which is assigned by some writers to the first half 
 of the third century. They are too indistinct, however, to be 
 depended upon, and we must be content to acknowledge our 
 ignorance as to the authority on which it was believed by the 
 writers of the itineraries in the seventh and eighth centuries, 
 that the bodies of the apostles had lain near the basilica of St 
 Sebastian's for a period of forty years. 
 Erroneous in- "We have now seen all that the writers of those itineraries 
 fifteemh cen- thought worthy of being mentioned in connexion with the 
 t"^y- basilica of St Sebastian. A guide, however, of the present day 
 
 would certainly press us to descend also into the subterranean 
 cemetery which lies around and underneath the church, and if 
 we are persuaded to accept his invitation, we shall see there 
 inscriptions professing to point out to us other and yet higher 
 objects of interest. An inscription set up by one William, 
 * 0pp. St Greg., torn, ii., Ep. 30. 
 
Discovery and Identification of San Callisto. 1 1 7 
 
 Archbishop of Bourges, in the year 1409, bids us venerate 
 here the tomb of St CeciHa ; other inscriptions also, of the 
 same or a later date, speak of the tombs of nearly half a 
 hundred Popes, and of several thousands of martyrs. Whence 
 is this ? A glance at the ancient documents which we have 
 quoted is sufficient to arouse our suspicions as to the truth- 
 fulness of these inscriptions, since the two authorities are mani- 
 festly at variance with one another , and we can scarcely hesitate 
 in making our choice between them, when we remember that the 
 one was written whilst yet the bodies of the martyrs lay each 
 in its own sepulchre, and that the other belongs precisely to 
 that very age during which the Catacombs were buried in the 
 most profound darkness and oblivion. We have already ex- 
 plained how it came to pass that whilst the other ancient 
 cemeteries were inaccessible and unknown, this one still 
 remained partially open ; and we can easily understand the 
 religious feeling which prompted the good Archbishop to make 
 an appeal to the devotion of the faithful not to lose the 
 memory of those glorious martyrs who had once been buried 
 in places like this, and even somewhere in this neighbourhood. 
 But whilst we admire his piety, we cannot accept his testimony 
 upon a topographical question, which he had no means of 
 deciding, and in respect to waiich recent discoveries, as well 
 as a more critical examination of ancient documents, have 
 proved to a denionstration that he was certainly wrong. 
 
 It was in the year 1849 that De Rossi found in the cellar Reasons why 
 of a vineyard on the Via Appia, but much nearer to Rome the cTmetery^ 
 than St Sebastian's is, a large fragment of a marble slab, Calhxtus. 
 having on it the upper part of the letter R, followed by the 
 complete letters NELIUS . MARTYR. He immediately Epitaph of St 
 divined that this fragment was part of the tombstone of St ^o^"^^^"^- 
 Cornelius, Pope in the middle of the third century. He per- 
 suaded Pope Pius IX. to purchase both this and the adjacent 
 vineyard and three years afterwards, during the excavations 
 of 1852, the other half of the same marble slab came to light 
 
ii8 
 
 Roma Sotte7'raiiea. 
 
 in the depths of the subterranean cemetery which underlay 
 this vineyard. It was found at the foot of the grave, for which 
 it had evidently been made at the first. It contained the 
 other half of the letter R, preceded by CO, with the letters 
 EP on a lower line, so that De Rossi's happy conjecture was 
 
 thus crowned with the seal of absohite certainty. Moreover, 
 he had satisfied himself by a diligent study of all ancient 
 documents within his reach, that the tomb of St CorneHus 
 was very near, though not absolutely within the limits of, the 
 famous cemetery of St Callixtus, and that in this cemetery 
 there was a single chapel more famous than the rest, in which 
 had once been laid the bodies of many Popes of the third and 
 fourth centuries, and in another chapel adjoining it, St Cecilia. 
 Excavations having been made in accordance with his sugges- 
 tions, a fragment of marble was at length discovered, bearing 
 on it three letters, or rather the same letter (H) repeated three 
 times, one over the other, as the beginning of three successive 
 
 Damasine in- lines.* His keen eye recognising the well-known beauty of the 
 scription iu . 
 
 the Papal Damasine characters, immediately fastened upon this as " a con- 
 cypt. firmation strong as text of Holy Writ," that this was the Papal 
 
 vault in which Damasus had set up one of his most celebrated 
 inscriptions. As the work of excavation proceeded, a hundred 
 and twenty other fragments of the same inscription were re- 
 
 * See Plate I. at end of volume. The fragment was the beginning of 
 lines 4-6. 
 
Discovery and Identijication of San Callisto. 1 1 9 
 
 covered. These all have been put together, and the few missing 
 portions having been supplied in letters of a different colour, the 
 whole may now again be read, just where our forefathers in the 
 faith first read it fifteen hundred years ago. We shall have 
 occasion to examine it more closely by and by, when we meet 
 with it in its own place in the interior of the cemetery. We 
 appeal to it now as a decisive proof, from which it is impos- 
 sible to escape, that the cemetery of St Callixtus has been 
 re-discovered, and that the mediaeval inscriptions underneath 
 the church of St Sebastian were set up in ignorance, and now 
 only help to perpetuate the memory of an error. They con- 
 found the first and third of the cemeteries so carefully distin- 
 guished in the itineraries, and which we ourselves also are now 
 happily able to distinguish again. 
 
 Fig. 16. — A fresco representing the Bnptistn of our Lord in one 
 0/ the cuhiciila in the crypt of St Liicina. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 DISTINCTION OF ITS SEVERAL PARTS. 
 
 Distinct /^~^N the same side of the Appian Way as the church of 
 
 ill each Cata- II. 
 
 comb. St Sebastian's, but about a quarter of a mile nearer to 
 
 Rome, a doorway, with the words Cmneterium S. Callixti 
 carved above it, leads us to the vineyard beneath which lies 
 this celebrated cemetery. We call it indeed by this name for 
 convenience sake, and because the cemetery which CaUixtus 
 made is really the centre and most important part of the vast 
 subterranean city on which we are about to enter. In truth, 
 however, it is made up of several distinct groups of excavations, 
 each having its own history, and still capable of being distin- 
 guished, at least in outline, from one another, though now, and 
 for many centuries past, actually united. They may be dis- 
 tinguished not only by their contents, certain peculiarities of 
 form, or different families of inscriptions, or other similar 
 tokens, but much more by the disposition of the main gal- 
 leries, which was determined by the size and shape of the 
 area the fossors were at liberty to occupy, and the situation 
 of the roads or buildings which may have been in its imme- 
 diate neighbourhood above ground. 
 Defects of for- This is almost a new branch of study in the subject of 
 mer maps. ^oma Sotterranea, for which, as for so much else, we are in- 
 debted to De Rossi. Indeed it was scarcely possible for 
 earlier writers to gain any clear notion of the manner in which 
 these cemeteries had been constructed, since their knowledge of 
 the plan of any one of them was very incomplete ; and of most 
 
Distinction of Ai'ece in San Cat lis to. 121 
 
 they never had an opportunity of seeing any plan at all. Bosio 
 himself had not lived to prepare that part of his work ; and of 
 the half-dozen maps which Cardinal Barberini procured at so 
 much labour and expense for the illustration of Bosio's book, 
 not one was really complete. For the main object in their 
 construction had been rather to show the sites of particular 
 monuments than to exhibit the interior arrangement of the 
 whole cemetery, either as designed by its originators or as 
 subsequently modified in execution. The four additional maps 
 supplied by Aringhi are mere fragments, and the only one 
 which is of any size is strangely inexact. To these, D'Agin- 
 court added anotherj but this also was too small to be of 
 much service in a scientific point of view. Finally, Father 
 Marchi produced a very valuable map of what he believed to be 
 about the eighth part of the Catacomb of St Agnes ; and the 
 only portion of his book which he completed was intended to 
 illustrate this particular branch of the subject, the architecture 
 of the first Christians in Rome. He never pretended, how- 
 ever, to observe any chronological order, but pursued a simply 
 eclectic principle in his choice of specimens. 'I'he whole of 
 the Catacombs were for himi a monument of primitive antiquity, 
 and his sphere of observation was too limited to allow of his 
 drawing any general conclusions from nice distinctions that 
 might be observed between one part and another of the exca- 
 vations. Since his time a complete revolution has been effected 
 in this respect, by means of a most ingenious instrument, in- 
 vented by Michele De Rossi, brother of the archaeologist, Important dis- 
 
 , . , - , . . , . . coveries from 
 
 which renders the process 01 surveying and mapping these Michele De 
 subterranean crypts far easier, as well as more accurate, than ^°ff ^ ^"^^ 
 
 J i- ^ ' method of 
 
 it was before. Under his auspices, we may hope by and by niajiping sub- 
 
 terraneau gal- 
 
 to see the maps of the streets of subterranean Rome as com- leries. 
 plete as those of any modern city above ground. Already we 
 have entered into some fruits of his labours, and the value of 
 the light which they throw on the history of the Catacombs 
 can hardly be exaggerated. With his map of the Catacomb 
 
122 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 of St Callixtus, for example, lying open before us, we are able 
 to trace with certainty several features in its growth and de- 
 velopment which before it was impossible to detect. We dis- 
 tinguish the boundaries of certain arece^ originally quite inde- 
 pendent of one another, but united at a later period by paths 
 of more or less irregularity. We see the first galleries, follow- 
 ing the form and respecting the limits of these arece with 
 mathematical precision ; we mark others, after proceeding for 
 a considerable distance in one direction, turn abruptly into 
 another, or break off altogether; and a glance at the condi- 
 tion of the external soil at once explains the cause of the 
 digression. There are traces of some building, or the building 
 itself is still there, at that precise spot, which clearly must 
 have existed before the subterranean excavation, and which 
 the Christians dared not undermine ; or there was some cham- 
 ber or gallery in this or an adjoining Christian cemetery, or 
 some Pagan kypogceum, which stayed their further progress. 
 In a future book we will set before our readers as minute 
 an analysis as our space will allow of one at least of the more 
 remarkable groups of galleries in the cemetery of St Callixtus, 
 which will enable them to appreciate the importance of M. De 
 Rossi's invention. At present we will only enumerate and 
 distinguish those groups, as far as we can, not so much by 
 reference to their construction, as by their inscriptions and 
 other contents. 
 
 Crypt of St The most ancient area included in the Catacomb we are 
 Lucina. ^^^^ examining is that which was once called " the crypt of 
 
 Lucina, 7iear to the cemetery of Callixtus." The original limits 
 of this area can be determined with the greatest precision, in 
 consequence of its having a small Pagan sepulchre on either 
 side of it. Like the tombs of the Scipios, of Cecilia Metella, 
 and other renowned sepulchres on the Via Appia, it occupied 
 a frontage of loo Roman feet, and it extended 230 feet iji 
 agro. Of these 230 feet, the first fifty appear to have been 
 originally left free, thus forming an area in front of 100 feet 
 
Distinctioji of Arece in San Callisto. 123 
 
 by 50, in the centre of which stood tlie monument'"' whose 
 vast ruins still form a striking object from the road. Behind 
 this area extended another [area adjeda mojitimento), and it 
 was beneath this that the earUest Christian excavations were 
 made. The property belonged to some members of the Gens Originally be- 
 Caecilia. We know from Cicero that this was one of the Gens CcecSa. 
 families who had their burial-places on this road ; and about 
 the beginning of this century, columbaria and inscriptions be- 
 longing to other Pagan monuments of the Caecilii, were found 
 at no great distance from this precise spot. It cannot, then, 
 be considered a fortuitous circumstance that in the chambers 
 and galleries of this part of the Catacomb there have come to 
 light epitaphs and other memorials of several Caecilii and 
 Caeciliani, and these not mere freedmen who had adopted the 
 name of the gc?is, but real members of the family, as is dis- 
 tinctly marked by the official adjuncts to their names, vir 
 dai'issiimis^ darissinia ftej/iina or pudla, hoiiesta fcmina, &c. 
 Moreover, we note among the " illustrious dead " who lie in 
 this aristocratic cemetery certain descendants of the Antonines, 
 who were clearly connected with Annia Faustina, the grand- 
 daughter of Marcus Aurelius, and the wife of Pomponius Bassus, 
 and afterwards of Heliogabalus. Now, it is known that these 
 Pomponii Bassi, towards the end of the first century, lived on 
 the Quirinal ; and it can be almost proved that they inherited 
 the house of the celebrated Atticus, the friend and corre- 
 spondent of Cicero, of whom every classical scholar knows 
 that he certainly lived on the Quirinal, and that he passed 
 from the Gens Pomponia to the Gens Caecilia, when he was 
 adopted by his maternal uncle, Q. Caecilius. Hence it is easy 
 to account for the number of Christian epitaphs which have 
 been found here, exhibiting these names mixed in various 
 ways, e.g., more than one Ccxcilius Faustus, a Faustinus Atti- 
 
 * De Rossi considers it probable that even this was originally a Chris- 
 tian monument (R. S. ii. 367), and quotes Tertullian (De Resurrect. 
 Carnis., c. 27) as a witness tliat Christians had mojiunieiita et ji/aiisolra 
 from the first (R. S. i. 210). 
 
124 
 
 Roma Sotten^anca. 
 
 ciis, an Atticianus, a Pompeia Attica, an Attica Casciliana, &:c. 
 
 We have the gravestones also of some heathen members of 
 
 the same family, sawn in two or otherwise defaced, and used 
 
 to close some of the Christian graves. One of these was of a 
 
 Pomponius Bassus, who had lived in the third century, and 
 
 had filled some of the highest offices of the state, been twice 
 
 consul, prefect of Rome, &c., and another of L. Pomponius, 
 
 proconsul of Gallia Narbonensis. 
 
 From the union of all these names on the same spot, and 
 
 under these circumstances, De Rossi ventured to conjecture 
 
 that the Caecilii, to whom this property belonged and who 
 
 were certainly Christian, must have been intimately connected 
 
 with the Pomponii, Attici, and Bassi ; and that possibly the 
 
 Lucina, in whose property the ecclesiastical records state this 
 
 catacomb to have been excavated, may have been the very 
 
 Pomponia Grcecina of whose conversion to Christianity, in 
 
 the year 58, we have already spoken.* We need not say how 
 
 St Lucina frequently this name of Lucina occurs in ancient ecclesiastical 
 probably the , . . .... . . . 
 
 Pomponia history ; it crops up m the history of every persecution, from 
 
 the apostolic age to the days of Constantine, and has been the 
 occasion of no slight confusion, and the subject of many 
 learned discussions, among students of hagiography. De 
 Rossi suggests that the name was a Christian sobriquet (alluding 
 to the illumination of baptism, &c.) rather than a real family 
 name, and that it may have been borne by many Roman 
 matrons m succession without any real connexion of relation- 
 ship between them, these ladies being of course known in 
 society and among their heathen kinsfolk by their pioper 
 family names. When first he threw out the idea of Pomponia 
 Grascina and the first Lucina having been possibly one and 
 the same person, he spoke with extreme caution and reserve. 
 " It is a mere guess," he said ; t " I don't wish to claim for it 
 any value as an argument; perhaps it hardly even deserves the 
 name of a conjecture. But attempts of this kind, violent 
 * Page 39. t R- S. i. 319. 
 
 (IiTecina of 
 A.D. 58. 
 
Distinction of Area; iit San CalHsto. 125 
 
 efforts of the mind, which arouses itself at the faintest ghmmer 
 of hght amid the thick darkness of antiquity, and seeks to rush 
 forward to the acquisition of new truth, may at least serve to 
 awaken attention, and to keep it keenly on the alert for every 
 scrap of additional information which future discoveries may 
 bring to light, and out of which prudent study may extract the 
 full knowledge of historical facts, now only guessed at and 
 offered confuso'' De Rossi wrote thus in his first volume, 
 in 1864. In the middle of the second volume, written early 
 in 1867, he says, with reference to the same subject, that 
 " although his guess has been very favourably received by the 
 learned, yet it must not be taken for more than it is worth, 
 until new and more important monumental discoveries shall 
 place it on a more solid foundation." At the end of the 
 volume, however, he is able to explain what was the monu- 
 mental evidence he desired, and to announce that he had 
 found it. He had no positive evidence either of the relation- 
 ship between the Pomponii Bassi and the Pomponii Graecini, 
 or that the profession of Christianity had prevailed in either 
 family. He now publishes inscriptions, or at least sufficient 
 fragments of inscriptions, found in this cemetery, and belong- 
 ing to the end of the second century, two of which testify to 
 the Christian burial here of Pomponii Bassi, and one of a 
 Pomponius Grsecinus ; and although even now the argument 
 has not the force of demonstration, yet it is impossible to deny 
 that it has a great deal of probability in its favour, and im- 
 possible not to admire the modesty, learning, and ingenuity by 
 wliich it has been supported. 
 
 We shall have occasion to return to these genealogical par- 
 ticulars in a future chapter, as illustrating the fact of Pope 
 Cornelius having been buried here, apart from the other Popes, 
 his immediate predecessors and successors, in the middle of the 
 third century. But before the making of his sepulchre, which 
 involved considerable alterations in its immediate neighbour- 
 hood, two floors of galleries had been already excavated and 
 
Roma Sotte7'ranea. 
 
 Characteris- 
 tics of this 
 area. 
 
 Cemetery of 
 St Callixtus 
 begun before 
 
 A. 1). 200. 
 
 filled. The upper of these floors is not one sixth of the extent 
 of the lower; indeed, it is unusually limited, from the necessity 
 of the case. It had been dug at a depth of not more than 
 twenty feet below the surface ; and as the hill slopes rapidly, 
 the galleries would have run out into the open air, had they 
 continued far upon the same level. The general characteristics 
 of this primitive area of the cemetery are a certain marked 
 uniformity of plan in the form and decoration of the roof, the 
 unusual height of the galleries, and the frequent recurrence of 
 square, narrow chambers, not opposite one another on different 
 sides of the gallery, but opening one out of the other. Most 
 of these chambers are adorned with paintings of a very early 
 style. Only two instances of arcosolia occur, and both of these 
 are in portions of evidently late construction. 
 
 About the time of Marcus Aurelius, in the second half of the 
 second century, another plot of ground, at no great distance 
 from the crypt of St Lucina, was given (apparently by the same 
 family) for the same purpose. It bordered on a road which 
 joined the Via Appia and Via Ardeatina, and its measurement 
 was 250 feet by 100. We shall not enter now upon any de- 
 tailed description either of this or of the next area, as their con- 
 struction and development will form the subject of the more 
 minute analysis already promised, and several of their chapels 
 are of sufficient importance to claim each one a chapter to 
 itself. It will be sufficient to m.ention here, that in the first 
 area, as in the crypts of St Lucina, there are no aibicida opposite 
 to one another, but five or six in a row, opening out of the 
 same side of a broad spacious ambiilaa-iini^ like so many bed- 
 rooms out of the passage of a private house ; and most of 
 them very richly ornamented with symbolical paintings of 
 the highest antiquity and importance. This was the first area 
 of the cemetery of St Callixtus, properly so called, the crypts 
 of St Lucina having, as we have seen, once formed a cemetery 
 by themselves. It contains many tombs of a very peculiar form, 
 such as are to be seen only in one other part of the whole 
 
Distinction of Arece in San Callisto. 127 
 
 cemetery ; — graves having no more than the ordinary opening 
 on the outer side, yet so excavated interiorly, at the cost of 
 infinite labour, as to be capable of containing many bodies. 
 In a second area, measuring 150 feet in f route by 125 in agro, 
 and made not long after the first, we find large crypts on op- 
 posite sides of the pathway, lit by the same luminare. Arcosolia 
 are here very abundant, both in the crypts and galleries. 
 There is not much painting in the chambers, but in some of 
 them we find for the first time traces of their having been 
 faced with slabs of marble. A third area, of the same dimen- 
 sions as the last, seems to have belonged to the days of Dio- 
 cletian, or perhaps a few years earlier. If we may conjecture Enlarged 
 from the family names which occur in this third area of St ^ °" ''^'^ 
 Callixtus', we should be disposed to suspect that it had been 
 given to the church by Anatolia, the wealthy daughter of the 
 Consul T^^milianus. It is certain that he had property in this 
 neighbourhood, and we find here epitaphs of an yEmilius 
 Partenius, an yEmilianus, an ^rnil ... a Tulinus, and a 
 Petronia, which names also belonged to the consul. Moreover, 
 Calocerus and Parthenius, whom ^^milianus had apppointed 
 to be his daughter's guardians, were buried here ; and a paint- 
 ing here, which seems to represent two martyrs or confessors 
 standing before the tribunal of the heathen magistrate, pro- 
 bably has reference to their history. One of the peculiarities 
 of this area, which we do not find in either of those we have 
 described before, is a great variety of representations of the 
 cross, all more or less disguised, yet still to the eyes of the 
 initiated sufficiently significant ; but that which was afterwards 
 adopted as the monogram of Christ's name and the cross 
 combined (the well-known Chi and Rho — the Labarum of 
 Constantine) is not amongst them. This also seems exactly 
 to correspond with the age we have attributed to it ; indeed, 
 the question of chronology is clearly settled by the dates of 
 epitaphs found here,* belonging to the end of the third and 
 
 * The iiKseri])tion of tlie 1 )eaeon Severus, p. 93, ])elongs to this area. 
 
128 
 
 Ro7na Sottein^anea. 
 
 Cemeteries of 
 Sta. Soteris, 
 
 and of 
 
 Sta. Balbina, 
 
 beginning of the fourth century. Once or twice we find here 
 three chambers united instead of two, all receiving light and 
 ventilation from the same luminare ; clearly, for the sake of 
 assemblies, not of burials ; and although we do not see any 
 traces of the seats for the presbytery, or the episcopal chair, 
 hewn out of the rock, as in the somewhat analogous chambers 
 in the so-called cemetery of St Agnes, this is probably because 
 they were made of more costly materials, and moveable from 
 place to place. 
 
 To the same date belongs also the adjoining cemetery of 
 Sta. Soteris, a virgin of the family to which St Ambrose be- 
 longed in a later generation. She had been buried in her own 
 cemetery {ccemeterio siio) a.d. 304 ; and we have already seen 
 that the itineraries spoke of a separate church erected to her 
 honour somewhere in the neighbourhood of St Callixtus', yet 
 distinct from it. The two cemeteries really adjoined one 
 another ; not perhaps in their first beginnings, but in course 
 of time, as each attained its full development, a communi- 
 cation was established between them.* 
 
 The same is to be said also of another cemetery in this 
 neighbourhood, that of Sta. Balbina, which is placed by some 
 of the old itineraries on .the Via Appia, by others on the 
 Ardeatina, and really lies between the two. Bosio and 
 Boldetti erroneously fixed its locality as having been where 
 we have now found the Catacomb of St Callixtus, De Rossi, 
 following his usual guides, determined its situation long since,t 
 but was unable to recover it. His brother fixed his eye on 
 the ruins of an ancient building and some suspicious-looking 
 fissures in the soil, in the precise spot indicated by the archae- 
 ologist; but though he managed to effect an entrance, he 
 found nothing to reward his search. At last, not long since, 
 
 * The several areas of the cemetery of Sta. Soteris have not yet been 
 sufficiently explored to allow of their being described. De Rossi has only 
 mentioned that in the first area everything is on an exceptional scale of 
 grandeur, with double, treble, and even quadruple cii-bicida. 
 
 t R. S. i. 265. 
 
Distinction of Ai^ece in San Cat lis to. 129 
 
 some unusually heavy rains revealed a new opening for him 
 into the bowels of the earth, and this time he was able to 
 wander about for an hour and more in the newly-discovered 
 Catacomb. The Commission of Sacred Archaeology are too 
 much crippled by want of means to be able to pursue the 
 investigation far. Enough, however, has been seen to enable 
 De Rossi to say that the size of the necropolis between the 
 Appian and Ardeatine roads is nearly doubled by the dis- 
 covery ; that the proportions of this subterranean labyrinth 
 surpass all his imaginations founded on previous experience, 
 and fill him with amazement. It is not only of immense 
 extent, but it is excavated on several different levels, has many 
 large crypts, and is illuminated by shafts of grander proportions 
 and more highly-developed architectural forms than any he 
 has found before. In particular, he specifies one liiminare^ 
 not square, but hexagonal or nearly so, which opens on the 
 subterranean excavations with not less than eight rays of light. 
 Two serve to illuminate as many large rectangular chambers, 
 each ending in a circular apse ; two others, the adjacent galleries, 
 which here cross one another at right angles ; and the other 
 four descend upon four long and narrow openings at the 
 corners, which are not yet explored, but which he believes 
 will be found to end in an equal number of cidnciila. Should 
 his anticipation be realised, this will be the largest and most 
 regular group of subterranean crypts that has ever yet been 
 seen. We must remember, however, that this cemetery was 
 considerably enlarged by St Mark, who was Pope a.d. 336, 
 and built a basilica here, in which he was himself buried.* 
 
 * Constantine endowed it with a fundus rosarius, and an adjoining 
 field. The Rosaiio, or strewing with roses, was a rite observed at some 
 pagan tombs on the anniversaries of deaths, and funds were specially set 
 apart for celebrating this dies rosatiouis vel violaiionis, as it was called. 
 This particular fundus rosarius must have been for some reason confiscated 
 to the imperial fiscus, after which Constantine again devoted it to sepul- 
 chral pm-poses, but in a Christian way. 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PAPAL CRYPT. 
 
 Entrance of /"~^ N entering the vineyard, over whose doorway we read 
 the papal I I 
 
 crypt. the words Coemeterhim S. CallixU^ we come first to the 
 
 crypts of St Lucina. It will be more convenient, however, to 
 pass them by for the present, and to go forward to the more 
 modest building which stands before us in the interior of the 
 vineyard. Even of this, however, we do not intend to discuss 
 the history ; we will only remind our readers that whereas it 
 was supposed by Marangoni to have been the basilica which 
 St Damasus provided for the burial of himself, his mother, and 
 sister, and Father Marchi took it to be the Church of St Mark 
 and St Marcellinus (both of which are mentioned in the 
 Itineraries), De Rossi, as we have already had occasion to 
 notice, identifies it as the cella mejnorice, sometimes called of 
 St Sixtus, sometimes of St Cecilia (because built immediately 
 over the tombs of those celebrated martyrs), by St Fabian in 
 the third century,'" 
 
 Graffiti on the As we descend into the interior, by means of an ancient 
 staircase restored, we are struck, at the bottom of the stairs, 
 and still more at the entrance of the first chapel we come to, 
 by the number of graffiti, as they are called^ which cover the 
 walls. It is comparatively a new thing to pay any attention to 
 these rude scribblings of ancient visitors on the walls of places 
 of public resort, and to take pains to decipher them. But of 
 late years many valuable discoveries have been made by means 
 of them, and they have proved to be a most interesting subject 
 * See page 86. 
 
The Papal Crypt. 1 3 1 
 
 of study, whether found on the tombs of Egyptian kings in 
 Thebes, on the walls of the barracks and theatres in Pompeii, 
 in the prisons and cellars of Pagan Rome, or, lastly, in the 
 Christian Catacombs. Here especially they have proved to 
 be of immense importance, being, as De Rossi justly calls 
 them, " the faithful echo of history and infallible guides through 
 the labyrinth of subterranean galleries." Those with which we 
 are at present concerned may be divided into three classes. Of three kinds, 
 They are either the mere names of persons, with the occasional 
 adjunct of their titles ; or they are good wishes, prayers, saluta- 
 tions, or acclamations, on behalf of friends and relatives, living 
 or dead; or, lastly, they are invocations of the martyrs on whose 
 tombs they are inscribed. Numerous specimens of all of these 
 may be easily read on the spot of which we are now speaking. 
 
 Of the names we find two classes ; one, the most ancient i. Names, 
 and most numerous, scribbled in the most convenient and 
 accessible parts of the wall, are names of the old classical 
 type, such as Rufina, Felix, Eustathius, Polyneices, Leo, 
 Maximus, Probinianus, and the like ; the other, belonging 
 manifestly to a somewhat later period, because written high 
 above the first, and in more inaccessible places, are such as 
 Lupo, Ildebrand, Bonizo, Joannes Presb., &:c. &c. 
 
 Prayers or acclamations for absent or departed friends are 2. Prayers, or 
 
 0. C C 1 ill 1 1 tl 1 1 0 11 s 
 
 mixed among the most ancient names, and generally run in ' 
 the same form as the earliest and most simple Christian epitaphs, 
 e.g.^ Vivas, Vivas in Deo Cristo, Vivas in eterno, ZHC en 
 ©EH, BIBAC IN 0En, Te IN PACE, &c. " Mayest thou live 
 in God Christ, for ever, Thee in peace," &c. The feeling 
 which prompted the pilgrims who visited these shrines thus to 
 inscribe in sacred places the names of those they loved and 
 would fain benefit, is natural to the human heart : instances 
 of it may be found even among the heathen themselves. 
 
 * These simple forms have never yet been found on any epitaphs which 
 can be shown to be later than the days of Constantine. On rings and 
 articles of domestic furniture they are sometimes found, even as late as the 
 end of the fourth century. 
 
13^ Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Thus, one Sarapion, son of Aristomachus, having visited the 
 island of Phyle in Egypt, writes there, that " having come to 
 the great Isis, Goddess of Pliyle, he makes a remembrance there 
 of his parents, for their good." Just so, the Christian pilgrims 
 of the third and fourth centuries visiting all the holy places in 
 this Catacomb of St Callixtus, wrote the names of some dear 
 friend or relative, with some pious ejaculation, "for their 
 good." 
 
 Example. One of these it is specially interesting to track, after an in- 
 
 terval probably of fifteen hundred years, along the precise path 
 of his pilgrimage. He had come with his heart full of the most 
 affectionate memory of one Sofronia — whether wife, or mother, 
 or sister, does not appear. Before entering on the vestibule 
 of the principal sanctuary, he wrote, Sofrania, vibas cmn tuis ; 
 then, at the entrance itself, Sofronia^ vivas i?i Domino ; by and 
 by, in larger characters, and almost in the form of a regular 
 epitaph, he scratched on the principal altar-tomb of another 
 chapel, Sofi'onia dulcis, semper vives Deo ; and yet once more 
 he repeats in the same place, Sofronia^ vives^^ where we can 
 hardly doubt but that the change of mood and tense reflected, 
 almost unconsciously perhaps, a corresponding change of 
 inward feeling: the language of fervent love and hope, fed by 
 earnest prayer at the shrines of the saints, had been exchanged 
 at last for the bolder tones of firm, unhesitating confidence. 
 3 Invocation "^^^ besides mere names and short acclamations, there are 
 of martyrs. also in the same place, and manifestly belonging to the same 
 age, prayers and invocations of the martyrs who lay buried in 
 these chapels. Sometimes the holy souls of all the martyrs are 
 addressed collectively, and petitioned to hold such or such an 
 one in remembra.nce, and sometimes this prayer is addressed 
 to one individually ; generally to St Sixtus II., whose name 
 always enjoyed a special pre-eminence in this Catacomb, e.g,^ 
 
 * Sophronia, mayest thou live with thine own. Sophronia, mayest 
 thou live in the Lord. Sweet Sophronia, thou shalt ever live in God. 
 Sophronia, thou shalt live. 
 
The Papal Crypt. 133 
 Marcianum Successum Severum Spirita Sancta* in mente 
 
 HAVETE, ET OMNES FRATRES NOSTROS. PeTITE SpIRITA SaNCTA 
 UT VeRECUNDUS cum SUIS bene NAVIGET. t OtIA petite ET 
 PRO PARENTE ET PRO FRATRIBUS EJUS ; VIBANT CUM BONO. 
 SaNTE SuSTE, in MENTE HABEAS IN HORATIONES AURELIU 
 Repentinu. AIONT2IN EI2 MNIAN EXETAI (for EXETE.) 
 
 Holy souls, have in remembrance Marcianus Successus 
 Severus and all our brethren. Holy souls, ask that Verecundus 
 and his friends may have a prosperous voyage. Ask for rest 
 both for my parent and his brethren ; may they live with good. 
 Holy Sixtus, have in remembrance in your prayers Aurelius 
 Repentinus. Have ye in remembrance Dionysius." 
 
 There is a simplicity and a warmth of affection about these Th 
 brief petitions, which savours of the earliest ages ; they are 
 very different from the dry and verbose epitaphs of the fourth 
 or fifth centuries ; indeed, there is something almost classical 
 about the third, reminding us, says De Rossi, of Horace's 
 Otum Divos rogat in patenti prensus yEgceo ; % and the phrase, 
 which is so frequently repeated in them, in mente habere^ points 
 to the same antiquity. It is found on an inscription in 
 Pompeii, on two Christian epitaphs of the third and fourth 
 centuries, and is used by St Cyprian in one of his letters : 
 " have in mind," he says, our brothers and sisters in your 
 prayers ^ f nitres nostras acsorores in mente habeatis i?i oratio?iibns 
 vestris. These nameless pilgrims made the same petition to 
 the saints in heaven that St Cyprian made to the saints on 
 earth, and perhaps about the same time, or not much later. 
 For it is to be observed that many of these graffiti have been 
 spoilt, cut off in the middle, or rendered otherwise illegible, 
 by the enlargement of the doorway, the renewal of the stucco, 
 and other changes which were made in this chapel by St 
 Fabian, perhaps about the year 245, or St Damasus in 370. 
 
 * In epitaphs of the third century spiritnm, instead of spiritiis, is often 
 used for the soul or spirit of a man. — Insc. Christ., Y. cxii. 
 
 t Optat sibi lit bene navigd is one of the graffiti at Pompeii, publislied 
 l)y P. Garrucci, S.J. X Od. ii. i6. 
 
134 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 One of those that has been thus mutilated is undoubtedly the 
 most ancient of all, for it was written whilst yet the plaster 
 was wet, and it is an apostrophe to one Pontianus, whom De 
 Rossi believes to have been the Pope of this name, brought 
 back from Sardinia, where he had died in exile, and buried in 
 this very chapel by St Fabian. 
 
 There is yet one other inscription on the entrance of the 
 first chapel, of a somewhat different kind, but too remarkable 
 to be passed over. Unhappily the writer never finished it ; 
 but what he did write is easily legible, and abundantly suffi- 
 cient to show the enthusiastic devotion with which his heart 
 was warmed towards the sanctuary on whose threshold he 
 stood. It runs thus, Gerusale civitas et ornamentum Martyriim 
 Dojnini^ cujus . . . The idea present to the writer's mind was 
 evidently the same as we find both in Holy Scripture and in 
 some of the earliest uninspired Christian writers, who not un- 
 frequently speak of the glory of the Church triumphant under 
 the title of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem." He looked 
 upon the chapel he was about to enter as a type or figure of 
 the future Jerusalem. It was adorned and made venerable by 
 the remains of -many martyrs of the Lord, which should one 
 day arise to receive new life and rejoice in His presence for 
 ever. 
 
 Examination The inspection of these graffiti, then, is enough to warn us 
 of papal crypt, ^j^^^^ threshold of a very special sanctuary of the 
 
 ancient Church, and to excite our deepest interest in all that 
 we may find it to contain. Our first impression on entering 
 will probably be one of disappointment. We were led to ex- 
 pect that we were about to visit a Christian burial-place and 
 place of worship of the third or fourth century, but the greater 
 part of the masonry we see around us is manifestly of quite 
 recent construction. The truth is, that when this chamber 
 
 * See Psalm cxxi., 'Apoc, xxi. 2., Tertullian de Spectac, c. xxx. This 
 same writer speaks also of the M^orld as cxprcssus in onicunentHiii majcstatis 
 Dei. — Apolog., c. Nvii. 
 
The Papal Crypt. 1 35 
 
 was rediscovered in 1854, it was in a complete state of ruin ; 
 access was gained to it only through the himmare, which, as 
 usual, had served for many centuries as a channel for pouring 
 into it all the adjacent soil, fragments of grave-stones, decaying 
 brickwork, and every kind of rubbish. When this was re- 
 moved, the vault of the chamber, deprived of its usual support, 
 soon gave way; so that, if any portion of it was to be preserved 
 and put in a condition to be visited with safety, it was abso- 
 lutely necessary to build fresh walls, and otherwise strengthen it. 
 This has been done with the utmost care, and so as still to 
 preserve, wherever it was possible, abundant tokens of the 
 more ancient condition of the chapel and of its decoration in 
 succeeding ages. Thus we are able to trace very clearly three Successive 
 
 . r -1 r ■, T/- periods of 
 
 Stages or conditions ot ornamentation by means of three dif- decoration, 
 ferent coatings of plaster, each retaining some remnant of its 
 original painting. We can trace also the remains of the marble 
 slabs with which, at a later period, the whole chapel was faced; 
 and even this later period takes us back to the earlier half of 
 the fifth century, when, as the Liber Pontificalis tells us, St 
 Sixtus \\\. platoiiiam fecit in Coemeterio Sti Callixti. The frag- 
 ments of marble columns and other ornamental work, which 
 lie scattered about on the pavement, belong probably to the 
 work of St Leo III., the last pontiff of whom we read that he 
 made restorations here before the translation of the relics by 
 Pope Paschal I. Again, the raised step or dais of marble. Ancient altar, 
 which we see directly opposite to us at the further end of the 
 chapel, having four holes or sockets in it, suggests at once the 
 presence here of an altar in former times, supported on four 
 pillars ; but in the wall behind this platform we can still detect 
 the existence of an older and more simple kind of altar — a 
 sepulchre hewn out of the rock, the flat covering of which was 
 once the viensa whereon the holy mysteries were celebrated. 
 It was not a real arcosoiinni, however, but what we have called 
 a table-tomb; moreover, the front of the sepulchre itself was 
 not a mere wall of the rock, so left in the original process of 
 
136 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 excavation, but is an excellent piece of brickwork, precisely 
 such as we find in the crypt of St Januarius in the cemetery of 
 St Praetextatus, and to which we cannot assign a later date than 
 the earliest part of the third century — indeed, it might not im- 
 probably have belonged to the end of the second. The presence 
 of these two"altars seems to tell a tale, which is corroborated by 
 other indications also, too minute to be appreciated without a 
 personal inspection of the locaHty — viz., of some alteration in 
 this or the adjoining chapel made at a very early period, which 
 necessitated the translation of the martyr originally buried in 
 this principal tomb of the cubicnlum ; and De Rossi's conjecture 
 is certainly most ingenious, that this martyr was no other than 
 St Zephyrinus himself, the original designer of the whole ceme- 
 tery, for whom, therefore, the chief place in the first vault 
 might very naturally have been reserved • and that the body of 
 this pope was translated at some early date, before the practice 
 had become common, is proved by what we have already read 
 in one of the old Itineraries, that his body lay /;/ a c/mrch 
 above ground, and (as we learn from another source) St 
 Tharsycius in the same tomb with him. 
 Original epi- Thus, spite of the ruin and the neglect of ages, and spite of 
 onhird^cen?^^ work of restoration which has been thereby made necessary 
 t'-^iy- in our own time, many clear traces still remain both of its 
 
 original condition and of the reverent care with which succes- 
 sive generations of the ancient Church did their best to adorn 
 this chamber. The cause of this extraordinary and long- 
 continued veneration is revealed to us by a few grave-stones 
 which have been recovered from amid the rubbish, and which 
 are now restored, if not to the j^recise spots they originally 
 occupied (which we cannot tell), yet certainly to the laa/h in 
 which they were first placed. An exact copy of them is given 
 on the opposite page. 
 
138 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 We have every reason to believe that these are the original 
 tombstones of St Anteros and St Fabian, who sat in the chair 
 of Peter from a.d. 235 to 250; of St Lucius, who reigned in 
 252 ; and of St Eutychianus, who died nearly thirty years later. 
 De Rossi says so most unhesitatingly, and his special familiarity 
 with ancient Christian epigraphy renders his verdict almost 
 conclusive. The objection that has been urged against them, 
 from their extreme brevity and simplicity, is itself a strong 
 proof of their great antiquity ; nor do we know a single argu- 
 ment of any weight whatever that has been adduced against 
 the claim which De Rossi makes for them. At any rate, 
 whether originals or later copies, they are the epitaphs of four 
 Bishops of Rome in the third century. 
 Rarity of It is a remarkable fact, the full significance of which has only 
 
 bishops!' lately been appreciated, that neither Bosio, Fabretti, Boldetti, 
 nor any other of the ancient explorers of subterranean Rome, 
 ever found an inscription bearing the title of Bishop. It is true, 
 indeed, that in the first age this title had not acquired that de- 
 terminate ecclesiastical sense which it subsequently received. 
 The word had been in use among the Pagans in a wider and 
 more general signification. Among the Greeks, for example, 
 it was used for the president of the athletic sports and public 
 games, and this may have been a sufficient reason, perhaps, 
 for omitting the title on the grave-stones of the first bishops.'^ 
 By the middle of the third century, however, its ecclesiastical 
 sense was well defined, and accordingly we find it here on 
 three out of these four grave-stones of the Popes. The tomb- 
 stones of St Cornelius, also, and of St Eusebius, popes and 
 martyrs, which we shall presently see in this cemetery, are 
 similarly marked ; and in the cemetery of St Alexander, dis- 
 covered fifteen or twenty years ago on the Via Nomentana, at 
 least three epitaphs display the same title. 
 
 The fact that so many have been found in the same place, 
 whereas they have not been found elsewhere, might suggest to 
 * See im^je 65 on the lomljstone of Linus. 
 
The Papal Crypt. 
 
 139 
 
 an intelligent student of archaeology that perhaps it was the 
 practice in the ancient Church to reserve some special place of 
 burial for those who had filled the highest rank in her hierarchy. 
 And this conjecture receives strong confirmation from the fact, 
 which we learn from various sources, that the earliest successors 
 of St Peter (with a very few exceptions, which can generally be 
 accounted for) lay buried each in his own sepulchre, " near Care in tin 
 the body of blessed Peter in the Vatican,"* just as the bishops 
 of Alexandria were buried near the body of St Mark. More- 
 over, it was an object of great jealousy to the several Churches 
 that their bishops should be buried in the midst of them ; 
 their tombs were appealed to as a testimony to the apostolic 
 tradidon and doctrine having come to them through a legiti- 
 mate succession of bishops. Thus Polycrates, Bishop of Ephe- 
 sus, writing to St Victor, carefully enumerates the burial-places 
 in different cities of Asia of the several bishops, " great pillars 
 of the Church " as he calls them, whom he alleges as witnesses 
 in his behalf t Caius, in like manner, disputing against the 
 Cataphrygians at the end of the second century, apj^eals to the 
 tombs of Saints Peter and Paul ; so also Optatus in his con- 
 troversy with the Uonatists. % Hence, if a bishop happened to 
 die at a distance from his own see, his body was ordinarily ^I'heir bod 
 brought home, even at considerable inconvenience; e.g.^ ^^"'^ home'^fiom 
 body of St Eusebius from Sicily; of St Cornelius from Civita 
 Vecchia ; and of St Pontianus from the island of Sardinia. 
 The bodies of all these Popes were brought back to Rome, 
 though two of them at least had died in exile ; for the law dis- 
 tinctly allowed the bodies of exiles to be brought home for 
 interment, provided the Emperor's leave had been first ob- 
 tained, and in the instances here alleged, the translation was 
 
 * See the Lihcr Pontificalis at the end of each pope's life ; also the 
 testimony of the Itinerary, which, after mentioning St Peter's tomb, imme- 
 diately adds, " YA Pontificalis ordo, excepto numcro pauco, /// eodctn loco in 
 tumbis propriis requiescit/'- R. S. i. 141. 
 
 t Euseb. IT. \\. V. 24. 
 
 + Kuseb. II. !-:. ii. 25 ; Opt. lib. ii. c. 5. 
 
140 
 
 Ro7na Sotterranea. 
 
 not made until a change in the imperial policy towards the 
 Church made it possible to obtain such leave. Nor was this 
 translation an honour peculiar to the bodies of deceased 
 Roman Pontiffs. On the contrary, the relics of St Ignatius 
 were restored to Antioch ; the body of Dionysius, Bishop of 
 Milan, was recovered by St Ambrose, and that of St Felix, 
 Bishop of Tiburtium, martyred atVenosa, was returned to Africa. 
 Perhaps, also, this practice furnishes the best explanation 
 which can be given of the attempt made by the Christians of 
 the East to recover the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul. 
 Many foreign There would be always, of course, some exceptions to the 
 in^Rome^"^^^^ practical observance of such a custom as this, and Rome was 
 likely to be the most frequent witness of these exceptions, for 
 bishops were constantly flowing thither from the earliest times, 
 propter potiorem principalitatevi^ as St Irenaeus says, and proofs 
 are not wanting that this was far more common, even in the 
 ages of persecution, than we should have been prepared to 
 expect. Thus we learn from St Cyprian that sixteen bishops 
 from other sees were present in Rome at the election of St 
 Cornelius in the year 251, of whom two at least were from 
 Africa, and two others arrived from the same country not long 
 afterwards; and St Cornelius was able to call together no fewer 
 than sixty to take counsel about the system of discipline to be 
 observed in reconciling apostates. That some foreign bishops, 
 then, should have been overtaken by death during their sojourn 
 in Rome was nothing improbable ; and if their dioceses were 
 unwilling or unable to recover their remains, we may be 
 sure that the Roman Pontiffs would have made honourable 
 provision for their interment.'" Hence we are not sur- 
 prised at finding some traces of bishops, who certainly were 
 not bishops of Rome, even in this very chamber, which we be- 
 
 * It was a decree of the Council of Aries, a.d. 314, that foreign bishops 
 visiting Rome should have a church assigned them for the celebration of 
 the holy sacrifice. — Cone. ArcL, can. xix., apud Collect. Reg. Max., i. 266. 
 See also Euseb. H. E. v. 24, in Jin., on the respect shown to St Polycarp 
 in Rome bv St Anicetus. 
 
The Papal Crypt. 1 4 1 
 
 lieve to have been specially prepared as a place of burial for 
 the popes from the date of its first commencement at the 
 beginning of the third century. Bosio, indeed, and some 
 others, following some editions of the Liber Poiitificalis would 
 place the burials of St Anicetus and St Soter, popes of the 
 middle of the second century, in this Catacomb. But this is 
 certainly an error. In all the older recensions of that book 
 they are placed in the Vatican, where at that time all the 
 popes were buried. The mistake, with reference to St Soter, 
 originated very probably from some confusion of the name 
 with that of St Soteris, virgin and martyr, whose cemetery 
 has been already mentioned as being in this neighbourhood. 
 
 The first pope of whom it is distinctly recorded that he was Popes buried 
 buried in the cemetery of St Callixtus was St Zephyrinus, its "grv!^^ ^^'^^^ 
 chief author. His successor, St Callixtus, who so long pre- Zephyrinus. 
 sided over it, was not buried here, but this was owing to the 
 peculiar circumstances of his death. He did not suffer mar- 
 tyrdom after a judicial sentence and under the penal laws of the 
 government, but privately, and as the result of a popular tumult. 
 He was thrown out of the window of his house in Trastevere, 
 and his body cast into a well, whence it was secretly removed 
 to the nearest cemetery, that of St Calepodius, on the Via 
 Aurelia, which has therefore been sometimes called another 
 cemetery of St Callixtus. Callixtus was succeeded by St Url^an T. 
 Urban, and a broken tombstone was found in this very cham- 
 ber, which had never belonged to a mere ordinary grave in 
 the wall, but had served as the vtensa of an altar-tomb, and 
 bore the letters OVPBANOC E . . .; and although it is com- 
 monly stated that St Urban was buried in the cemetery of 
 St Praetextatus, on the other side of the road, De Rossi be- 
 lieves, as Tillemont, SoUier, and many other men of learning, 
 have believed before him, that there has been a confusion 
 in the old martyrologies, from a very early date, between two 
 bishops of the name of Urban — the one a martyr, who was 
 buried in St Praetextatus, the otiier pope and confessor, buried 
 
142 
 
 Roma Sottei'ranea. 
 
 I'oiitianus. in St Callixtus. The next in order of succession was St Pon- 
 tianus, who, having been banished to Sardinia, there resigned 
 his pontifical dignity," and was succeeded by St Antherus or 
 
 Anteros. Anteros, whose monument we just now saw. He filled the 
 chair of Peter only for a few weeks, and because he diligently 
 sought out the acts of the martyrs in the official records of the 
 ^ Praetor Urbanus, he suffered martyrdom before the death of his 
 
 Fabian. predecessor. His successor, St Fabian, brought the body of 
 
 St Pontianus back to Rome, and buried it in this chapel, 
 where its position, after that of St Anteros, caused some of the 
 early chroniclers to invert the true order of these two popes, 
 and so to introduce an element of endless confusion into the 
 history of those times. The inscription on St Fabian's tomb, 
 besides his name and title, exhibits a monogram, clearly 
 
 intended to denote the fact of his martyrdom. It will be 
 observed that this monogram is not cut nearly so deep as 
 the earlier part of the inscription, and it would seem as 
 though it had been added after the stone was fixed in its 
 place. This suppression of the title of martyr could hardly 
 have been necessary as an act of prudence, since neither the 
 tombstone of St Cornelius in this cemetery, nor that of St 
 Hyacinth in the cemetery of St Hermes, observed the same 
 reticence. De Rossi conjectures that perhaps already it was 
 not lawful to publish this claim on the veneration of the faith- 
 ful without the sanction of the highest authority, which, in the 
 present instance, was delayed for eighteen months, in conse- 
 quence of the Holy See remaining vacant during that period ; 
 in other words, though actually a martyr, St Fabian was not 
 * Discinct;:s is the N\'ord used used in the Lihcr Poiitificalis. 
 
The Papal Crypt. 143 
 
 at once a martyr I'indicatus.'^ Between St Fabian and St lAicius. 
 Lucius intervened St Cornelius, of whose burial we shall have 
 to speak in another chapter. Of St Lucius we have seen the 
 grave-stone, where, however, his name is written AOVKIC, 
 omitting the O. This eUiptic form of termination of a Roman 
 name was one which belonged rather to private than public 
 use ; yet it is found on a few Pagan monuments of about this 
 date, on many graves in the Jewish cemetery, and is quite uni- 
 versal in the Catacombs. Another example of it may be seen 
 on a monument, still lying in its place in the pavement of this 
 very chapel, where AHMETPIC stands for Demetrius. 
 
 The next pope of whom the tombstone has been discovered Eutychianus. 
 among the ^t'^/Wj' of this chapel is St Eutychianus; nevertheless 
 it is recorded of the four who intervened between St Lucius and 
 himself that they also were buried here, and there is no reason 
 to question the truth of the record. Indeed, of one of them, St Sixtus II. 
 Sixtus, we have seen numerous and authentic memorials in the 
 graffiti already examined. He was, par excellence, the martyr 
 of this Catacomb, and of the Catacombs generally; for we have 
 the cotemporary evidence of St Cyprian f that he received the 
 crown of martyrdom in one of them on the 6th of August a.d. 
 258. Valerian and Gallienus had issued a decree in the pre- 
 ceding year forbidding the Christians to assemble in the 
 cemeteries. In defiance of this prohibition, St Sixtus was 
 celebrating mass in the Catacomb of St Praetextatus — probably His martyr- 
 because it was less known and less narrowly watched than the (-^'ticoi^^ih^ 
 Papal Chapel (so to call it) in St Callixtus' — when he was dis- 
 covered and seized by the heathen soldiery, led into the city, 
 and after judgment, brought back again for execution to the 
 scene of his offence, where he was beheaded in his episcopal 
 chair, or at least so near it that it was besprinkled with his 
 blood. Many memorials of his martyrdom may be recognised 
 
 " Optat. de Sch. Don. i. i6. 
 
 t " Xistum incimiterio animadversum sciatis octavo Iduum Augustariim 
 die et cum eo diaconos quatuor." — S. Cyp- Ep. Ixxx., ad Sncccssiim., ed. 
 Leipsic, 1858. 
 
144 
 
 Roma Sotter7'anea. 
 
 in the monuments of the Catacomb of St Prsetextatus — as, for 
 instance, the figure of one sitting in a chair, with a deacon 
 standing by his side, holding a book in his hand, or elsewhere 
 of the chair only; paintings also of St Sixtus, with his name 
 appended. Moreover, a small basilica was built there to mark 
 the spot of his execution. Two of the deacons who suffered 
 with him, Felicissimus and Agapitus, were buried in this ceme- 
 tery; but St Sixtus himself and others of his companions were 
 buried in St Callixtus', where St Damasus afterwards celebrated 
 his memory by the following inscription : — 
 
 " Tempore quo gladius secuit pia viscera Matris 
 Hie positus vector cselestia jussa docebam ; 
 Adveniunt subito, rapiunt qui forte sedentem ; 
 Militibus missis, populi tunc colla dedere. 
 Mox sibi cognovit senior quis tollere vellet 
 Palmam seque suumque caput prior obtulit ipse, 
 Impatiens feritas posset ne \a:dex^ quemquam. 
 Ostendit Christus reddit quz'/rtemia vita; 
 Pastoris meritum, numerum gregis ipse tuetur." 
 
 "■'At the time when the sword [of persecution] pierced the tender heart 
 of Mother [Church], I, the Pope buried here, was teaching the laws of 
 heaven. Oa a sudden came [the enemy], seized me seated as I happened 
 to be in my chair ; the soldiers were sent in ; then did the peo| le give their 
 necks [to the slaughter]. Presently the old man saw who wished to bear 
 away the palm from him, and he was the first to offer himself and his own 
 head, that the hasty cruelty [of the Pagans] might injure no one else. 
 Christ, who renders [to the just] the rewards of life [eternal], manifests the 
 merit of the pastor : He Himself defends the mass of the flock." 
 
 Probably con- This inscription alludes to circumstances of the incident it 
 
 founded with j-gcords, which were doubtless famiHar to those for whom he 
 that of St ' 
 
 Stephen. wrote, but the memory of which has now unhappily perished. 
 
 It does not even mention the name of the Pope whose martyr- 
 dom it celebrates, and hence, the whole history has been trans- 
 ferred in some of the spurious Acts of the Martyrs — for 
 what reason we cannot now determine — from St Sixtus to his 
 predecessor, St Stephen. We cannot doubt, however, that De 
 Rossi is right in reclaiming it for St Sixtus, partly on the 
 strength of the cotemporary testimony of St Cyprian already 
 quoted, partly on that of the graffiti at the doorway and else- 
 
The Papal Crypt. 145 
 
 where in the neighbourhood of this subterranean sanctuary, 
 showing the marked pre-eminence in which the memory of St 
 Sixtus was held in reverence here from the very earhest times, 
 and still more, perhaps, after following him through a critical 
 examination of all the notices on the subject which have come 
 down to us in the martyrologies, itineraries, and other ancient 
 monii7ne7tta of Church history. These, however, are too 
 minute to be handled in this place. Nor is their testimony 
 really needed ; what has been already alleged, coupled with 
 the fact that this inscription of Pope Damasus was set up in 
 this very chapel, scarcely leaves room for doubt ; and that it 
 was so set up, two small fragments of the stone itself have 
 survived to tell us. It is true that they scarcely contain ten 
 perfect letters out of the three or four hundred which formed 
 the whole inscription — they are the few which we have printed 
 in italics — nevertheless, being of the i)eculiar Damasine type, 
 it is impossible to question their identity. 
 
 Next to St Eutychianus came St Caius in the list of Popes ; St Caius. 
 and though we have no monument to produce of his burial 
 in this cemetery, the ancient authorities have recorded it. 
 That St MarceUinus had especial charge over this same ceme- 
 tery, and directed excavations that were made in it, we have 
 already seen very interesting proof; nevertheless, neither he 
 nor his successor, St Marcellus, was buried in it ; they were 
 both buried in the cemetery of St Priscilla, on the Via Salara. 
 The cause of this change is at once explained by reference to 
 the history of the times. Diocletian had now confiscated all 
 the cemeteries that were known, and the fisctis had taken 
 possession of them ; access, therefore, to the most public and 
 notorious of all the Catacombs was no longer possible. Not 
 only would the Christians cease to assemble and to bury there, 
 but, it is probable also that precautions would be taken to pro- 
 tect so precious a sanctuary as the sepulchre of the Popes from 
 falling into the hands of the heathen. It would have been 
 * Sec i);ige 93. 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 Roma ,Soiterra?iea. 
 
 Traces of the easy to do this either by blocking up the approaches by means 
 persecution. C)f earth taken from the adjacent galleries, or in some other 
 way; and it is at least a curious coincidence, if it be not 
 rather an almost convincing proof of the accuracy of this con- 
 jecture, that Michele De Rossi has been persuaded — merely 
 by an examination of the monuments of the place, from an 
 architectural point of view — that all the galleries in the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood of this sanctum sandoi'iun were actually 
 blocked up in this way, during some time or other in the ages 
 of persecution. He can even point to the staircase in the tufa, 
 whose lower steps were all cut off, thereby rendering the whole 
 inaccessible. Moreover, if we accept this theory, it is at once 
 accounted for why the next two Popes, St Eusebius and St 
 Melchiades, though buried in the cemetery of St Callixtus 
 after its restoration to the Christians, yet did not occupy graves 
 in the Papal vault, but lay each in his own ciibiciilum apart. 
 Maxentius did not indeed restore the loca ecclesiastica until 
 after the death of Eusebius ; but that Pontiff died an exile in 
 Sicily, and his body was only brought back to Rome some 
 years afterwards by his successor, just as Pontian's had been 
 by Fabian, It was then buried in a very fine crypt, especially 
 prepared for it, of which we shall have to speak presently. 
 Melchiades Melchiades, too, we are told by some of the ancient authori- 
 bmied^rthe buried in another separate crypt; and although we 
 
 Catacomb. cannot now with any certainty identify it, it seems extremely 
 probable that it is the one pointed out by De Rossi, and that 
 the top or cover of the sarcophagus in which he lay is that 
 which may still be seen on the floor of one of the crypts not 
 far from the Papal vault. 
 
 With St Melchiades, the long succession of martyred Popes 
 comes to a close ; and a new era opens in the history of Chris- 
 tianity from St Sylvester. New customs are now of necessity 
 introduced, or old ones are at least considerably modified. 
 Christian sepulchres are made freely above ground ; small 
 basilicas or mausoleums are erected for the purpose ; and we 
 
The Papal Crypt. 147 
 
 have already seen that St Sylvester himself, St Mark, St Julius, 
 and even St Damasus, were all buried in oratories of this kind, 
 placed near the entrance of the Catacombs, but not within 
 them. Our history, therefore, of the Papal Crypt, as a place 
 of burial, is now complete, and we shall not attempt to draw 
 out any history of the changes it underwent, either in its form 
 or its decorations, to fit it for its use as a sanctuary. 
 
 De Rossi has given his readers a beautiful sketch of the 
 chapel, as he believes it to have been after its completion 
 (Plate XV.) ; reminding them, at the same time, that this 
 " restoration " is no mere product of his own fancy, void of 
 all authority. On the contrary, it has been suggested in nearly 
 all its details — in some it is even required — by what may still 
 be recognised amid the wreck of its former splendour, e. g., the 
 bases of the pillars and the monuments at the sides remain in 
 their original places, portions of the columns and of the marble 
 lattice-work were found lying upon the ground, &c. &c. 
 But for these and many other particulars we must refer to De 
 Rossi's own work, which here, as often elsewhere, refuses to 
 be abridged. 
 
 We must not, however, take our leave of this most interest- Inscription of 
 ing chapel without making a few remarks on one part of the hi^Ji^^is^crypt"^ 
 restoration at least, which is unquestionably correct — the 
 Damasine inscription. We shall find ourselves much better 
 able to appreciate its meaning now than when first we saw it 
 on our entrance into the ciibicuhim. 
 
 Hie congesta jacet quseris si turba Piorum, 
 Corpora Sanctorum retinent veneranda sepulclira, 
 Sublimes animas rapuit sibi Regia Coeli : 
 Hie comites Xysti portant qui ex hoste tropaea ; 
 Hie numerus procerum servat qui altaria Christi ; 
 Hie positus longa vixit qui in pace Saeerdos ; 
 Hie Confessores saneti quos Grseeia misit ; 
 Hie juvenes, puerique, senes castique nepotes, 
 Quis mage virgineum plaeuit retinere pudorem. 
 Hie fateor Damasus volui mea eondere membra, 
 Sed cineres timui sanetos vexare Piorum. 
 
148 
 
 Roma Sottcrranca. 
 
 " Here, if you would know, lie heaped together a whole crowd of holy 
 ones. 
 
 These honoured sepulchres inclose the bodies of the saints, 
 Their noble souls the palace of Heaven has taken to itself. 
 Here lie the companions of Xystus, who bear away the trophies 
 
 from the enemy ; 
 Here a number of elders, who guard the altars of Christ ; 
 Here is buried the Priest, who long lived in peace ; 
 Here the holy Confessors whom Greece sent us ; 
 Here lie youths and boys, old men, and their chaste offspring, 
 Who chose, as the better part, to keep their virgin chastity. 
 Here I, Damasus, confess I wished to lay my bones, 
 But I feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints." 
 
 Vast number In the first lines, the poet seems to alkide to a number of 
 of martyrs 1 
 improbable. 
 
 of martyrs not laid together in one large tomb, such as we know 
 
 from Prudentius," were to be seen in some parts of the Roman 
 Catacombs ; and it is a singular fact that whereas both of the 
 old itineraries which we quoted in the beginning of this book 
 speak, the one of 80, the other of 800, martyrs in imme- 
 diate connection with this part of the cemetery, a pit of extra- 
 ordinary depth is still to be seen in the corner of this very 
 chapel, before we pass on to St Cecilia's. Such a number of 
 concurrent testimonies make it worth while to pause and con- 
 sider the subject somewhat more attentively. It is common, 
 indeed, with a certain class of writers, to set these statements 
 on one side as manifest and absurd exaggerations ; and yet the 
 language of Prudentius is precise, and an accurate knowledge 
 of the laws and customs of Pagan Rome predisposes us to 
 accept it as a literal statement of the truth. Prudentius sup- 
 poses his friend to have asked him the names of those who 
 had shed their blood for the faith in Rome, and the epitaphs 
 {iituli) inscribed on their tombs. He replies that it would be 
 very difficult to do this, for that the relics of the saints in Rome 
 are innumerable ; that so long as the city continued to worship 
 their Pagan gods, their wicked rage slew vast multitudes of 
 the just. On many tombs, indeed, he says, you may read the 
 name of the martyr, and some short inscription, but there are 
 * Pcristej)h. xi. 117. 
 
The Papal Crypt. 149 
 
 also many others which are silent as to the name, and only 
 express the number. " You can ascertain the number which 
 lie heaped up together" {congestis corpora acervis), but nothing 
 more ; and he specifies in particular one grave, in which he 
 learnt that the relics of sixty men had been laid, whose names 
 were known only to Christ as being His special friends. Let 
 us put side by side with this a narrative from the Annals of 
 Tacitus,''' and we shall be satisfied that such wholesale butchery 
 of those whom the law condemned was by no means improb- 
 able. It appears that it had been provided by the ancient 
 law of Rome that, if a master was ever murdered by his slave, 
 all his fellow-slaves were to suffer death together with the 
 culprit. Such a murder happened in the year a.d. 62, of one 
 Pedanius Secundus, who had lately been the Prefect of the 
 city, and who was the master of four hundred slaves. The 
 innocence of the great majority of these slaves was notorious, 
 and this, coupled with the unusual number of the victims, 
 created a considerable excitement among the people. The 
 matter was discussed in the Senate, and some of its members 
 ventured to express compassion, and to deprecate the rigorous 
 execution of the law. It was decided, however, apparently by 
 a very large majority, that the law should take its course 
 {nihil nmtaiiduin)^ and Avhen the people threatened violence, 
 the troops were called out, the whole line of road was guarded 
 by them, and the unhappy four hundred were put to death at 
 once. Tacitus has recorded the speech of one of those who 
 took the chief part in the debate, and his language and argu- 
 ments are precisely those which we can imagine to have been 
 used again and again in the second and third centuries by 
 orators persuading a general persecution of the Christians. 
 " Now that we have nations amongst us," said Cassius, " who 
 have different rites and ceremonies, a foreign religion, or per- 
 haps no religion at all, it is impossible to keep such a rabble 
 {conluviem isfain) under restraint in any other way than by 
 * Tac. An., xiv. 43 -45- 
 
Rvma Sotterranea. 
 
 fear. True, indeed, some innocent persons will perish with 
 the guilty. But, wherever it is necessary to make some 
 striking example of severity for the public good, there will 
 be always incidental injustice to certain individuals." Nor 
 is this the only testimony that could be alleged upon this 
 point. We will only add, however, that of Lactantius, or the 
 author of De Mortibus Persecutoi^um^ who was at least a co- 
 temporary witness of what he describes, and who tells us 
 that when the number of Christians condemned was very 
 great, they were not executed singly, but surrounded by fire 
 on all sides, and thus burnt together [gregatim ambiirebantnry^ 
 This explains to us how it was possible for the relics of so 
 many to have been buried in one grave. On the whole, there- 
 fore, we conclude that there seems to be no solid reason for 
 calling in question the truth of what ancient authorities gener- 
 ally have told us on this subject, however difficult it may 
 be, in this or that particular instance, to verify the number 
 recorded. 
 
 Of the companions of St Sixtus, and of the many Popes who 
 had been buried in this chapel, and whom the inscription of 
 Damasus next commemorates, we have already given a full 
 account, nor will our readers have any difficulty in recognising 
 St Melchiades in the priest, or bishop {Sacerdos), " who had 
 enjoyed a long life of peace," after the persecutions had ceased. 
 " The confessors sent from Greece," are to be found in the 
 various martyrologies, and the names of some are enumerated 
 by De Rossi as Hippolytus, Adrias, Maria, Neo, and Paulina. 
 Of the remainder, their names are " in the Book of Life," but 
 no distinct memorial of them remains on earth. 
 
 * C. XV. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CRYPT OF ST CECILIA. 
 
 A NARROW doorway, cut somewhat irregularly through Chapel of St 
 the rock in the corner of the Papal Crypt, introduces 
 us at once into another chamber. As we pass through this 
 doorway we observe that the sides w^ere once covered with 
 slabs of marble, and the arch over our heads adorned with 
 mosaics. The first impression we receive from this chamber is 
 one of strong contrast with what we have just left behind us. 
 The room is much larger : it is nearly 20 feet square (the 
 other had been only 14 by 11); it is irregular in shape, 
 and has a wide luminare over it, completely flooding it with 
 light ; yet we see no altar-tomb, no cotemporary epitaphs of 
 popes or martyrs, nor indeed anything else which at once 
 engages our attention and promises to give us any valuable 
 information. Perhaps a more careful examination may detect 
 objects of interest still remaining on the walls; but if we would 
 understand and enjoy them when they are found, it is necessary 
 that our minds should first be stored with some knowledge of 
 the history of St Cecilia, before whose tomb we are. This 
 confident statement may perhaps provoke a smile in some of 
 our readers, who know that the sceptical criticism of the last 
 century endeavoured to throw a doubt upon the existence of 
 such a martyr ; or would insist, at least, on transferring the 
 scene of her history from Rome to Sicily. Moreover, we have 
 just now seen the announcement of a French archbishop in the 
 fifteenth century, bidding us venerate the grave of St Cecilia in 
 the cemetery at St Sebastian's, more than a quarter of a mile 
 
Roma S otter ra7ica. 
 
 off. What fresh knowledge, then, has been gained since that 
 time, which enables us not only to detect his error, but also to 
 insist with confidence upon the correctness of our own assertion 
 in its stead ? And is there no danger of later critics rising up 
 to set aside our judgment as peremptorily as we are setting 
 aside those of our predecessors? We hope thoroughly to 
 satisfy our readers on these questions before we leave this 
 chapel; but first we must set before them, as we have said, 
 some sketch of the legend of St Cecilia. 
 History of St The Acts of her Martyrdom, as they have come down to us, 
 ^^"^ cannot lay claim to any higher antiquity than the fifth century ; 
 
 and yet, though their corruption and interpolation be freely 
 admitted, recent discoveries have proved that they are unques- 
 tionably true in all their chief features, and in many even of 
 their minutest details. We shall, therefore, first give as much 
 of the legend as is necessary for our purpose, in its popular 
 form, and then point out the few but important particulars in 
 which sound criticism obliges us to correct them. 
 
 St Cecilia, then, was a maiden of noble blood, born of 
 parents of senatorial rank ; the language of the Acts is most 
 precise upon this point, using the exact technical words which 
 distinguished her xd.x\\—~Iiigenua^ nobilis, darissima. She had 
 been brought up a Christian from her earliest infancy, having 
 probably a Christian -mother. Her father, however, must have 
 been a pagan, for the saint was given in marriage to a young 
 patrician of very amiable and excellent dispositions, but a 
 pagan, named Valerian. St Cecilia had already consecrated 
 herself by secret vow to the service of her Lord in the state of 
 virginity ; and on the day of her marriage she persuaded her 
 husband to visit Pope Urban, lying hid in a cemetery on the 
 Appian Way, by whom he was instructed and baptized. So 
 also was his brother, Tiburtius. These two were presently 
 martyred for refusing to offer sacrifice to the gods, and 
 Maximus, the officer who presided at their execution, was so 
 moved by their constancy, that he too was brought to the faith, 
 
Crypt of St Cecilia. 153 
 
 and received the crown of martyrdom with them. These all 
 were buried in the Catacomb of St Praetextatus, where, as we 
 have seen, the ancient pilgrims thought them worthy of special 
 mention. Cecilia still lived, and as Almachius thought it best 
 that her punishment should be as secret as possible, he ordered 
 that she should be shut up in the Caldariuin^ or room of the 
 warm bath in her own palace, and that the pipes with which 
 the walls on all sides were perforated, should be heated to such 
 a degree as to cause suffocation. Instances of this kind of 
 secret execution are very common in Roman history, whenever 
 it was thought desirable, for any reason, to avoid publicity. 
 Cecilia entered the room appointed her; the furnace was 
 heated "seven times more than it was wont to be heated;" 
 she remained there for a whole day and night, yet at the end 
 of the time it was found that, as w-ith the Three Children in the 
 fiery furnace, so now with this virgin, " the fire had no power 
 over her body, nor was a hair of her head singed, neither were 
 her garments changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on 
 her." No sweat stood upon her brow, no lassitude oppressed 
 her limbs, but she was sound and whole as at the beginning. 
 When this unlooked-for intelligence was conveyed to the pre- 
 fect, he sent one of the lictors with orders to strike off her 
 head. He found her in the very room of her victory, and 
 proceeded at once to accomplish his errand. Three times did 
 the axe fall upon her tender neck, inflicting deep and mortal 
 wounds, but, whether it was that the sight of so young and 
 noble a victim unnerved the heart of the executioner, or 
 whether his hand was supernaturally stayed by the hand of 
 God, certain it is that his work was not complete, and as 
 the law did not allow more than three strokes to be given, he 
 went away, leaving her yet alive, though bathed in her own 
 blood. The manner of death having been thus changed, it 
 was no longer necessary, that the door of the chamber in 
 which she lay should be kept' closed ; and as soon, there- 
 fore, as the executioner had withdrawn, the faithful of her 
 
154 
 
 Roma Sotterra7iea. 
 
 house and neighbourhood flocked in to receive the last breath 
 of the dying martyr. They found her stretched upon the 
 marble pavement, calmly awaiting the moment of her release, 
 and as they crowded round her, dipping their handkerchiefs or 
 any other piece of linen they could find in her sacred blood, 
 that they might reverently collect it all as blood that had been 
 spilt for the love of Jesus, and was therefore precious in His 
 sight, she spoke to all according to their several needs. 
 For two days and nights she continued in this state, hovering, 
 as it were, between life and death ; and on the third morning 
 the venerable Pope Urban — it is necessary again to remind 
 our readers that we are only repeating what is written in the 
 Acts — came to bid farewell to his beloved daughter. " I have 
 prayed," she said, " that I might not die during these three 
 days, until I had first had an opportunity of recommending to 
 your Blessedness" — the title by which the popes were then ad- 
 dressed, just as we now address them as "your Holiness" — 
 " the poor, whom I have always nourished, and of giving you 
 this house, to the intent that it may be made a church for 
 ever." The bishop had no sooner signified his assent to her 
 dying requests, and given her his blessing, than, turning her 
 face towards the ground, and letting her arms and hands fall 
 gently together upon her right side, she breathed forth her 
 pure spirit, and passed into the presence of her God. That 
 same evening her body was placed in a rough coffin of cypress- 
 wood,* just in the attitude in which she had died ; and Urban 
 and his deacons bore it out of the city into the cemetery of St 
 Callixtus, where he buried her in a chamber "near his own 
 colleagues, the bishops and martyrs." 
 Body of St Such is the legend of St Cecilia's martyrdom. The history 
 lated^by^Pas- relics is Still more remarkable and equally important to 
 
 chal I., A.D. Q^^j. narrative. Pope Paschal I. succeeded to the see of Peter 
 
 * The use of a coffin was very unusual among the early Christians, at 
 least among those who were buried in the Catacombs ; nevertheless, there 
 are arguments which oblige us to believe that one was used on this occa- 
 sion. 
 
Crypt of St Cecilia. 1 5 5 
 
 in January A.D. 817, and in the following July he translated 
 into different churches in the city the relics of 2300 martyrs, 
 collected from the various suburban cemeteries, which at that 
 time were lying in a deplorable state of ruin. Amongst the 
 relics thus removed were those of the popes from the Papal 
 Crypt we have just described. He had wished to remove at 
 the same time the relics of St Cecilia, but he could not dis- 
 cover her tomb ; so at length he reluctantly acquiesced in 
 the report that her body had been carried off by Astulfus, 
 the Lombard king, by whom Rome had been besieged and 
 these cemeteries plundered.* Some four years afterwards, 
 however, St Cecilia appeared to him in a dream or vision — it 
 is Paschal himself who tells us the story,t as well as his co- 
 temporary biographer, the continuator of the Liber Pontificalis 
 — and told him that when he was translating the bodies of the 
 popes, she was so close to him that they might have conversed 
 together. In consequence of this vision he returned to the 
 search, and found the body where he had been told. It was 
 fresh and perfect as when it was first laid in the tomb, and clad 
 in rich garments mixed with gold, with linen cloths stained with 
 blood rolled up at her feet, lying in a cypress coffin. 
 
 Paschal himself tells us that he lined the coffin with fringed 
 silk, spread over the body a covering of silk gauze, and then, 
 placing it within a sarcophagus of white marble, deposited it 
 under the high altar of the Church of Sta. Cecilia in Trastevere. 
 
 Nearly eight hundred years afterwards, Cardinal Sfondrati, Found incor- 
 of the title of St Cecilia, made considerable alterations in the ^^^l'*- ^59! 
 church, and in course of his excavations in the sanctuary, he 
 came upon a wide vault beneath the altar. Two marble sar- 
 cophagi met his eyes. Trustworthy witnesses had been already 
 summoned, and in their presence one of these sarcophagi was 
 opened. It was found to contain a coffin of cypress-wood. The 
 
 * See page io6. 
 
 t This vision forms the subject of an old fresco, some fragments of which 
 may still be seen at the end of the Church of Sta. Cecilia in Trastevere. 
 
'56 
 
 Roma Sottcrranca, 
 
 cardinal himself drew back the coffin-hd. First appeared the 
 precious lining and silk gauze with which Paschal had covered 
 the body nearly eight centuries before. Its colour had faded, 
 but the fabric was still entire, and through its transparent folds 
 could be seen the shining gold of the robes in which the martyr 
 herself was clothed. After pausing a few moments, the cardinal 
 gently removed this silken covering, and the virgin form of St 
 Cecilia appeared in the very same attitude in which she had 
 breathed her last on the pavement of the house in which the 
 spectators were then standing, and which neither Urban nor 
 Paschal had ventured to disturb. She lay clothed in her robes 
 of golden tissue, on which were still visible the glorious stains 
 of her blood, and at her feet were the linen cloths mentioned by 
 Pop^ Paschal and his biographer. Lying on her right side, 
 with her arms extended in front of her body, she looked like 
 one in a deep sleep. Her head, in a singularly touching 
 manner, was turned round towards the bottom of the coffin ; 
 her knees were slightly bent, and drawn together. The body 
 was perfectly incorrupt, and by a special miracle retained, after 
 more than thirteen hundred years, all its grace and modesty, 
 and recalled with the most truthful exactness Cecilia breathing 
 forth her soul on the pavement of her bath. * 
 
 A more signal vindication of the Church's traditions; a more 
 consohng spectacle for a devout Catholic, mourning over the 
 schisms and heresies of those miserable times ; a more striking 
 commentary on the Divine promise, " The Lord keepeth all 
 the bones of His servants; He will not lose one of them I"t it 
 would be difficult to conceive. One is not surprised at the 
 profound sensation which the intelligence of this discovery 
 created in the Paternal City. 
 
 Pope Clement VHL, at that time sick at Frascati, deputed 
 Cardinal Baronius to make a careful examination of the pre- 
 
 * De Rossi has himself assisted at the translation of a body from the 
 Catacombs to a church two miles distant, lying on the marble slab on 
 which it was found, without the least displacement of a single bone. — 
 R. S. ii. 127. t Psalm xxxiii. 21. 
 
Crypt of St Cecilia. 157 
 
 cious remains, and both he and Bosio have left accounts of 
 what they witnessed. All Rome came to satisfy its curiosity 
 and devotion for the space of four or hve weeks, during which 
 the virgin martyr lay exposed for veneration \ and when the 
 tomb was again closed, on St Cecilia's day, the Pope himself 
 sang the Mass, Cardinal Sfondrati erected the beautiful high- 
 altar which now stands over the saint's tomb, and beneath it 
 he placed a statue by Maderna, who had frequently seen the 
 body, as the inscription intimates. 
 
 " EN TIBI SANCTISSLM^ VIRGINIS C^CILI^ IMAGINEM QUAM 
 IPSE INTEGRAM IN SEPULCHRO JACENTEM VIDI, EAMDEM TIBI 
 PRORSUS EODEM CORPORIS SITU HOC MARMORE EXPRESSI." 
 
 " Behold the image of the most holy Virgin Cecilia, whom I myself saw- 
 lying incorrupt in her tomb. I have in this marble expressed for thee the 
 same Saint in the very same posture of body." 
 
 Fic;. 17. — MnderiKi' s S fat tee of St Ccciiin. 
 
 An engraving also was published at the same time — a few 
 copies of which may yet be found in foreign libraries, {e.g.^ at 
 Carpentras, among the MSS. of Peiresc, a cotemporary) — with 
 the inscription, Hoc habitu iiwenta est. 
 
 It has no special bearing upon our subject, yet we cannot 
 help adding that in the other sarcophagus which we mentioned 
 as having been found by Sfondrati, and which, according to the 
 tradition, ought to have contained the bodies of Saints Tibur- 
 tius, Valerian, and Maxiraus (translated from St Praetextatus'), 
 the remains of three bodies were seen, two of which, ap- 
 parently of tlie same age and size, had manifestly been 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 beheaded, whilst the skull of the third was broken, and the 
 abundant hair upon it was thickly matted with blood, as 
 though the martyr had been beaten to death by those pbimbaice 
 or leaded scourges of which Prudentius and others tell us, and 
 of which a specimen has been found in the Catacombs even 
 in our own times,'^ and which the Acts of St Cecilia's martyr- 
 dom distinctly state to have been the instrument of the death 
 of St Maximus. 
 
 Critical exami- And now we must confront the whole of this marvellous 
 nation of the . . . , , ^ , . 
 
 crypt. narrative with the actual monuments of the cemetery, so lar as 
 
 they still exist, and can be made to throw any light upon it. 
 We have seen that the Acts assert that Pope Urban had 
 buried the Virgin Martyr near to his own colleagues. Both 
 the itineraries which we quoted at the beginning t mention her 
 grave, immediately before, or immediately after, those of the 
 Popes. Pope Paschal says that he found her body quite close 
 to the place whence he had withdrawn the bodies of his saintly 
 predecessors. Are all these topographical notices true or 
 false ? This is the question which must have agitated the 
 mind of De Rossi when he discovered that there was a second 
 chamber immediately contiguous to that in which the Popes 
 Its discovery had been buried, and we may easily imagine the eagerness 
 by De Rossi, with which he longed to penetrate it. But this could not be 
 done at once. The chapel was full of earth, even to the very 
 top of the liiminare^ and all this soil must first be removed 
 through the luminare itself As the work of excavation pro- 
 ceeded, there came to light, first, on the wall of the luminai'e, 
 the figure of a woman in the usual attitude of p;ayer, but of 
 this both the outlines and colour were too indistinct to enable 
 him to identify it. Below this there appeared a Latin cross 
 between two sheep. These also were much faded. Still 
 Paintings in lower down the wall — the wall, that is, of the lwni7iai'e, not of 
 the iuininaie, chamber itself — he came upon the figures of three saints, 
 executed apparently in the fourth, or perhaps even the fifth 
 * R. S. ii. 164. t See pages iii, 113. 
 
Crypt of St Cecilia. 159 
 
 century ; but they were all of men, and their names inscribed 
 
 at the side showed no trace of any connection with the history 
 
 of St Cecilia. They were Policamus, whose martyrdom was 
 
 proclaimed by a palm-branch springing up by his side, Sabas- 
 
 tianus, and Curinus, this last having his head tonsured with 
 
 the corona usually found on episcopal portraits of that period. 
 
 De Rossi had never had any reason to expect a representation 
 
 of either of these saints near the tomb of St Cecilia. It will 
 
 save us from some embarrassment, therefore, if we postpone 
 
 what we have to say about them for the present, and proceed 
 
 with our work of clearance of the whole chamber. 
 
 As we come nearer to the floor, w e find upon the wall, close and on the 
 
 wall of the 
 
 to the entrance from the burial-place of the popes, a painting crypt, 
 which may be attributed, perhaps, to the seventh century, of a 
 woman, richly attired, and ornamented with bracelets and 
 necklaces, such as might be looked for in a high-born and 
 wealthy Roman bride, and might well be intended to repre- 
 sent St Cecilia. Still further down, upon the same wall, we 
 come to a niche such as is found in some other parts of the 
 Catacombs to receive the large shallow vessel of oil, or 
 precious unguents, which, in ancient times, were used to feed 
 the lamps burning before special shrines. At the back of this 
 niche is a large head of our Lord, represented according to 
 the Byzantine type, and with rays of glory behind it in the 
 form of a Greek cross. Side by side with this, but on the flat 
 surface of the wall, is a figure of St Urban, in full pontifical 
 dress, with his name inscribed. 
 
 Examination of these paintings shows that they were not the Signs of more 
 • • 1 r t • • • ^ ^ ^ . . ancient decor- 
 
 origmal ornaments of this place. The paintmg of St Cecilia ations. 
 
 was executed on the surface of ruined mosaic work, portions 
 
 of which may still be easily detected. The niche in which our 
 
 Lord's head is painted bears evident traces of having once 
 
 been encased with marble, and both it and the figure of St 
 
 Urban can hardly have been executed before the tenth or 
 
 eleventh century. The continued renewal of ornamentation 
 
i6o 
 
 Roma Sotte7'i^anea. 
 
 in any part of the Catacombs, especially if prolonged beyond 
 the eighth and ninth centuries, is a sure mark of high religious 
 and historical interest attaching to that particular spot ; and 
 when we add that immediately by the side of these paintings 
 is a deep recess in the wall, capable of receiving a large sarco- 
 phagus, and that between the back of this recess, and the back 
 of one of the papal graves in the adjoining chamber, there is 
 scarcely an inch of rock, we think the most sceptical of critics 
 will confess that we have here certainly recovered a lost thread 
 of tradition, and may claim to have discovered the original 
 resting-place of one of the most ancient and famous of Rome's 
 virgin saints. 
 
 Here was the It will be asked, however, if this is really the place where 
 original tomb _ 
 
 of St Cecilia, Cecilia was buried, and if Paschal really visited the adjoin- 
 ing chapel, how is it possible that he could have had any diffi- 
 culty in finding her tomb ? To this we may reply by remind- 
 ing our readers of the condition in which the Catacombs were 
 at that time. These translations of relics were being made, 
 because the cemeteries in which they lay were utterly ruined. 
 Moreover, it is possible that the doorway, or the recess, or 
 both, may have been walled up or otherwise concealed, for 
 the express purpose of baffling the search of the sacrilegious 
 Lombards. Nor is this mere conjecture. Among the debris 
 of this spot De Rossi has found several fragments of a wall, 
 too thin ever to have been used as a means of support, but 
 manifestly serviceable as a curtain of concealment ; and, 
 although, with tliat perfect candour and truthfulness which 
 so enhances all his other merits, he adds that these fragments 
 seem to him to bear tokens of a later date, this does not show 
 that there had not been another wall of the same kind at an 
 earUer period, and he is also able to quote from his own ex- 
 perience the instance of an arcosoliuui in the Catacomb of St 
 Pr^etextatus thus carefully concealed by the erection of a wall. 
 
 Evidence of However, be the true explanation of this difficulty what 
 
 this from in- . . ... i n j ^ 
 
 scriptions. it may, our ignorance on this subject cannot be allowed to 
 
Crypt of St Cecilia. 1 6 1 
 
 outweigh the expHcit testimony of Paschal, and the abundant 
 corroborations which it receives both from ancient and modern 
 sources. Not the least important among these is the number 
 of epitaphs that have been found here belonging to the Caecilii 
 and other noble families connected with them by ties of blood or 
 marriage. These are so numerous that we cannot doubt that 
 this cemetery was originally the private property of \hdXge7is, 
 and that the Saint herself belonged to it. There is a grave- 
 stone even now lying in the pavement of this chamber, which 
 seems to offer some testimony on the subject. It is to the 
 memory of one Septimus Pretextatus Ceecilianus, a " servant of 
 God, who had lived worthy [of his vocation] for three and 
 thirty years," and exclaims at the end of them, If I have 
 served Thee, I shall not repent of it, and I will bless Thy 
 name." The names on this monument are very suggestive. 
 The Itineraries tell us that the husband and brother-in-law 
 of St Cecilia were buried in the Catacomb of St Praetextatus ; 
 and here we find a Praetextatus Caecilianus privileged to have 
 his place of burial close to that of the Virgin Martyr herself. 
 Does not this denote some connection between the families ? 
 so that, whereas St Cecilia was privy to the movements of 
 Urban, lying hid in the cemetery under her own property on 
 one side of the road, she could also obtain burial for her hus- 
 band and others in the cemetery of St Praetextatus on the other 
 side. 
 
 Again, De Rossi is of opinion that we have distinct — we From ihe 
 had almost said autlientic and documentary — evidence of^^'^^^ ' '''' 
 the translation on the walls of the chapel itself If we ex- 
 amine closely the picture of St Cecilia, we shall find it covered 
 with a number of graffiti, which are easily divided into two 
 classes ; the one class quite irregular both as to place and 
 style of writing, consisting only of the names of pilgrims who 
 had visited the shrine, and several of these, either by name or 
 express title, confess themselves to be strangers. Thus, one is 
 named Ildebrandus, another is a Bishop Kthelred, and two 
 
 L 
 
l62 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 others write themselves down Spaniards. The other class of 
 graffiti is quite regular, arranged in four lines, and containing 
 almost exclusively the names of priests ; the only exceptions 
 to this rule being that one woman appears amongst them, but 
 it is added that she is the mother of the priest who signed be- 
 fore her, and that the last signature of all was of a scrmiarins, 
 or secretary. There is something about this arrangement of 
 names which suggests the idea of an official act ; neither can 
 it be attributed to chance that several of the same names 
 appear on the painting of St Cornelius, presently to be visited, 
 in this same Catacomb, whence his body was translated about 
 the same time as St Cecilia's. Some of them appear also on a 
 painting lately discovered in the subterranean San Clemente ; 
 and others again in the subscriptions to the decrees of a Ro- 
 man Council, held a.d. 826. Of course some of the names 
 are very common, such as Leo, Benedictus, or Joannes, and 
 the mere repetition of these would not suffice to raise a sus- 
 picion of identity ; but when such names as George and 
 Mercury appear, and are signed in both instances with the 
 same peculiarity of writing, some letters having been made 
 square, others written in a running hand, it cannot be rejected 
 as an improbable conjecture that these men were among the 
 leading parochial clergy of Rome, who attended the Pope in 
 some official capacity, attesting the translation of relics in one 
 instance, or signing the decrees of a Council in another. No 
 graffiti of this kind appear on the picture of St Urbanus, which, 
 as we have already seen, is of a much later date than that of 
 St Cecilia, and was, in fact, only added as an ornament to her 
 sepulchre, — Decori Sepvlcri S. C^ecili^ Martyris, says a 
 half obliterated scroll or tablet still remaining by its side, — after 
 her body had been removed ; for the crosses which appear on 
 the shoulders of the pallium were not in use before the tenth 
 or eleventh century. 
 
 Verification \^ ygj- remains to say a few words about the history of St 
 and correction 
 
 of the Acts of Cecilia's martyrdom, with which we began. We have already 
 St Cecilia. 
 
Ciypt of St Cecilia. 1 63 
 
 acknowledged that the Acts are not genuine, and yet we have 
 seen that in substance their accuracy has been marvellously 
 confirmed by all that has since been discovered. The truth is, 
 that the monuments discovered in the Catacombs almost enable 
 us to restore the Acts to their primitive form, by recalling the 
 probable occasion of some of their present errors. For the 
 chief difficulty that has always been urged against them con- 
 cerns chronology. The Acts imply, or indeed directly assert, 
 that a furious persecution was raging at the time of St Cecilia's 
 death, and they speak of the edicts of the reigning piinces as 
 though there were more than one ; yet the mention of Pope 
 Urban fixes the date to a time when Alexander Severus ruled 
 the empire alone, and the Christians enjoyed tranquillity. The 
 martyrology of Ad6, however, whilst still retaining the name of 
 Urban, adds, with apparently unconscious inconsistency, that 
 the saint suffered in the. times of Aurelius and Commodus, i.e.^ Y\x<x, in 
 
 change of 
 
 nearly fifty years before that pope. Whence did Ado obtain date, 
 this particular item of his information, that the martyrdom of 
 St Cecilia belonged to the year 177 or thereabouts ? This is 
 what we cannot now tell, but we may be very certain that he 
 derived it from some ancient authority which he trusted, and 
 if 7ve trust it also, the difficulties it will solve are manifold. 
 The language of the Acts now becomes consistent with the 
 known facts of history. Not only were two princes reigning, 
 who hated and persecuted the Church, but the words of the 
 judge as he pronounces sentence upon the martyrs are pre- 
 cisely equivalent to, are in fact a mere translation of, the very 
 words in which Eusebius " has reported the edict of those 
 Emperors, viz., that as many as should refuse to deny that they 
 were Christians, should be punished, but that if they denied 
 the charge they should be at once dismissed. 
 
 The chronological difficulty is now shifted from the emperors Secondly, in 
 
 chaiT^e ol 
 
 to the pope. If St Cecilia suffered a.d, 177, our readers will Bishop, 
 ask how she could have had anything to do with St Urban. 
 * II. E. V. I. 
 
Roma Sotlerra7tca. 
 
 But they can also answer this question at once, by calling to 
 mind what has been already alluded to, the existence of two 
 bishops of the same name at various times ; the one, Bishop of 
 Rome, the other, bishop of some unknown see ; the one, pope 
 and confessor, buried in St Callixtus', the other, a martyr, buried 
 in St Prsetextatus'. We need only suppose that the earlier of 
 these two bishops was resident in Rome during the episco- 
 pacy of St Eleutherius, and occasionally acted for him, as we 
 know that the Bishops Caldonius and Ercolanus acted at one 
 time in Carthage for St Cyprian. 
 
 And other T\\Q corruptions of ancient Acts are ordinarily in the way of 
 exaggerations, 
 
 exaggeration. As every magistrate becomes the chief magis- 
 trate or prefect, so it was only natural that Urbanus, a bishop, 
 should become Urbanus, the Pope; and since the interpola- 
 tions were made whilst yet the bodies, both of the pope and 
 the virgin martyr, lay each in their original tomb, and could 
 be seen in immediate proximity to one another, the connection 
 between them must have seemed obvious and certain, and the 
 copyist who transcribed or compiled the acts, had only to use 
 the license, common to all historians, of assigning the motives 
 or causes of effects which he had to record. St Cecilia and 
 St Urban were buried in adjoining chambers, and a bishop 
 of the name of Urban had been a friend of hers during life ; 
 therefore they were one and the same Urban, and the Pope had 
 given this honourable place of burial to the saint, because of 
 his affection for her, and admiration of her distinguished merit. 
 
 So argued the scribe of the fifth or sixth century, consci- 
 entiously doing his best to chronicle the glories of the Church, 
 and to repair the injuries which she had suffered from the 
 wholesale destruction of her ancient records ; whereas we 
 of the nineteenth century, though removed to a greater dis- 
 tance from the time of action, yet having a larger field of ob- 
 servation, and exercising a sound criticism upon the multitude 
 of contradictory notices that have come down to us, venture 
 to propose another mode of reconstructing the history. 
 
Crypt of St Cecilia. 165 
 
 We feel more disposed to believe that St Cecilia was buried 
 here, because the cemetery was her own property; that her whole 
 family, or at least several important branches of it, embraced 
 the Christian faith before the close ot the second century (so 
 numerous are the Christian epitaphs of that period belonging 
 to them), and that they then transferred this cemetery, and a 
 considerable portion of the adjacent ground, for the general 
 use of the Church, to Pope Zephyrinus, who forthwith ap- 
 pointed his deacon, Callixtus, to take charge of it, and it 
 became in time the most extensive and important of all the 
 subterranean cemeteries ; that St Cecilia's vault was origin- 
 ally a very small and dark chamber,'"' but that Damasus opened 
 a new entrance into it by the staircase and vestibule which now 
 exist, and enlarged the chamber at considerable labour and 
 expense, as the large brick arches and walls abundantly prove; 
 and that this was done for the better accommodation of the 
 many pilgrims who flocked to visit it. Finally, we believe that 
 at a somewhat later period — probably in the pontificate of 
 Sixtus III. — the lumijiare was opened over it, and those figures 
 of Polycamus, Sabastianus, and Optatus, painted upon its sides. 
 
 We know of no other Sebastian that can be meant here but The saints on 
 the famous martyr, whose basilica is not far off. Cyrinus or acco^nteTfor 
 Quirinus was a martyr and Bishop of Siscia in lUyria, who, in 
 the days of Prudentius,t lay in his own city, but when Illyria 
 was invaded by the barbarians, his body was brought to Rome 
 and buried in the basilica of St Sebastian about the year 420. 
 Of Polycamus the history is altogether lost; neither the mar- 
 tyrologies nor ecclesiastical historians have left us any record of 
 his life. Only this we know, on the authority of two ancient 
 witnesses, that among the rel'cs translated to the churches of 
 
 * De Rossi suggests, as a solution of the difficulties which his brother's 
 architectural analysis throws in the way of this modification of St Cecilia's 
 history, that her body was probably placed in this chamber after the Papal 
 Crypt had been set apart for the burial of the Popes. This would account 
 for the coffin having been used in this instance, contrary to the usual cus- 
 tom. See page 154, note. t Peristeph. vii. 
 
i66 
 
 Roma Solterranea. 
 
 Sta; Prassede and of San Silvestro in Capite, in Rome, in the 
 ninth century, were those of Polycamus and Optatus, and that 
 the tomb of Polycamus had been very near St CeciUa's. 
 Whether Rome had been the scene of his martyrdom, and 
 this Catacomb the original place of his burial, we cannot tell. 
 We think it more probable that it was not. Perhaps his relics 
 were brought from abroad, like those of St Quirinus, and 
 about the same time, and their figures may have been painted 
 in the interior of this liuninare merely by way of ornament, 
 and because their names were just then in men's mouths. 
 This seems also to be the only account that can be given of 
 the appearance on this wall of the third figure, Optatus. We 
 can only conjecture that he was the Bishop of Vesceter, in 
 Numidia, of whom we read that he was put to death by the 
 Vandals, and that his body was brought to Rome about 
 A.D. 430. 
 
 VLPIO FLORENTIO 
 BENEMERENTI QVI 
 VIXIT ANNOS LXXVII 
 DIES XI QVIESCIT IN 
 PACE III KAL IVNIAS 
 
 Fig. i8. On the inensa 0/ an Anosolinni in Cemetery 0/ St Soteris 
 
v 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF ST EUSEBIUS. 
 
 HE Itineraries, after mentioning St Cecilia and the popes, Crypt of St 
 
 J- and " the innumerable multitude of martyrs " that rest 
 near them, go on to say that Eusebius, pope and martyr, rests 
 in a cave some way off ; and St Cornelius, pope and martyr, 
 in another cave still farther off. That we may complete our 
 review of the historical monuments of the cemetery of St 
 Callixtus, it is necessary that we should visit both of these 
 caves or subterranean chambers ; and we will take that of St 
 Eusebius first, as being the nearest. It lies, in fact, just where 
 our guides would have led us to expect, viz., between St Cor- 
 nelius and the other popes ; not much more than a hundred 
 paces from the latter. 
 
 It was whilst searching for the popes' chapel, in the year Fragments 
 1 8s 2, that De Rossi came upon halt a dozen bits of marble, Damasine 
 with letters in a character somewhat like the Damasine in inscription, 
 form, yet very inferior in execution. The only perfect words 
 were scinditur and seditio, and the fragments were eus, 
 EXEMPL, and iNTEG. Immediately he remembered the inscrip- 
 tion about a certain Eusebius, which, having been found in 
 old MSS., without any indication of the place whence it had 
 been copied, had furnished a subject of much discussion to 
 Baronius, Tillemont, and others, as to its sense and author- 
 ship. Some, like Tillemont and the Bollandists, had almost 
 taken it for granted that the Eusebius spoken of had been the 
 pope of that name, and had attributed the verses, therefore, to 
 Pope Damasus ; whilst others thought it incredible that history 
 
i68 
 
 Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 should have been so absokitely silent about incidents of such 
 magnitude to the Church of Rome, and chose rather to refer 
 them to some priest or bishop holding a less exalted position. 
 
 We need not say towards which side leaned the opinion of 
 De Rossi, after finding these fragments just where he had 
 reason to believe Pope Eusebius had been buried ; and he took 
 the earliest opportunity of publishing the discovery in a lecture 
 before one of the learned societies in Rome. He had yet to 
 wait nearly five years before the work of excavation enabled 
 him to penetrate fully into the interior of the cemetery at this 
 place, and to set the question finally at rest. The labours of 
 the Commission of Sacred Archaeology had been employed 
 during the interval in disinterring those chapels of the popes 
 and St Cecilia which have been just described. But in 1856 
 they returned to this spot, and as they removed the soil 
 which here, as elsewhere throughout all the crypts of historical 
 interest, had been poured in for centuries through an open 
 liiminare^ De Rossi discovered forty other fragments of the 
 same inscription. 
 
 Importance of When the cxcavation was completed, it was easy to see the 
 this crypt, 
 
 importance which had once attached to the chapels that 
 were now recovered. Not only was there a staircase descend- 
 ing to them from the upper air, but walls had been built in 
 the subterranean itself, to prevent those who entered it from 
 going astray, and losing themselves in the labyrinth of sur- 
 rounding galleries. They were guided of necessity to two 
 chapels, opposite to one another, on different sides of the 
 path. One was about 9 feet by 12, the other considerably 
 larger, 16 by 13. The smaller one had once been highly 
 decorated with paintings, mosaics, and slabs of marble. All 
 is now sadly ruined, but it is still possible to distinguish among 
 the mosaic work one of the most common Christian symbols, 
 a double-handed vessel, with a bird on either side of it ; and 
 among the paintings, the representations of the seasons (appar- 
 ently) and other accessories of ornament ; but the main figures 
 
The Epitaph of St Etiscbms. 169 
 
 and general design have perished. The walls of the opposite 
 chamber were never cased with marble, so that the pilgrims 
 were able to leave here the same tokens of their presence as 
 they left at St Sixtus'. The graffiti are of the same general 
 character, only of a somewhat later date ; the old forms of 
 prayer, mente habefe, &c., have disappeared ; the inscriptions 
 are mostly in Latin, and among the few that are Greek, there 
 are symptoms of Byzantine peculiarities. On the whole, we 
 may say with confidence, that they belong to the fifth century 
 rather than to the third. 
 
 The interest of these chambers, however, is centred in the Inscription to 
 
 ... . - • 1 11 1 II '^t Eusebiiis, a 
 
 mscription, which now occupies the middle of the smaller restoration of 
 
 room. Of course, this was not its orisnnal position ; but it ^'^^ ^'f/'^ 
 
 ' tr> I } seventh cen- 
 
 has been so placed, in order that we may see both sides of the tury. 
 stone without difficulty. On the one side is an imperial in- 
 scription belonging to pagan times; on the other, a Damasine, 
 in honour of Eusebius. We call it Damasine, because it had 
 been published in the later editions of his works, even before 
 its discovery in this place ; and also because it lays claim to 
 that title itself. But everybody can see at a glance * that it 
 was never executed by the same hand to which we are 
 indebted for so many other beautiful productions of that pope. 
 Whilst De Rossi had only recovered three or four fragments, 
 he was disposed to think that it might have been one of the 
 earliest efforts of the artist who subsequently attained such 
 perfection; but as the number of specimens increased, he 
 became more and more convinced that it was a copy made 
 in a later age — a restoration^ as we should now say, and 
 partaking of the characteristics of many other modern restora- 
 tions, which are not improvements. In his lecture to the Roman 
 antic^uaries in the summer of 1856, he proclaimed his firm 
 persuasion that the stone, which he was then partially recover- 
 ing, was not the original on which the epitaph of St Damasus 
 had been first engraved ; but that it had been set up l)y Pope 
 See Plate II., at end of volume. 
 
Roma Sotterranea, 
 
 Symmachus, or Vigilius, or John III. (a.d. 498-574), of all of 
 whoni we know that they did their best to repair the damage 
 which had been done in the Catacombs by the Lombards and 
 others. We have already quoted * an inscription of Pope 
 Vigiliiis, in which he expressly mentions that he had restored 
 some of the tituli of Damasus, which had perished, or at least 
 the marble tablets on which they were engraved had been 
 broken ; and De Rossi thought it very probable that this 
 might be one of them. He had also, on another occasion, 
 publicly hazarded a conjecture that the artist who had engraved 
 all the Damasine inscriptions was Furius Dionysius Filocalus, 
 the same who had illustrated the civil and ecclesiastical calen- 
 dar, of which we have spoken elsewhere as being one of our 
 most valuable ancient Christian documents. t In course of 
 time, both of these conjectures of De Rossi have been estab- 
 lished by most incontrovertible evidence. When all the 
 fragments that could be found were put together, there 
 appeared at the top and bottom of the tablet the following 
 title — 
 
 DAMASUS EPISCOPUS FECIT EUSEBIO EPISCOPO ET MARTYRI. 
 "Damasus, Bishop, set up this to Eusebius, Bishop and Martyr." 
 
 and on either side of the verses, a single file of letters reveals 
 to us 
 
 FURIUS DIONYSIUS FILOCALUS SCRIBSIT DAMASIS PAPP^ 
 CULTOR ATQUE AMATOT. 
 
 "Furius Dionysius Filocalus, a worshipper J and lover of Pope Damasus, 
 wrote this." 
 
 The inscription itself ran thus : — 
 
 " Heraclius forbad the lapsed to grieve for their sins. Eusebius taught 
 those unhappy ones to weep for their crimes. The people were rent into 
 parties, and with increasing fury began sedition, slaughter, fighting, dis- 
 cord, and strife. Straightway both [the pope and the heretic] were 
 banished by the cruelty of the tyrant, although the pope was preserving 
 
 * See page 105. t See page 19. 
 
 % Used, of course, in the old sense of worship, i.e.. honour. De Rossi 
 reads Datnasi sui Paper., which is confirmed by other inscriptions. 
 
The Epitaph of St Eusebius. 
 
 171 
 
 the bonds of peace inviolate. He bore his exile with joy, looking to the 
 Lord as his Judge, and on the shore of Sicily gave up the world and his 
 life." * 
 
 Moreover, a diligent search among the minute fragments of Fragments of 
 stone and marble lying amid the rubbish of the chamber stm to bTseen. 
 brought to light several bits of the original Damasine inscrip- 
 tion, executed with the same faultlessness as all the other 
 specimens of its class ; and amongst these bits were one or 
 two which had escaped the search of the man who attempted 
 to copy the whole in the sixth or seventh century ; as, for 
 instance, the word in, which the copyist entirely omitted from 
 the third line. He seems to have been an ignorant man, only 
 able to transcribe the letters which were before him, and even 
 leaving, occasionally, a vacant space where he was conscious 
 that a letter was wanting, which, however, he could not supply. 
 
 Our readers have an opportunity of comparing the original Former 
 inscription with its restoration in Plates II. and III., at the hiscdptlon.^'^'^ 
 end of the volume ; and although the task of correcting the 
 errors and supplying the omissions of the copyist may now 
 seem very easy to any scholar, we must remember that it was 
 much more difficult for those who saw it only on the stone 
 itself, where there is no separation of the letters of one word 
 from those of another. It is curious, therefore, to observe in 
 the MSS. which have come down to us (the writers of which 
 never saw the original stone) the fresh blunders introduced 
 by the ineffectual attempts at correction made in earlier ages. 
 The substitution of sua for sum in the second line, and the 
 insertion of /;/ in the third, were too obvious to be overlooked ; 
 but seditiocaede of the fourth line was dissolved into sed et loca 
 ede in the MS. first adopted by Gruter ; whilst the word omhio, 
 in the penultimate, is changed, in one MS., into /io/ni?ie, and 
 into oninino in another. 
 
 It is not without reason that De Rossi rejoices in the Importance of 
 recovery of this stone as one of the happiest fruits of his [j^,^^ '"^^"l''- 
 
 * Tiic orif-iiial can l)c seen in I'lalc III. 
 
1 7 2 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 labours in this cemetery. It is, in fact, the recovery of a lost 
 chapter in the history of the Church. The scholars of Alcuin's 
 days, who had transcribed it, omitted its title or dedication ; 
 nor did they give any information as to where they had seen 
 it. Baronius, therefore, as we have said, refused to accept it 
 as belonging to Pope Eusebius. He could not believe that 
 the memory of so important an incident in the history of the 
 Roman Church, and the life of one of its chief pastors, could 
 have so entirely perished, as never to have come to the know- 
 ledge of Eusebius the historian, for example, nor have left a 
 trace behind it in any other cotemporary records. Now, 
 however, that the identity of the person spoken of is put 
 beyond question, we are able to see how admirably it fits into 
 the circumstances of the times it belongs to ; and our readers 
 will be interested in studying this page of ancient history just 
 rescued from the devouring jaws of time. 
 
 Its interpretr- Every student is familiar with one phase, at least, of the 
 tion. 
 
 disputes of the second and third centuries, as to the proper 
 discipline to be observed towards those unhappy Christians 
 who had denied the faith and relapsed into the outward pro- 
 fession of paganism, under the pressure of persecution. The 
 schism of Novatian has impressed upon us the existence in 
 those days of a hard, proud, self-satisfied temper in many 
 members of the Christian flock, like that of the elder brother 
 in the parable of the prodigal son, which would fain close the 
 door of reconciliation against these miserable apostates. It 
 has brought out in bold relief to this hateful severity the 
 Mercy of the tender and merciful conduct of our true mother the Church, 
 wards apos- ever ready to follow the teaching and example of her Divine 
 tates, Head, to pour oil and wine into the wounds of bleeding souls, 
 
 and to welcome the penitent returning to his home. But we 
 had not been so conscious perhaps of another difiiculty which 
 the Church had to encounter, about this same time, on the 
 other side. We had not watched so keenly her prudent firm- 
 ness in imposing conditions upon her grant of forgiveness, 
 
The Epitaph of St Etisebhis. 17 3 
 
 and exacting wholesome penance from those who would 
 obtain it. Nevertheless, there is not wanting in cotemporary tempered by 
 records very distinct testimony to her exercise of a divinely- ^^'^^"^^^ 
 inspired wisdom in this particular ; and the pontificates, both 
 of Eusebius and of his predecessor Marcellus, illustrate in a 
 most striking way this part of her character. The letters of 
 the Roman clergy to St Cyprian, written at a time when the 
 see of Peter was vacant, speak quite clearly as to the tradition 
 and practice of the Church. They show us the lapsi, armed 
 with letters of recommendation, which they had obtained from 
 martyrs or confessors of the faith, pressing for immediate 
 reconciliation ; and the priests and deacons insisting upon a 
 middle course, between too great severity and sternness, and 
 too easy an acquiescence with their demand {pi'onam nostrani 
 facilitatem et nostravi quasi diirain crudelitatem). They say 
 that the remedy must not be less than the wound, and that if 
 the remedy be applied too hastily, a new and more fatal wound 
 will be created : " Let the groans of the penitents be heard, 
 not once only, but again and again ; let them shed abundant 
 tears, that so those eyes, which have wickedly looked upon 
 idols, may blot out before God, by sufficient tears, the unlaw- 
 ful deeds they have committed : " and they repeat maxims of 
 this kind again and again. St Cyprian, too, in his own letters, Consequent 
 speaks of riots and disturbances having been caused in some 
 towns of Africa by the overweening presumption and violence 
 of apostates, who would fain extort from the rulers of the 
 Church an immediate restoration to her peace and com- 
 munion. After this date, we do not read of any more dis- 
 turbances arising from this cause, until the persecution of 
 Diocletian. That persecution had been preceded by a long 
 term of peace, during which men's minds had somewhat 
 relaxed from their primitive strength and fervour. Many^ 
 therefore, fell away; but w^hen the persecution ceased, they 
 would fain return. Marcellus was firm in upholding the under Mar- 
 Church's discipline. He was resisted with violence, especially 
 
^74 
 
 Ro7na Sotterranea. 
 
 by one who, least of all, had any right to plead for a mitigation 
 of it, as he had denied the faith even in time of peace. Angry 
 passions were roused, and the public tranquilHty was disturbed 
 by the violence of the contending factions, to such an extent 
 that Maxentius, who had no love for Christianity, and whose 
 edict of toleration was dictated by the merest political motives, 
 determined on sending the Pope into exile. This history is 
 contained in the epitaph with which St Damasus adorned his 
 tomb — 
 
 VERIDICUS RECTOR, LAPSOS QUIA CRIMINA FLERE 
 PR^DIXIT, MISERIS FUIT OMNIBUS HOSTIS AMARUS. 
 HINC FUROR, HINC ODIUM SEQUITUR, DISCORDIA, LITES, 
 SEDITIO, CiEDES, SOLVUNTUR FCEDERA PACIS. 
 CRIMEN OB ALTERIUS CHRISTUM QUI IN PACE NEGAVIT, 
 FINIBUS EXPULSUS PATRI^ EST FERITATE TYRANNI. 
 HiEC BREVITER DAMASUS VOLUIT COMPERTA REFERRE, 
 MARCELLI UT POPULUS MERITUM COGNOSCERE POSSET. 
 
 *' The truth-speaking Pope, because he preached that the lapsed should 
 weep for their crimes, was bitterly hated by all those vinhappy ones. Hence 
 followed fury, hatred, discord, contentions, sedition, and slaughter, and the 
 bonds of peace were ruptured. For the crime of another, who in [a time 
 of] peace had denied Christ, [the Pontiff] was expelled the shores of his 
 country by the cruelty of the tyrant. These things Damasus having learnt, 
 was desirous to relate briefly, that people might recognise the merit of 
 Marcellus." 
 
 and Eusebius. compare this epitaph on Marcellus with the recently- 
 
 discovered one on Eusebius, it is easy to recognise a continua- 
 tion of the same history. Perhaps the Heraclius, named in 
 the later inscription as the leader of the heretical faction, was 
 the very man whose apostacy during a time of peace is com- 
 memorated in the former. Anyhow, the nature of the strife 
 in which Eusebius was engaged is clear ; and we learn with 
 much surprise that a strife of this nature w^as capable of 
 attracting the attention and drawing down one of the heaviest 
 punishments of the civil power, not out of any professed 
 hatred of the Christian name, but merely in the interests of 
 public peace. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 THE SEPULCHRE OF ST CORNELIUS. 
 
 AS we leave the cubiciilum of St Eusebius we observe how Inscription to 
 the ruined walls around us must once have shut off ^|^gj"[^g^^^[^ 
 every gallery from the visiting of pilgrims, save only that to Calocerus. 
 the left, where we soon come upon another double chamber, 
 half being on either side of the gallery. At the entrance of one 
 of these is a graffito of insignificant appearance, yet really of 
 considerable historical importance. The words are these, te7'tio 
 Idus Fefrna Farteni Martiri Caloceri Martiri. The reader who 
 remembers the testimony of our ancient pilgrims, will not need 
 to be told that he has here a probable, if not a certain, indica- 
 tion of the burial-place of the two martyrs, Parthenius and 
 Calocerus,* who are coupled by them with St Eusebius. If 
 he knows anything, however, of the old Church calendars, he 
 may wonder at the date assigned, since the Passio of these 
 martyrs was always celebrated on the 19th of May. The in- 
 scription which records the translation of their relics to San 
 Silvestro in Capite, in the eighth century, names the same 
 date as is here written in the Catacombs, the nth of Feb- 
 ruary, for their natale. So does the martyrology of Bede, and 
 others also yet earlier. This date, then, did not mark the 
 day of their martyrdom, for the calendars gave another, nor 
 yet of the translation of their relics from the Catacombs to the 
 Roman Churches, for it belonged to them before that transla- 
 tion was made. Can the Bollandists be right in conjecturing 
 
 * See page 102. 
 
Roma Sottcrranea. 
 
 that it refers to some earlier translation of their relics from one 
 place to another, within the Catacombs themselves, for pur- 
 poses of greater security under some special danger ? * A 
 comparison of the statements by various ancient authors seems 
 to require it. Recent discoveries in the Catacombs give it 
 considerable countenance, and De Rossi does not hesitate to 
 adopt it. He places their martyrdom in the middle of the 
 third century, and believes this first translation to have been 
 made in the earliest years of the fourth, when all the loca 
 Ecdesiastica were confiscated by the persecution of Diocletian. 
 The evidence in support of this theory is certainly very strong, 
 but its details are too minute for insertion in this place. We 
 must be content to have noticed it, and then pass on rapidly 
 in search of the tomb of St Cornelius. 
 
 Labyrinth con- We need not tarry by the way, for indeed there is nothing 
 nectincT the . . , 
 
 to attract our attention. We are traversmg that vast network 
 
 crypts of St 
 Lucina with 
 those of St 
 Callixtus. 
 
 of galleries which intervenes between the cemetery of St Cal- 
 lixtus and that of St Lucina. These galleries are of later date 
 than either cemetery. They are generally very narrow, cross- 
 ing one another in all directions, and impossible to be reduced 
 to any regular plan. They observe, for the most part, the 
 horizontal level in each of the two stories in which they have 
 been made ; but as they come in contact with portions of 
 different arecR^ their height is very variable. Each flat of this 
 labyrinth has its staircase, and the higher system of galleries 
 spreads over the whole Catacomb without any regard to the 
 ancient limits of the different arece.. The lower flat is chiefly 
 remarkable for the entire absence of every kind of ornament. 
 No paintmg nor slabs of marble, no cubiculuni^ nor even an 
 arcosolnim^ relieves the monotony of its long straight passages, 
 which we may therefore safely conclude belong to an age pos- 
 terior to the regular construction of both the hypogmi. The 
 union of the different groups of independent cemeteries into 
 
 This conjecture is not found in the Acta of the Bollandists ; but 
 Sollier gives it on the authority of Pa])ebroch in his notes on Usuard's 
 Martyrology. 
 
l^hc Sepulchre of St Coi'iiclius. 1 7 7 
 
 one vast necropolis was not eftected without difficulty, owing 
 to the very different levels at which their principal galleries 
 had been excavated. The attentive observer who traverses 
 this portion of the labyrinth which lies between the Papal 
 Crypt and the tomb of St Cornelius, w-ill not fail to recognise 
 the point of junction, and will have many opportunities of 
 appreciating the ingenuity with which the fossors accomplished 
 their task. He will, not improbably, also be set on thinking 
 whence it came to pass that St Cornelius should have been Family of St 
 buried at so great a distance from the other occupants of the ^^'"^''"^ ' 
 Holy See ; and if he happens to know that learned men have 
 long since fancied that they could discover grounds for sus- 
 pecting some relationship between Cornelius and the Gens 
 Cornelia^ he will note this separate place of burial as a circum- 
 stance seeming to corroborate that suspicion. 
 
 At first, perhaps, it may have been suggested by the fact that 
 this is the only Pope, down to the days of St Sylvester, who bore 
 the name of any noble Roman family, and it is certainly a re- 
 markable fact that this relationship, supposing it to have existed, 
 would have connected him with the owners of the very ceme- 
 tery in which, by a singular exception, he was buried, many 
 very ancient epitaphs having been found here of the Cornelli, 
 as well as of the Maximi Ccecilii. Nor can it be considered 
 as altogether an unimportant circumstance that the epitaph of 
 St Cornelius should have been in Latin, whilst all the (#<r/V// his epitaph in 
 
 epitaphs, so to call them, of those who were buried in the J^^^'"' '^^•'^'^^ 
 ^ ^ (jieek was tlie 
 
 papal vault, were in Greek. It is now^ an acknowledged fact official lan- 
 
 g"^ige of the 
 
 that the earliest language of the Ciiurch was Greek. St Paul, a Church. 
 Roman citizen, writes in Greek to the Christians of Rome. 
 So does St James " to the twelve tribes which are scattered 
 abroad." The Apostolic Fathers, the apologists and histor- 
 ians of the early Church, and her greatest theologians, wrote 
 and spoke Greek. The proceedings of the first seven Coun- 
 cils were carried on in the same language. Nor did Western 
 Christendom lay it aside, even in her ritual and liturgy, as 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 soon as it ceased to be a generally-spoken tongue. Roman 
 
 sacramentaries, even of the seventh century, will be found in 
 
 which the responses are made first in Greek, and then repeated 
 
 in a Latin translation ; and to this day this ancient use of the 
 
 Greek language has left a deep impress on our own, in all 
 
 ecclesiastical terms, such as hymn, psalm, liturgy, homily, 
 
 catechism, baptism, eucharist, priest, bishop, and pope. "' 
 
 Sepulchre of The Latin inscription, therefore, on the grave of St Cor- 
 St Cornelius. . , , . , 
 
 nelius was certamly a departure from the oramary practice 
 
 of that age ; quite as much so as the fact of his burial in a 
 place apart from the rest of his order. And when we come to 
 examine the grave itself, we find this, too, was not of the usual 
 kind, nor was its position such as we should have expected for 
 the grave of a martyr pope. It was neither one of the com- 
 mon loculi with which the galleries or the walls of the cubiaila 
 are pierced, and which, as we have seen, served for the tombs 
 of most of the other popes, nor is it precisely an arcosolium 
 or altar-tomb of a chapel. Li deed, there is no regular chapel 
 here at all, but only a gallery of unusual width, in a corner of 
 which a large grave has been excavated, of dimensions suffi- 
 cient to receive three or four bodies, and in shape not unlike 
 the grave of an arcosolium, but with the difference that has 
 been pointed out before as a token of greater antiquity, viz., 
 that the space above the grai'e is rectangular, not circular. 
 There is no trace of any slab having been let into the wall to 
 lie flat on the surface of the grave. We may conclude, then, 
 that the body of the pope was buried in a sarcophagus which 
 once occupied this empty space, and that its top served as the 
 mcnsa or altar. A close examination, both of the architecture 
 and the inscriptions in the neighbourhood of this tomb, will 
 satisfy us that it was made on a lower level than that of the 
 surrounding galleries, and at a somewhat later period. Some 
 of the older tombs are partially blocked up by the pilasters 
 which flank the tomb of the pope, yet these pilasters are of 
 ; • ' * History of Classical Education, p. 3. 
 
The SepiLlchre of St Cornelius. i 79 
 
 very great antiquity, pro1)al)ly of tlie same date as the tomb 
 itself. They are covered with the finest stucco, the same as 
 once covered the inner sides also of the excavation in which 
 we suppose the sarcophagus to have been placed ; much finer, 
 and much older, therefore, than that which appears above, 
 upon the arches made by Damasus to support the luminair. 
 
 Both above and below the opening of the tomb are frag- Fragments of 
 
 r ^ 1 1 r , i • 1 1 i , • 1 11 J 1 nscnptions in 
 
 ments or large slabs or marble, strll adhermg to the Avail, and crypt of St 
 containing a few letters of what were once important inscrip- ^''^'"^'i"^- 
 tions. The upper one was unquestionably the work of Dama- 
 sus. The letters of the lower, though strongly resembling the 
 Damasine type, yet present a few points of diffei-ence, suffi- 
 cient to warrant the conjecture of De Rossi that they were 
 executed by the same hand, designedly introducing slight varia- 
 tions, to mark that it did not belong to the numerous class of 
 monuments set up by the devotion of that pontiff. Of the 
 upper inscription, eight or ten fragments remain, enabling us 
 to read with certainty the latter halves of seven hexanieter 
 lines. Of the lower one, which was written in much larger 
 type, two fragments only remain, containing the first letter of 
 the first line, and the first two letters of the last two lines, 
 together with the bottoms of the six last letters of all. Of 
 the second line we have recovered nothing. 
 
 At first sight it might seem madness to attempt the complete Attempt to 
 restoration of these two inscriptions — certainly of the latter — them^^^*^ 
 on the strength of such slender data as these ; yet the attempt 
 has been made by De Rossi, and the result is such as to com- 
 mend itself with very great force to all who have given due con- 
 sideration to the subject. We must not detain our readers by 
 repeating De Rossi's most interesting account of his many 
 and laborious efforts, which for so long a time pi-oved utterly 
 fruitless, and of the happy inspiration which at length cleared 
 away all his difficulties, and furnished him with a clue deliver- 
 ing him from the labyrinth in which he was entangled. But 
 we cannot resist the occasion of transcribing the epitaplis as 
 
i8o 
 
 Roiua Sotterranea. 
 
 lie supposes them to have been originally written. The differ- 
 ence of type will distinguish the conjectured restorations from 
 the parts that are certain, and, in estimating their degree of pro- 
 bability, the reader must remember two things ; firsts that in- 
 scriptions of this kind were engraved with such exquisite 
 mathematical precision that no emendations can be admitted 
 which would materially increase or diminish the number of 
 letters in each line : and, secondly, that Damasus was in the 
 habit of repeating himself very frequently in his epitaphs, and 
 that several of De Rossi's restorations reproduce some of his 
 favourite expressions and forms of speech. Had the following 
 epitaph been found in some ancient MS., we are confident 
 that no critic would have seen any reason to question its 
 genuineness — 
 
 "ASPICE, DESCENSU EXSTRUCTO TENEBRISQUE FUGATIS 
 CORNELI MONUMENTA VIDES TUMULUMQUE SACRATUM 
 
 HOC OPUS .^:groti damasi pr.^stantia fecit, 
 
 ESSEX UT ACCESSUS MELIOR, POFULISQUE PARATUM 
 AUXILIUM SANCTI, FT VALE AS SI FUNDERE PURO 
 CORDE PRECES, DAMASUS MELIOR CONSURGERE POSSET, 
 QUEM NON LUCIS AUOR, TENUIT MAGE CUR A LABORISr 
 
 "Behold! a way down has been constructed, and the darkness dis- 
 pelled ; you see the monuments of Cornelius, and his sacred tomb. This 
 work the zeal of Damasus has accomplished, sick as he is, in order that 
 the approach might be better, and the aid of the saint might be made con- 
 venient for the people ; and that, if you will pour forth your prayers from 
 a pure heart, Damasus may rise up in better health, though it has not been 
 love of life, but care for work, that has kept him [here below]." 
 
 If this reading be correct, it would follow that Damasus 
 made his usual additions of a hnninare, and a more com- 
 modious staircase perhaps to this tomb of St Cornelius, at 
 a time when he was suffering from severe illness, so that his 
 life was considered in danger, and this harmonises exactly 
 with what De Rossi would suggest as a probable restoration 
 of tlie second epitaph, viz. : — 
 
 " A IRICIUS PERFECIT OPUS 
 CONCLUSIT ET ARCAM 
 .1'/-4A'MORE CORNELI QUONIAM 
 PI A jVI E M R RA R E TEN TA 7 " 
 
The Sepulchre of St Comelius. 1 8 1 
 
 " Siricius completed the work, and enclosed the shrine with marble, for 
 St contains the sacred remains of Cornelius." 
 
 Of course, this restoration is much more purely conjectural 
 than the preceding one ; nevertheless, those who know De 
 Rossi best, will be the least inclined to pass over slightingly- 
 even his very lightest conjecture. He is so modest in making 
 them, and so careful not to over-estimate them when made, 
 whilst yet subsequent discoveries have, in so many instances, 
 confirmed them to the utmost, that we feel almost the same 
 confidence in his hints and guesses at truth, as we do in the 
 most positive assurances of some other writers on similar 
 subjects. 
 
 This same tomb of St Cornelius will supply us with an P'rescoes of St 
 , ^ , . - , . - , . , Cornelius and 
 
 example of his power of happy conjecture, connrmed with st Cvprian. 
 
 certainty by subsequent discoveries. He had often publicly 
 expressed his confident expectation of finding at the tomb of 
 St Cornelius some memorial of his cotemporary and corre- 
 spondent, St Cyprian. These two saints were martyred on the 
 same day, though in different years ; and their feasts were, 
 therefore, always celebrated together, just as they are now, on 
 the 1 6th of September, all the liturgical prayers for the day 
 belonging equally to both ; and the celebration was held at 
 this spot in the cemetery of St Callixtus, as the most ancient 
 calendars and missals assure us — e.g.^ in the Bucherian calen- 
 dar, so often quoted, we read xviii. Kal : Oct: Cypriani, 
 Africce ; Romce cdebratur in Cailisti, and in an old codex of 
 the Roman liturgy, on the same day, Natale SS. Conieiii et 
 Cypj^iafti, via Appiii i7i Callisti.'^ Now De Rossi had found 
 in one of his old guides, to which he had been so much 
 indebted, an extraordinary misstatement, viz., that the bodies 
 both of St Cyprian and St Cornelius rested in the same ceme- 
 tery (of St Callixtus), though even this was told in such a way 
 as almost to betray the truth that the name of St Cyprian had 
 
 ■ Sec also S. Leo. M. Op. cd, Ballcriui II. p. 96. 
 
Roma Sottan^anea. 
 
 been added by a later copyist/^' He was satisfied that this 
 bhinder had not been made without a cause, but that the 
 pilgrim or copyist had been led into error by something he 
 had seen at the tomb of St Cornelius. And here, on the 
 re-discovery of the tomb, the cause stands at once revealed. 
 Immediately on the right hand side of the grave are two large 
 figures of bishops, t painted on the wall in the Byzantine style, 
 with a legend by the side of each, declaring them to be St 
 Cornelius and St Cyprian. Of course this had not been the 
 first ornamentation which this wall received. It is still possible 
 to detect traces of more ancient painting, and even oi graffiti 
 upon it, underlying this later work. When the later work was 
 executed, it is hard to determine with certainty. Each of the 
 bishops carries the book of the Gospels in his hands, and is 
 habited in pontifical vestments, even iijcluding the palliii/n, 
 which had not yet been confined as a mark of distinction to 
 metropolitans. If we compare it, however, with the other 
 specimen of a pallium w^hich we saw at the grave of St Cecilia 
 on the figure of St Urban, we shall observe a difference, which 
 is of value as a note of chronology. Here there is but one 
 cross marked upon the pallium., and that on the lower extre- 
 mity in front. On St Urban there are crosses also on the 
 shoulders, which are nowhere found on paintings or mosaics 
 earlier than the tenth century. Nor is this the only note of 
 higher antiquity which may be recognised on these paintings 
 at the tomb of St Cornelius ; the whole style of art is mani- 
 festly superior to that at the tomb of St Cecilia. Indeed, the 
 force and dignity expressed in the head of St Cyprian would 
 lead us to assign to it a much earlier date, did not other 
 indications seem to point with some degree of certainty to the 
 beginning of the ninth century. These indications are chiefly 
 to be noted in the painting on the other side of the tomb, on 
 the wall at the end of the gallery. Here, too, are the figures 
 of two other bishops, executed in the same style, each having 
 * Seepage 1 12. " Cornelius et Cyprianus ^/cr;////." f Plate V. 
 
The SepiUcJu^e of St Cornelhcs. 183 
 
 been originally designated by his own proper name and title, 
 though only one can now be deciphered. That one stands 
 plainly scs xvstvs pp rom ; the name of the other began with 
 O. It is extremely probable that this was St Optatus, a saint 
 whom we have had occasion to mention before; whom we 
 know from other sources to have been buried in the same 
 cemetery with St Sixtus ; who was venerated in the Western 
 Church, on the 27th November, down to the ninth century or 
 later ; whose name may still be seen on the tablet recording 
 the translation of relics in the basilica of Sta Prassede, but of 
 whose real history nearly all traces have now been lost. The 
 scs XVSTVS is, of course, the second pontift' of that name, whose 
 connexion with this cemetery has been already explained ; and 
 the title pp rom is the same that we find given to other popes 
 down to the middle of the ninth century or later, the name 
 Papa not having been yet confined to the bishops of Rome."' 
 It is found, for example, in one of the pictures lately dis- 
 covered in the subterranean of San Clemente, as the title of 
 Leo IV., A.D. 847 ; and in the presbytery of Sta Sabina, of 
 Eugenius II., a.d. 824. It is to Leo IIL, a.d. 795-815, that 
 we would attribute the paintings we are now examining. It is 
 expressly recorded of him in the Liber Pontificalis that " lie 
 renewed the cemetery of Sts Xystus and Cornelius on the 
 Appian Way ; " and the legend which runs round these por- 
 traits has a singular significance, if we consider it as the work 
 of this pontiff There is some difficulty in deciphering the 
 latter part of the legend ; but the earlier portion is clearly 
 taken from the 17th verse of tlie 58th Psalm, and runs thus — 
 " Ego aiitcm cantabo virtutciii t Tuain et cxaltabo inisericoi-diam 
 Tuam quia /actus cs et siisceptor mens." . ..." I will sing Thy 
 strength, and will extol Thy mercy, for Thou art become my 
 support ; " and these words of thanksgiving would have been 
 
 * See Ducange, Gloss, in \^crb. 
 
 t The Vulgate has here forlitudiitcin, hut the version used in tlic Roman 
 Cliurch in older times had viritttciii. See Tomasi (Jpp. t. ii. p. io8. 
 
1 84 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 specially appropriate in the mouth of one who had suffered 
 such extraordinary contradictions, calumnies, and misfortunes 
 as Leo had, and had then been almost miraculously delivered 
 out of the hands of his enemies, through the instrumentality of 
 the Emperor Charlemagne. We can hardly doubt, then, that 
 we have here some of that work of "renovation of the ceme- 
 tery of St Xystus and St Cornelius," which his biographer 
 attributes to him. 
 
 Pillar in ciypt The low round block or ijillar which stands by the side of 
 of St Come- ^ . , . ! 
 
 lius. Cornelius' tomb, and immediately before his picture, was much 
 
 older than the time of Leo IlL, though we cannot say with 
 certainty that it was made cotemporaneously with the tomb 
 itself, as we can of similar pillars in some other parts of the 
 Catacombs. Lor this is not made out of the natural rock, as 
 they are, but is a construction of masonry, covered with a 
 somewhat coarse cement. l)e Rossi conjectures that it may 
 at one time have supported the nicnsa, or altar, necessary for 
 the celebration of the holy mysteries, which (we gather from 
 Prudentius) was not always directly over the body of the 
 martyr, but only somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood. 
 Ordinarily, however, no doubt, there was placed here, as else- 
 w^here at the martyrs' shrines, one of those large shallow vases, 
 full of oil and precious unguents, with which the floating wicks 
 of papyrus were always fed in these holy places, and from 
 which the faithful were wont to carry off some few^ drops as a 
 precious relic of the saint. Among the relics collected by 
 John the Deacon, for the Lombard Queen Theodelinda, one 
 ex oleo S. Cornelii must have come from this very place ; and, 
 in fact, many fragments of a vase, saturated with some unctuous 
 substance, have been collected from among the rubbish accu- 
 mulated at this spot. 
 
 Graffiti. the graffifi upon the painting of St Cornelius we have 
 
 nothing special to commemorate. They are not old and 
 nffectionate prayers, but the mere record of ecclesiastical 
 111 Hippolyt. 171 175. See Note E in .Xppcndix. 
 
The SepiLlcJire of St Cornelins. 185 
 
 names and titles, of men who either came here to offer the 
 holy sacrifice, or to assist those who did ; or, perhaps, once 
 for all, to take part in the translation of the sacred relics. 
 They are such as these, " Leo prb., Petriis prb., Thcodonis prb., 
 Kiprianus Diaconus^'"' &c. &c. Another and far more ancient 
 graffito under the neighbouring archway runs in this wise, Sctus 
 Cerealis et Sallustia cum xxi. and although we know^ abso- 
 lutely nothing of their history, yet it is interesting to have 
 recovered even this scanty notice of the existence of these 
 martyrs, thereby corroborating the statement of one of the 
 ancient guide-books, which placed their subterranean shrines 
 somewhere near to St Cornelius. This graffito is certainly of 
 great antiquity, though it is impossible to fix its precise date ; 
 were it not for the contracted prefix of Sctus, De Rossi would 
 have been almost tempted to look upon it as an original and 
 cotemporary memorial of the martyrdom. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 CHRISTIAN ART. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGINAL TYPES OF CHRISTIAN ART 
 
 The antiquity 
 of Christian 
 paintings. 
 
 Opinions of 
 D' Agin court, 
 Raoul Ro- 
 chette, De 
 Rossi, and 
 others. 
 
 THE subject of early Christian art has been unhappily the 
 battle-field of such violent religious disputes, that it is 
 hard to gain an impartial hearing for any history that may be 
 given of the ancient decorations of the Roman Catacombs. 
 And this difficulty has increased rather than diminished in the 
 last few years ; because the paintings that have been lately 
 discovered have obliged Catholic writers to claim still more 
 strongly than before the voice of antiquity as bearing un- 
 equivocal testimony to their own teaching and practice upon 
 this important point. 
 
 Up to the end of the last century, it had been generally 
 supposed that Christianity in the first ages had looked upon 
 painting with a very jealous eye, because of its prostitution in 
 pagan hands to purposes of idolatry and licentiousness. And 
 when D'Agincourt, writing about the year 1825, ventured to 
 assign a few of the paintings he had seen in the Catacombs to 
 a very early date, they were considered rather as exceptions 
 than examples of the general rule. Twenty years later, Raoul 
 Rochette spoke more confidently. He averred that the Ian- 
 
Types of Christian Art. 187 
 
 guage of Tertullian, always a violent and somewhat exagger- 
 ated writer, had been misunderstood ; that, whereas he Avas 
 only censuring a particular abuse of the art which deserved 
 censure, he was generally quoted as having altogether pro- 
 scribed it ; and he concluded by saying, that " the question 
 whether it entered into the views and principles of the primi- 
 tive Church to authorise the execution of such paintings has 
 been long since decided, — for the Christian by the authority 
 of the Church, and for the antiquarian by the study of monu- 
 ments." Within the last few years, however, the standard 
 of knowledge respecting art and its history has been much 
 changed, and we may now claim with confidence almost 
 apostolic antiquity for some of the existing specimens of 
 Christian painting. 
 
 It was said by Niebuhr that ancient art had ceased before 
 Christianity began ; and it has been the fashion with most 
 writers upon the subject, to cry down the paintings of the 
 Catacombs as poor productions, in which the meagreness of 
 invention is only equalled by the feebleness of execution." t 
 But Niebuhr's dictum was certainly an exaggeration, and these 
 waiters have generally shown that they are not very intimately 
 acquainted with what they so confidently condemn. Thus 
 Lord Lindsay himself, in the very passage from which we 
 have quoted, speaks of the Catacombs as " for the most part 
 closed up and inaccessible," and "the frescoes, obliterated by 
 time and destroyed." But this is by no means true of the 
 Catacombs as they now are ; and since the recent discoveries 
 in them, later writers have taken a higher and truer estimate 
 both of the antiquity and of the value of the specimens of art 
 they contain. Kugler, in the later editions of his "Handbook 
 of Painting," complains that the engravings taken of the 
 Catacomb pictures in former days give no adequate concep- 
 tion of their style. He says that "as regards the distribution 
 
 * Tableau fles Cataconihes Ruiiiaines. 162, 176, t^c, ed. Bruxelles, 1837. 
 t Lord Lindsay's SkcUhcs cjf tlie History of Christian Art, i. 39. 
 
i88 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 of the spaces and mode of decoration, they approach very near 
 to the wall-paintings of the best period of the empire ; that the 
 light arabesques remind us of the paintings at Pompeii, and 
 in the Baths of Titus," &c. De Rossi, fully conscious of the 
 delicate nature of the subject he is handling, yet does not 
 hesitate to claim the first century, or the earliest part of the 
 second, as the true date of some paintings in the crypts of St 
 Lucina, in the cemetery of St Domitilla, and elsewhere ; others 
 again, he attributes to the middle and end of the second 
 century, or beginning of the third ; and he sets aside the 
 objections of Protestants or others, as being sufficiently dis- 
 posed of by the facts of the case. " It may be asked," he 
 says, "whether it is credible that the faithful, in the age of the 
 apostles or of their disciples, when the Church, fresh from the 
 bosom of the image-hating synagogue, was in deadly conflict 
 with idolatry, should have so promptly and so generally adopted 
 and (so to speak) baptized the fine arts?" And he answers, 
 that so grave a question deserves to be discussed in a special 
 treatise ; but that, for the present, he " will only say that the 
 universality of the pictures in the subterranean cemeteries, and 
 the richness, the variety, the freedom of the more ancient 
 types, when contrasted with the cycle of pictures which I 
 clearly see becoming more stiff in manner and poor in concep- 
 tion towards the end of the third century, — these things prove 
 the im.possibility of accepting the hypothesis of those who 
 affirm the use of pictures to have been introduced, Httle by 
 little, on the sly, as it were, and in opposition to the practice 
 of the primitive Church." f And again, " The flourishing con- 
 dition of the fine arts in the days of the Flavii, of Trajan, of 
 Hadrian, and of the Antonines, and the great number of their 
 professors in the metropolis of the empire, the conversion to 
 the faith of powerful personages, and even of members of 
 imperial families, such as Domitilla and Flavius Clemens, 
 certainly very much favoured the introduction and develop- 
 * Page 14, ed. Sir C. Fa-stlakc, 1851. t Roma Sott., i. 196, 197. 
 
Types of Christian Ai^t. 189 
 
 ment of Christian pictorial art. And, on the contrary, the 
 dechne of those same fine arts in the third and fourth cen- 
 turies ; the increasing cost of the handiwork of the painter and 
 the sculptor, as their numbers diminished every day; the gradual 
 but continuous impoverishment of public and private fortunes, 
 which induced even the senate and the emperors to make their 
 new monuments at the expense of others more ancient, all 
 this could not much facilitate the multiplication of new works 
 of Christian art during that period ; so that, even if the faith- 
 ful had gained in proselytes, in power, and in liberty, they lost 
 quite as much, if I may say so, m the conditions required for 
 the flourishing of Christian art." 
 
 Le Normant, Welcker, De Witte, and other French and Protestant tes- 
 - 1 • . T • , timony to the 
 
 German critics, confirm this judgment in the strongest same effect. 
 
 manner ; and even the most bitter anti-CathoHc writers of 
 
 our own country have been obliged to yield to the weight of 
 
 evidence which can now be adduced in its support, though, of 
 
 course, they have their own way of accounting for it. " The 
 
 early Christians ornamented their subterranean cemeteries," 
 
 writes one of these, t " not because it was congenial to the 
 
 mind of Christianity so to illustrate the faith, but because it 
 
 was the heathen custom so to honour the dead ; " that is to 
 
 say, the Pagans had been wont to ornament with painting their 
 
 vaults or sepulchral chambers, and the Christians did the same, 
 
 seeing no reason why they should not. The fact that these 
 
 sepulchral chambers were used also for purposes of religious 
 
 worship presented no difficulty to their minds. At first, they 
 
 even used many of the same devices for mural decoration as 
 
 the Pagans had used, always excepting anything that was 
 
 immoral or idolatrous ; introducing, however, here and there, 
 
 as the ideas occurred to them, something more significant of 
 
 ■■^ Le Normant considered some of the paintings in St Domitilla's ceme- 
 tery to be of the same style with those in the well-known pyramidical tomb 
 of Caius Sexrius, B.C. 32. Welcker attributed the paintings in the crypts 
 of St Lucina to the first century. — R. S. i. 321 ; Biillett. 1863, p. 3. 
 
 t Letters from Rome, by Rev. W. Burgon, p. 250. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 their own creed, until by and by the whole was exclusively 
 Christian. Hence it is hardly an exaggeration to say, with 
 the same Protestant writer, that in some of the most ancient 
 chapels of the Catacombs " you are not certain for a few 
 moments whether you are looking on a Pagan or a Christian 
 work." There is the same geometrical division of the roof, 
 the same general arrangement of the subjects, the same 
 fabulous animals, the same graceful curves, the same foliage, 
 fruit, and flowers, and birds in both ; " presently you detect 
 a figure of the Good Shepherd occupying the centre compart- 
 ment of the composition, or the figure of a woman in prayer, 
 or of Daniel in the lions' den, (see Plate VI.) or some other 
 well-known Christian symbol, and you are at once satisfied as 
 to the rehgion of the art you are studying. 
 
 The birth and It is a remark of Raoul Rochette, that " iin art ne sHuiprovise 
 growth of ,,11- -1 r T 1 ^1 ■ 
 
 Christian art P<^^^ ^i^d that it was no more m the power oi the early Chris- 
 natural. X\2a\^ to invent a new imitative language in painting than it 
 was to produce at once a new idiom of Greek or Latin. No 
 doubt this is quite true ; but just as new ideas require new 
 words to express them, — and in this way Christianity has 
 made most important changes in the language of every country 
 where it has gained a footing, — so they require new forms in 
 art, or at least modifications of old forms ; and these would 
 naturally go on increasing day by day until at length a whole 
 cycle of Christian subjects would be created, departing more 
 and more widely from those which were familiar to the 
 heathen, and finally, perhaps, excluding them altogether. 
 This seems to be the natural and necessary order of things ; 
 and it at once illustrates and explains an observation which 
 has been sometimes made, as though it were something 
 strange, that we do not recognise in the history of Christian 
 art the first efforts of imitation common to the nations of 
 antiquity, — beginning in rude and formless essays, the result 
 of indistinct notions, and advancing step by step towards 
 excellence ; but rather, on the contrary, find the earliest speci- 
 
Types of Christian Art. 191 
 
 mens of the art to be the best, if not always in conception, yet 
 certainly in execution. For the Christians were not a new 
 and distinct nation, either geographically or politically ; they 
 v/ere indeed ''a holy nation, a purchased people,"''' knit 
 together by the closest bonds of a supernatural charity, but 
 they were made up of persons gathered out " of all nations 
 and tribes and peoples and tongues and they nowhere 
 refused to avail themselves of anything that was good, useful, 
 or beautiful, among the gifts or occupations of those amongst 
 whom they lived. Whereas, then, " the creatures of God had 
 heretofore" — (by painting as well as by other means) — been 
 turned to an abomination to the souls of men, and a snare to 
 the feet of the unwise," % He, " who had now become visible 
 expressly that through Him we might be led to the love of 
 things invisible," § did not forbid His Church to avail herself 
 of the pictorial art as a means of rendering spiritual things 
 sensible, and thereby moving and instructing the minds of 
 men. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should suppose the action of 
 the Church in this matter to have been at first conscious and 
 deliberate. Rather, the birth and earliest growth of Chris- 
 tian art was wholly spontaneous, the natural fruit of the cir- 
 cumstances in which the Christians of those days found them- 
 selves ; and it was only after the lapse of two or three centuries, 
 that the violent invasion of her sanctuaries, by pagan perse- its progress 
 cutors, obliged the Church to interfere by legislation with the pgrseauionr^ 
 natural progress and development of the art. Then it was 
 that the famous canon of the Council of Elvira was passed, Canon of 
 which forbad II "pictures to be placed in a church, or ^^''^t 
 which is worshipped and adored to be painted on the walls." 303, explained. 
 This disciplinary enactment was, as Raoul Rochette happily 
 
 * I Pet. ii. 9. t Apoc. vii. 9. 
 
 :J: Wisdom xiv. 11. § Praef. Missae in Nativ. Dom. 
 
 II *' Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, nec quod colitur et ado- 
 ratur in parietibus depingatur." — Cone. Illib. can. 36. Count de Broglie 
 interprets this canon as forbidding any but symbolical paintings. 
 
192 
 
 Roma Sotterraiica. 
 
 Means of dis- 
 tinguishing 
 the dates of 
 jDaintings. 
 
 expresses it, " toute accidetitelle^ toute de circoiistaiicer Not only 
 had the churches above ground been often violently entered, 
 and some of them destroyed by order of the emperors before 
 the time when this decree was made, but the heathen soldiery 
 had penetrated even the most hidden sanctuaries of the faith- 
 ful in the depths of the earth ; and there was only too much 
 reason to fear that the sacred subjects painted on the walls, 
 often under almost unintelligible symbols, would be turned 
 into ridicule, after the fashion of the blasphemous caricature of 
 the crucifixion, lately found on the wahs of Caesar's palace. 
 
 This explanation of the decree is naturally suggested by the 
 circumstances of the time when it was passed. It is also sup- 
 ported in the most striking way by all the facts which recent 
 excavations in the Catacombs have brought to our knowledge. 
 Even thirty years ago, the same author from whom we have 
 just quoted could say with truth, " Le fait vient id a Vappni du 
 raisonnement but he had not at his command a tenth part of 
 the evidence of this statement by which it can be now con- 
 firmed. With our present increased knowledge as to the 
 chronological succession of the several parts of the Catacombs, 
 we are able to say with confidence, that whereas those Chris- 
 tian paintings, which critics in art have agreed in considering 
 the most ancient, have always hitherto been found in the most 
 ancient parts of the excavations, those chambers (on the con- 
 trary) which belong to the latest period of their history exhibit 
 but few and poor specimens of decoration, or often have no 
 vestiges of painting about them at all. 
 
 In the course of the following pages, we shall often have 
 occasion to speak of the date of this or that painting ; and 
 this is a consideration of the utmost importance in deter- 
 mining the value of its testimony in matters of doctrine. It is 
 manifest, however, that this is a chronological question which 
 cannot often be brought within very precise boundaries. 
 Nevertheless, some paintings carry evidence of their chro- 
 nology on their faces, or at least testify to their not having 
 
Types of Christian A rt. 1 93 
 
 been executed previously to such or such a date ; as, for in- 
 stance, all those which exhibit the Jiimbus, or circular aureole 
 of glory, round the heads of Christ or of His saints. 
 
 This ornament had been used by Pagan artists for the deco- The use of the 
 ration of their false deities ; but with what meaning does not duced and 
 clearly appear. It is said to have been first invented among fj^^j^^^^^ 
 the Egyptians ; thence it passed to the Greeks and Romans, 
 who, in the days of the empire, placed it even on the heads of 
 their emperors, in that spirit of fulsome adulation which char- 
 acterised both the art and literature of the period. Thus it 
 may be seen round the head of Trajan in the triumphal arch 
 of Constantine, and on a medal of Antoninus Pius. After 
 wards its use became yet more frequent and common, so that, 
 finally, it ceased to be looked upon as a token of divinity, and 
 was considered simply as an artistic ornament, proper to royalty 
 or other pre-eminence. Hence, in the Christian mosaics of 
 the fifth century, it was placed not only on the heads of Our 
 Lord, His Holy Mother, and the angels, but (at Ravenna) on 
 those of Justinian and his wife Theodora, and at St Mary 
 Major's in Rome (a.d. 433) even on that of Herod. It is 
 scarcely possible to define with accuracy the period at which 
 Christians first began to use it. In the glass cups or plates 
 found in the Catacombs, of which we shall have to speak later, 
 it is very rarely to be seen ; and it is generally allowed that 
 most of these glasses range from the middle of the third to the 
 middle of the fourth century. In many of them, crowns may 
 be seen by the side of the saints, being off"ered to them by 
 birds, or held in their own hands, but not placed upon their 
 heads ; in some also Our Lord is represented in the act of 
 crowning Saints Peter and Paul, or others ; but the 7iimbus itself 
 will scarcely be found on a dozen of them altogether. In the 
 mosaics, on the other hand, which belong to the later age, it is 
 far otherwise. In those of the church (or mausoleum, which- 
 ever it should be rightly called) of Sta. Costanza, belonging to 
 the age of Constantine, Our Lord has the nimbus, the apostles 
 
194 
 
 Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 have not. A similar distinction is to be noted in the mosaics 
 of St Agatha in Ravenna, of the year 400 ; but here Our Lord 
 has it in its more modern form, enclosing a cross, and on the 
 head of the angels it is unornamented. The same decorated 
 form of the ninihus is used on the head of Christ in the mosaics 
 of Sta. Sabma (a.d. 424) and of St Paul's (a.d. 441), both in 
 Rome ; where the apostles, evangelists, and others either have 
 it plain, or none at all. It would seem, then, that it was first 
 used to distinguish the head of our Lord, then His Holy 
 Mother and the angels,'^ next, the apostles and evangelists 
 (as also the symbolical animals which represented them), and 
 lastly, the saints in general. Padre Garrucci, S.J., concludes 
 that in the fifth century Christian artists either used or omitted 
 it indifferently, but after that time its use became universal. 
 Martigny,t a more recent and cautious authority, distinguishes 
 with greater accuracy when he says that it was used for Our 
 Blessed Lord occasionally before the days of Constantine, and 
 constantly afterwards; for the angels, from the beginning of 
 the fifth century, and universally before the end of the sixth ; 
 but that it was not till towards the end of the seventh that it 
 became the rule for all saints indifferendy. 
 
 Whenever, therefore, we meet with any paintings in the 
 Catacombs which represent a bishop or martyr with a nimbus 
 round his head, we know with certainty that they belong to a 
 period later than the ages of persecution, and, in many in- 
 stances, perhaps to a period considerably later; for as the 
 Church delighted in venerating the heroes of her past age of 
 struggle, it was only natural that she should continue to adorn 
 their tombs as long, at least, as their bodies still reposed in 
 them. After their translation, such ornamentation would pro- 
 bably not, under ordinary circumstances, be renewed. We 
 
 * De Rossi says it began to be given to the Blessed Virgin and Saints 
 Peter and Paul in the fourth century. In the cemetery of St Domitilla, it 
 is only found on the heads of Christ and St Peter, — Bullett. 1867, p. 44 ; 
 Marangani, Acta St Victorini, pp. 39, 40. 
 
 t Dictionnaire des Antiquites Chretiennes, p. 436, in verb. Nimbus, 
 
Types of Christian Art. 195 
 
 have already seen some examples of these later paintings at the 
 tombs of St Cornelius and St Cecilia ; and these may suffice 
 for specimens of their class. 
 
 Another chronological note of easy application, and of some Letters on 
 use in determining the age of the paintings in the Catacombs, nionoglaml'^^ 
 is the appearance of the letter ffi, or of some other letter, or 
 some form of the cross, on the border of the garments of the 
 principal figures. In older paintings, the vestments are either 
 quite plain, or with a few light purple stripes upon them ; and 
 the practice of ornamenting with these letters does not seem 
 to have become general until the beginning of the fourth cen- 
 tury, or at least the end of the third.-'' 
 
 In other instances, the presence of the monogram -P, in one 
 or other of its manifold varieties, may suffice to assure us of 
 the comparatively recent date of a painting. For although we 
 do not believe that the invention of this tessera took its origin 
 from the famous vision of Constantine, yet no certain example 
 of its use in paintings has yet been discovered before that time. 
 
 It is not often, however, that there is need of such palpable Internal cvi- 
 tokens as these to determine the period to which any particular style!^ choice 
 specimen of ancient Christian art is to be referred. In most subject, &c. 
 cases, its own internal evidence, whether of subject or of style, 
 is almost or quite sufficient to enable us to distinguish — if not 
 a work of the age of Trajan, for example, from one of the days 
 of Hadrian, yet certainly — a work of the first or second century 
 from one of the third or fourth. For the same differences 
 which characterise the works of art produced by Pagan hands 
 during those periods are reflected also, in their degree, in the 
 paintings of the Catacombs ; and there are not \vanting co- 
 temporary examples wliich maybe comj^ared with one another. 
 The skill of the Christian artist always bears a certain propor- 
 tion to the general skill of his cotemporaries ; only the dark- 
 ness of the place and other unfavourable circumstances would 
 naturally lead us to expect that the execution of his work 
 
 * Garrucci, \'etri, ^cc, p. 1 12, 113. 
 
196 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 would be generally somewhat inferior to that of his fellow- 
 craftsmen, decorating under imperial patronage the palaces or 
 temples of the city ; and this expectation is usually, though 
 not always, justified by a careful examination of the two classes 
 of paintings. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, always trust to the mere internal 
 evidence of style and the degree of merit in the execution. 
 We must also take into account the place where the paintings 
 are found, and the epitaphs or other indications of time in the 
 neighbourhood. And it is in this respect that the researches 
 of De Rossi on the history and topography of the Catacombs 
 have thrown so much new light on the history of ancient 
 Christian art. Following his guidance, we are able to trace a 
 certain order and gradual development of Christian painting. 
 Sketch of the In its first beginnings, it was intent only on creating or select- 
 or Chrisdarf ^^^S certain necessary types or figures that might stand for the 
 religious truths it desired to represent. It did not concern 
 itself to make a complete provision of appropriate accessory 
 ornaments of its own, but borrowed these without scruple from 
 the works of the Pagan school, from the midst of which it was 
 springing forth. The principal figure in the composition, some 
 biblical or, at least, symbolical subject, gave the religious and 
 Christian character to the whole. The entourage was then 
 completed by an abundance of merely decorative figures, freely 
 imitated from the types of classical Roman art, such as birds, 
 garlands, vases of fruits or flowers, fantastic heads, winged 
 genii, personifications of the seasons, &c., and this is the 
 leading characteristic of the first age of Christian painting. 
 By and by the cycle of symbolical types grew more rich and 
 complicated by the addition of the mystical interpretation of 
 biblical stories, and was used with great skill and freedom 
 under the direction, it would appear, of learned theological 
 guides. By the end of the third century, this cycle had 
 received a fixed traditional form, and was constantly reiterated. 
 It had become, as it were, consecrated, and Christian art was 
 
Types of Christian Art. 197 
 
 almost hieratic in its character, as in ancient Egypt or modern 
 Greece, so fixed and immovable were its types, "always like 
 one another, and always unlike nature." But the biblical 
 histories had now almost superseded the use of symbols. 
 These had already begun to decline from the middle of the 
 third century, when the formularies of Christian epigraphy 
 were gradually developing ; and in the next century, one 
 might almost say that they disappeared altogether. Towards 
 the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, the 
 radical revolution which the conversion of Constantine had 
 effected in the social and political position of Christians had 
 set an equally distinct mark upon Christian art. The age of 
 symbolism has passed away. Scenes from real hfe are now 
 introduced. Even the details of bloody martyrdoms are 
 painted on the tombs or the walls of churches ; and the 
 liberty and publicity of Christian worship in the basilicas finds 
 a pleasure in the contrast, suggested by these harrowing repre- 
 sentations. 
 
 Our sketch of the history of Christian art will not embrace In apostolic 
 this development at all ; we confine ourselves to that more 
 mysterious and interesting form of it which more especially 
 belongs to Roma Sofferra?iea, and which the progress of dis- 
 covery enables us day by day more clearly to trace back to 
 the highest antiquity — almost, if not quite, to apostolic times. 
 De Rossi speaks of the painting of Our Blessed Lady with the 
 prophet Isaias in the Catacomb of Sta Priscilla (Plate X.), and 
 again of the vine on the roof of the entrance to St Domitilla,"*^ 
 as being probably works of the first century ; the more regular 
 lines which mark the roof of St Januarius' t chapel in St 
 PrcTetextatus, he attributes to the second, as well as certain 
 symbolical paintings of tlie fish carrying a basket,:}: and lambs 
 or sheep on either side of a milk-pail § placed on an altar, 
 which appear on the walls of a cubiculum in the crypt of St 
 
 * Fi-g. 9 in p. 72. t Fig. 1 1 in p. 79. 
 
 J Sec Plate XIV. § Fig. 13 in p. 103. 
 
RoPfia Sotterranca. 
 
 Liicina, while the great bulk of the biblical paintings through- 
 out the Catacombs are generally allowed to belong to the 
 third. 
 
 Refutation of Before examining these first efforts of Christian art in detail, 
 the°Pagau ^ a few words must be said as to the models upon which they 
 
 models of _ ^yere formed. We have already quoted Raoul Rochette's 
 early Christian 
 
 art. words, that no school of art can be created of a sudden, 
 
 springing into existence fully formed, like Minerva from the 
 brain of Jupiter. This writer, however, carried his theory 
 too far when he insisted that there had been always a direct 
 positive imitation by the Christians of pagan models, and that 
 this imitation could be clearly seen, not only in the general 
 distribution of the whole, but also in all the details of each 
 composition. He even imagined that they had been guided in 
 their selection of subjects for painting by the fact that, of one 
 there were Pagan models that might be copied, of the other 
 there were none. The peculiarities of costume, and all the 
 minor accessories of the painting were, according to him, de- 
 termined by the same cause. Nay, further still, he maintained 
 that the Christian artists were so servile in their imitation of 
 these Pagan models, that it even led them astray from the 
 teaching of their Divine Master, and caused them to introduce 
 false and unseemly details into their representations of the 
 most solemn subjects. Thus, they dared to paint a goat 
 receiving the caresses of the Good Shepherd ; and as this 
 animal had no place in the sacred parable, but, on the con- 
 trary, was in another parable identified with the wicked, its 
 presence here could only be accounted for on the supposition 
 that the artist was imitating, consciously or unconsciously, 
 some Pagan composition. Again, they often put into the 
 hands of the same figure the shepherd s reed or pipe, and 
 this, too, could only be the effect of some reminiscence, at 
 least, either of the statue of Pan, or of some pagan shepherd. 
 
 The ability and pertinacity with which this author insisted 
 upon his theory, had gained for it a certain measure of accept- 
 
Types of C/iristlaii Art. 199 
 
 ance. Nevertheless, the principal arguments by which it was That theory 
 supposed to be confirmed being now destroyed, it has of late f^egJoes iT 
 years fallen rapidly into disrepute. Raoul Rochette had been Gnostic ceme- 
 misled in part by certain paintings of a semi-Pagan character, 
 published by Bottari, and by him attributed to a Christian 
 Catacomb. It is now ascertained that this cemetery was the 
 work of one of the Gnostic sects, and we are no longer sur- 
 prised at the mixture of Paganism and Christianity which it 
 exhibits; e.g.^ Pluto and Proserpine, under the names of Dis- 
 pater and Abracura ; the Divine Fates, and Mercury as the 
 messenger of the gods, carrying off the soul of the deceased 
 in a chariot drawn by four horses, and descending wdth it into 
 some abyss in the middle of the earth. In the genuine paint- 
 ings of the Christian Catacombs, nothing whatever of this 
 kind has ever been found. The only mythical personage who 
 appears there in paintings is the Thracian Orpheus,"' charming Christ as Or- 
 the wild beasts by his lyre, a figure which was very popular m the [i-,g shepherd's 
 first centuries of the Christian era, being often repeated on P^P^ 
 medals of Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, which were 
 struck at Alexandria. Moreover, we are told that Alexander 
 Severus placed in his Larai'ium statues or pictures of Apol- 
 lonius of Thyane, and of Christ, of Abraham, and of Orpheus. 
 There was nothing far-fetched, then, in the resemblance which 
 somxe of the Fathers delighted to trace between Christ and the 
 Thracian bard. His taming of the wild beasts was taken as 
 a faint shadow of our Lord's softening the hard hearts of men 
 by the persuasive sweetness of His preaching. 
 
 It was precisely for the same reason that the syrinx, or pipe, 
 was placed in the hands of Christ as the Good Shepherd. It 
 was no thoughtless or profane adaptation of one of the i?isig?iia 
 of Pan. In fact, it very rarely appears in the most ancient 
 paintings, when such imitation, according to the theory we are 
 combating, was most to have been expected, but, being an 
 ordinary adjunct of all shepherds, it had a s})ecial significance, 
 * Sec Plate X l. 
 
200 
 
 Roma Sotterrauea. 
 
 a certain dogmatic value, when applied to the chief " Shepherd 
 and Bishop of souls." The pastoral staff itself was even 
 named by St Gregory Nazianzen n rroi,as\iirj ffup/yj ; and another 
 early Christian writer has said, " I know that shepherds who 
 are skilled in their art seldom use their crook or staff, but lead 
 their sheep by the pipe/' + It was, in fact, only another way 
 of setting forth the same truth as our Lord expressed when He 
 said that " the sheep follow their shepherd because they know 
 his voice."^ So far, then, from the presence of the pipe in the 
 hands of Christ being an anomaly, due to some Pagan artist 
 or model, and so requiring explanation, it denoted an essen- 
 tial feature of the pastoral character, so that Christians could 
 hardly have failed to introduce it in process of time, even if it 
 had never been painted before. We need not pursue this sub- 
 ject any further now, though it may be necessary to recur to it 
 again hereafter. At present we will only express our convic- 
 tion that it would not be difficult to find similarly simple, yet 
 complete, explanations of every particular by which M. Raoul 
 Rochette seeks to confirm his theory. And, at any rate, it is 
 quite certain that, however closely Christianity may have imi- 
 tated the traditions and examples of the Greco-Roman school 
 in which their first education had been received, their fideHty 
 to those traditions was united with a most scrupulous and en- 
 lightened wisdom, for they never failed to eliminate from their 
 imitations everything which was really inconsistent either with 
 the doctrines or the convenances of the Christian religion. All 
 figures or scenes of a really polytheistic signification remained, 
 throughout the whole of the first three centuries, carefully 
 proscribed from all their monuments. 
 
 The Christian paintings of that period have been divided 
 into six classes ; and although these classes are of very unequal 
 extent and importance, and it will be found practically impossible 
 to keep them quite distinct in treatment, yet the division is 
 worth remembering, and may serve to impress upon our minds 
 * I Peter ii. 25. + See Ganucci, Vetii. &c., p. 63. + St John x. 4. 
 
Types of Christian A rt. 
 
 201 
 
 the main characteristics of the subject. The first and largest 
 class of paintings, then, may be called symbolical, as merely 
 expressing, under pictorial emblems, religious thoughts or 
 ideas. The second we will call allegorical ; they represent, 
 more or less accurately, some of the parables of the Gospel. 
 The third is of biblical histories, either from the Old or New 
 Testaments. Fourthly, we will speak of sacred pictures of Our 
 Divine Lord, of His Holy Mother and the saints ; then of 
 scenes from the lives of the saints, or the history of the 
 Church ; and lastly, of scenes from the Liturgy. 
 
 Such is De Rossi's division of this part of our subject, in 
 which, however, it must be remembered that we shall not 
 have the advantage of his direct and immediate guidance 
 so entirely as we have hitherto had. The main object of his 
 work is to give a topographical, historical, and chronological 
 edition of all the monuments of each Catacomb. It is not a 
 treatise on Christian epigraphy, nor art, nor symbolism, yet, 
 incidentally, it gives abundant valuable information on all 
 these subjects, and we shall seldom have occasion to quote 
 any other authority than his as to the teaching of Roma Sot- 
 terranea upon any of them. 
 
 Fk;. 20. — The Good Shepherd in the centre of the cci/ing of one of the most 
 mil lent cubicula" in the Crypts of St I.ucina. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 SYMBOLICAL PAINTINGS. 
 
 Symbolism 
 explained. 
 
 Y symbolical paintings we mean those in which the object 
 set before the eye is not depicted for its own sake, but 
 
 in order to convey to the mind some further idea 
 beyond itself, yet connected with it either naturally or by 
 convention. The interpretation, therefore, of symbolical paint- 
 ings is a work of care and dehcacy. It requires both learning, 
 prudence, and integrity ; and it has been so often abused and 
 made a field for the unlimited indulgence of the imagination, 
 that many persons, not unreasonably, are inclined to listen 
 with profound mistrust to any specimen of it that may come 
 before them. It has even been wittily described as a system 
 in which "anything or nothing may be made to mean every- 
 thing." 
 
 Nevertheless, it is quite certain that symbolism has always 
 held a very prominent place in the history of art, and not 
 least at the very period with which we are most concerned. 
 Kugler, in speaking of Roman art at this time, says, that 
 " instead of directly denoting the object represented, the 
 forms of art had now become the mere exponents of an 
 abstract idea; in other words, symbols of a more compre- 
 hensive character. Instead of influencing the feelings, they 
 now engaged the thought ; " and although we do not see 
 any authority for his statement that " it was the dread of 
 idolatry which introduced and consecrated in Christian art a 
 system of merely typical representation," yet he is certainly 
 
Symbolical Paintirigs. 203 
 
 right in assigning this typical and symboHcal character as the 
 leading feature of the earliest productions of that art. The 
 question then arises, What are the laws by which we must be 
 guided in our interpretation of ancient Christian symbols ? 
 
 Obviously the truest key to their meaning is to be found in Rules for 
 anything that will give us certain knowledge of the thoughts "^^^'P^^^^^^^"- 
 and ideas of the artists themselves, or of those amongst whom 
 they lived, and for whom they worked. A single text from a 
 Father of the Church, writing about the same time that the 
 symbols were being painted, or not long afterwards, is infinitely 
 more valuable and trustworthy as a guide than a whole volume 
 of hypothetical suggestions, however ingeniously invented, and 
 speciously supported by the arguments of some modern com- 
 mentator. And in proportion to the number and clearness of 
 the texts that can be quoted, or the position and weight of 
 their author, will be the certainty of the interpretation which 
 they support. For instance, an apparent agreement between 
 some passage in an obscure ecclesiastical author of the ninth 
 century, and some Christian painting of the second or third, 
 would not suffice to assure us of any real identity of meaning 
 between them ; the agreement might be merely fortuitous. 
 But if, on the contrary, a witness or witnesses can be pro- 
 duced, cotemporary with the artists, or with their predecessors 
 perhaps, who had helped to form that school and atmo- 
 sphere of thought in which the artists lived ; if it can be 
 shown that certain ideas and modes of thought and expression 
 were dominant in the Christian world at such a time, and 
 formed a part of the common intellectual property (so to 
 speak) of the faithful, we cannot hope to find a surer guide 
 in the interpretation of the works of art of the same period. 
 Thus, when an Anglican controversialist appeals to the picture Instance of 
 of a dove or doves drinking out of a vase, as an argument fnterpretcation. 
 from primitive antiquity against " withholding the cup from the 
 laity" in the administration of the Holy Eucharist, intelligent 
 and careful readers must feel at once that he is doing violence 
 
204 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 to the monuments he is professing to interpret ; he is guilty of 
 a flagrant anachronism, carrying back to the early ages a 
 controversy which had not then been dreamt of. Contrari- 
 wise, if a writer, interpreting the numerous paintings of the 
 Good Shepherd, should insist upon certain details in its 
 execution, such as the frequent introduction of a goat in- 
 stead of a sheep, as having been intended to denote the 
 infinite mercy of Christ in receiving even sinners to repent- 
 ance, his explanation receives immense support from the 
 well-known language of TertuUian and others of the Fathers, 
 and from the general testimony of history as to the earliest 
 subjects of dispute in the Christian Church. 
 
 The sense, then, of the various symbols used in the deco- 
 ration of the graves and chambers of the Roman Catacombs 
 must be determined, not by the shrewd conjectures of the 
 learned, nor by the distorted reasonings of the controversialist, 
 but by the strictest rules of argument and testimony ; by a 
 comparison of the various ornaments, first with one another, 
 and then with inscriptions written only in words ; by appeals 
 also to Holy Scripture, and to the writings of the early Fathers. 
 Where these fail us, or seem to be inconsistent and therefore 
 inconclusive, we must be content to hold our judgment in 
 suspense, and to await the discovery of further monuments 
 which may throw fresh light on our obscurity. In the mean- 
 while, there are at least some symbols on which we may speak 
 without fear of contradiction. 
 
 Thus, St Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews,* and the instruction 
 of St Clement of Alexandria,! are sufficient to show us that the 
 anchor, a symbol almost more frequently used in the most 
 ancient parts of the Catacombs than any other, is a token 
 expressive of hope, as old as Christianity itself ; and it 
 confirms us in our belief that the early Christians used it 
 with this intention, when we observe how commonly it is 
 found on the gravestones of persons bearing the name of 
 * Heb. vi. 19. t Pedagog, iii, 106, 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 205 
 
 Hope, either in its Greek or Latin form, such as Spes, Elpi.s, 
 Elpidius, F.lpisusa, &c,, &c. Sometimes the anchor is so 
 formed, evidently by design, as to suggest to the Christian 
 eye the idea of the cross,"" the very foundation of all 
 Christian hope ; and this suggestion is still more apparent, 
 where the trident is substituted, as it sometimes is, for the 
 anchor. 
 
 It cannot be necessary to appeal to any authority beyond 
 the discourses of our blessed Lord himself, to justify us in say- 
 ing that a lamb or sheei) represented one of Christ's fold. A slieep and 
 
 _ dove, of living 
 
 dove also was often used to denote a Christian soul ; but the and deceased 
 
 bird seems more especially to have denoted the soul after it 
 
 had been released from its earthly tabernacle and had entered 
 
 into its rest; the sheep, a soul which still "goes in and out 
 
 finding pasture " in this life. Of course, the dove was primarily 
 
 a type of the Holy Ghost, and we have already seen it so used 
 
 in a painting of Our Lord's Baptism. t But this did not in any 
 
 way militate against its use in the secondary sense we have 
 
 assigned to it. On the contrary, we find not only the same 
 
 symbols, but even the same words, used in these two senses. 
 
 The Holy Ghost is Spiritiis Saiicfiis, and the same title appears 
 
 as the designation of the departed souls of the just man, and 
 
 in the plural number, of the saints generally.^ The Holy 
 
 Ghost is also called by the Fathers § a dove without gall, Pahim- 
 
 hus sine fellc ; and again and again we find on the gravestones 
 
 of the Catacombs the very same w^ords applied to the souls of 
 
 the deceased; especially, in a diminutive {oww, paluinhulus sine 
 
 felle, to the souls of young children. Sometimes the dove 
 
 itself is engraved side by side with this title, or with others 
 
 which resemble it, Anivia i?inocais, aninia simplex, "Innocent 
 
 soul, simple soul," &:c. ; and in one epitaph belonging to a 
 
 bisoiniini, the names of the two deceased are written over the 
 
 * See, for example, fig. 12 in p. 82. f Sec fig. 15 in p. 119. 
 X Inscr. Christ, ex. 
 
 St Cyprian de Unit. Keel, ix. ; Terluli. De Baptisnio, viii. 
 
206 
 
 Roma Sottem^anea. 
 
 heads of two doves, Beneria and Sabbatia/' We must not 
 however, conckide too hastily, that every bird, either painted 
 on the walls or carved on the gravestones of these cemeteries, 
 was meant to represent a dove. Some birds seem to have 
 been introduced merely as ornaments in the corners of the 
 vaulted roofs of the chapels, just as they were used by cotem- 
 porary Pagan artists ; others again, especially those bearing a 
 palm-branch in their mouths, seem not improbably to have 
 been intended for the phoenix or " palm-bird," t the well-known 
 emblem of immortality. The phoenix, however, was never in 
 such common use in Christian art, especially of the second and 
 The dove third centuries, as the dove. Sometimes the dove is drinking 
 oTlieT^symbols. ^^^^ vase. or pecking at grapes, as though to denote the 
 
 soul's enjoyment of the fruits and refreshing draughts :|: of 
 eternal happiness ; still more frequently it bears an olive- 
 branch in its mouth, and then, as Tertullian says, it is a 
 symbol of peace, even older than Christianity itself, " the 
 herald of the peace of God from the very beginning." § Some- 
 times also the word itself Pax is added, thereby marking the 
 sense beyond all possibility of dispute ; viz., that it is meant 
 to assert of the soul of the deceased, that it has departed in the 
 peace of God and of His Church. 
 
 Sometimes two or more symbols are found united on one 
 monument, as for instance in fig. i2,|| where the union of 
 the cross-shaped anchor, the sheep and the dove on the tomb- 
 stone of Faustinianus, seem to proclaim a Christian redeemed 
 by the cross of Christ, and placmg all his hope in it, now 
 released from the chains of this earthly coil, and in possession 
 
 * b-.scr. Christ, i. 421 ; Bullett., 1864, p. 11. 
 
 t The Greek name for this bird and the pahn-tree is the same. 
 
 :J: See St Aug. Conf. ix. 3. Speaking of his deceased friend Nebridius, he 
 says, "Jam ponit spirituale os ad fontem Tuum Domine, et bibit quantum 
 potest," &c. niE EN GEl^, Drink in God, is found in some epitaphs, 
 and on drinking-glasses. 
 
 § Adv. Valent. ii., in fin. ; and De Baptismo, c. viii. 
 
 II See page 52. 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 207 
 
 of the hoped-for peace. Sometimes the symbol was engraved 
 even after the tombstone was in its place, as in the annexed 
 figure — 
 
 Fig. ■2-i.~Epitnphfroin very ancienl part of Catacot/ib of St Priscilla. 
 
 where perliaps the dove was added by way of correcting, in 
 some respect, the blunder of the fossor, who had fixed the 
 stone with its written name upside down. 
 
 The use of the dove as a symbol still remained in the This symbol 
 mosaics of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, with the same "^^^^ ^'"PP^^- 
 mystical meaning, as we learn both from the letters of Paulinus,"^ 
 and from some of the monuments themselves which survive, 
 and in which we see twelve doves sitting in or around the 
 cross, to represent the twelve Aposdes. At a much later period, 
 in a Spanish MS. of the twelfth century, in the British Museum, 
 birds flying under the blue vault of heaven have the legend, 
 AnimcE interfectoruin,^ " the souls of them that were slain.'' 
 Indeed, we may venture to say that this fragment of the 
 alphabet of Christian symbolism has never been wholly for- 
 gotten or fallen into disuse. 
 
 This cannot be said of the fish, which is the next sacred The fish : 7.'//,-;/ 
 symbol we would mention ; the most important perhaps of all, [J^^j^J ^ 
 and certainly as ancient as any, but whose use grew gradually 
 less frequent, even as early as in the first half of the third 
 century, and may almost be said to have ceased altogether 
 as soon as the ages of persecution had ended, and the disci- 
 plina arcaiii was relaxed. This question of the period during 
 which the symbol was used being of some importance, we will 
 
 * S. Paulin. Ep. xii. ad Seveium, p. 152, ed. 1622. 
 + Apoc. vi. 9. 
 
208 
 
 Roma Sotte7^ranea. 
 
 say a few more words about it in this place before we go on to 
 inquire into the mystical meaning of the tish. It appears, then, 
 that there is no instance of a single fish being used with any 
 theological sense on a Christian monument later than the fifth 
 century. Fishes, indeed, may be found carved at the bottom 
 of fonts, or on the ambones of Ravenna, in the sixth century. 
 They also form a part of the mosaic pavement of a Baptistery 
 at Pesaro, of the age of Justinian, where both the artistic 
 representation and the legend accompanying it clearly attest 
 an allusion to the sacrament of Baptism. But in these and 
 any similar instances that might be adduced, they seem to be 
 used chiefly for ornament's sake, and are placed among other 
 Christian emblems which are quite clear, and not symbolical 
 at all. But in the older Christian epitaphs and paintings, the 
 fish stands alone as a manifest token of the Christian faith ; 
 and we find it so used much more frequently in the second 
 and third than in the fourth and fifth centuries. Of all the 
 epitaphs from the Catacombs having dates, it is found on one 
 only after the date of Constantine, and on one before it^t a.d. 
 400 and A.D. 234. But it is found on nearly a hundred other 
 epitaphs which, from various indications, we can refer with 
 confidence to the first three centuries ; so that, on the whole, 
 De Rossi considers it quite proved that, whereas we cannot 
 say how early the mystical use of this emblem began, we are 
 sure that it had almost, if not altogether, ceased by the begin- 
 ning of the fifth century. It had become extremely rare by 
 the latter end of the fourth, so that, whereas nearly two thou- 
 sand inscriptions subsequent to Constantine are ornamented 
 with palms, crowns, birds, sheep, crosses, and monograms, 
 not one is to be found amongst them bearing the symbol of a 
 fish. 
 
 * " Est homo non totus, medius sed piscis ab imo." 
 
 t In estimating this statement, we must remember that we have not 
 more than thirty dated epitaphs prior to Constantine, and more than 
 thirteen hundred after him. In the inscription of 234, the fish and the 
 anchor are found together. 
 
Symbolical Painthigs, 209 
 It follows next to inquire in what sense the symbol was used. A symbol 
 
 rr,! 1 1 r r 1 11 11 both of Christ 
 
 1 he thoughts 01 most 01 our readers would naturally recur to j^^d of a 
 the parable in which our Lord compares the kingdom of 
 heaven to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of 
 all kinds of fishes ; or again, to the words with which He 
 called Simon and Andrew to the apostolate, saying " Come 
 ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men/' The 
 idea, however, suggested by these passages, though not un- 
 known either to the Christian liturgies or to Christian art," was 
 certainly not the leading idea which directed the use of this 
 symbol in the early Church. The fish entered into the cycle 
 of Christian thought and art in primitive times chiefly for two 
 reasons : first, because Christians owed their new and spiritual 
 birth to the element of water ; and secondly, because Christ 
 Himself was commonly spoken of and represented as a fish. 
 
 The precise origin of this latter representation may admit of Origin of its 
 
 , , , , . .... . . , , use as symbol 
 
 some doubt, but the universality ot its use is unquestionable, of Chris't. 
 It can be established by a catena of Fathers, beginning from 
 St Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian, in the 
 second century, down to St Peter Damian, in the eleventh. 
 It is even believed that it was in use in apostolic times, and 
 suggested that famous acrostic quoted by Eusebius + and St 
 Augustine % from the so-called Sibylline verses, which gives 
 us, by taking the initial letters of so many successive lines, 
 the Greek words IH20TC XPEI3T0C 0EOr TIOC SHTHP, 
 "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour;" § and then the initials of 
 
 * Nearly all the hymns provided in the Greek Liturgy for the various 
 feasts of the apostles make some allusion to their vocation as fishers of men ; 
 they speak of the rod of the cross, the hook of preaching, the bait of charity, 
 of nations caught like Jish, &c., ike. : and some mediaeval artists have even 
 represented a hook and line proceeding from the very Body of our Lord as 
 He hung upon the cross. — Cahier, Melanges (VArcheol. iv. p. ii8. 
 
 t Oratio Constant, ad Coet. Sanct. § i8. 
 
 + De Civ. Dei, xviii. 23. We know from the testimony of Cicero (De 
 Divin. ii. c. 54) that acrostics vi^ere a characteristic of the Sibylline verses. 
 
 § In the original, the initials of the next lines give the word 2TATP0C, 
 viz., " CrQss." In olden times it was customary in the Church of France to 
 
 o 
 
2 lO 
 
 Rojna Sotterranea. 
 
 these several words taken together make up the word 1X0 T , 
 
 or " fish." We have already said that St Clement of Alexandria 
 
 is the earliest witness to the use of this symbol ; and it is by 
 
 no means improbable that the schools of Alexandria were 
 
 really the first to originate it. The Church of that city was 
 
 composed largely of converts from Judaism ; and we know 
 
 that nothing was more familiar to the Jews than the habit 
 
 of coining names for their leaders or other great men, by means 
 
 of a combination of the initial letters of some other names, or 
 
 legend, or motto, closely connected with them. The name of 
 
 Macchabees, for instance, is said to be made up of the initial 
 
 letters of the motto which Judas Macchabeus is supposed to 
 
 have ever had upon his lips or on his banners, " Who is like to 
 
 Thee among the strong, O Lord ? " * 
 
 Instances of Whether, however, the Sibylline verses received their inspira- 
 
 its use by the ^^^^^ ixom Alexandrine Christians, or whether these verses 
 h athers m this 
 
 sense ; themselves first originated the idea, at any rate we cannot 
 
 wonder that when once a mystical meaning had been sug- 
 gested for the word fish, it gained general acceptance in the 
 Church. It became a sacred tessera, embodying, with wonder- 
 ful brevity and distinctness, a complete abridgment of the 
 Creed — a profession of faith, as it were, both in the two 
 natures, and unity of Person, and in the redemptorial office 
 of Our Blessed Lord. " It contains in one name, by means of 
 its single letters," says Optatus,t "a whole multitude {tiudmni) 
 of holy names." Hence St Clement names the fish as one of 
 several figures that miglit very properly be used on Christian 
 seals. Origen speaks simply and without explanation of our 
 Lord as " figuratively called the fish ; " and in every story of 
 
 sing these Sibylline verses in church at Christmas with all the solemnity 
 they could. — Martene, De Ant. Eccl. Rit., lib. iv. c. xii. 13. 
 
 * Exodus XV. II. See Grotius, Critic. Sac. t. iii. c. 2695. The interpre- 
 tation given in the epistle of Barnabas of the number 318, the servants 
 born to Abraham in his house (Genesis xiv. 14), is only another example of 
 the same kind. See a very interesting paper by P. Cahier in his Melanges 
 d' Archeol. i. 192, + Adv. Parmen. lib. iii. 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 211 
 
 sacred writ connected with a fish, the early Church recognised 
 some Christian figure or alkision. "We little fishes/' says 
 Tertullian,* " are born in water after the example of Jesus 
 Christ our Jis/i." "He descends," says Optatus,t "in bap- 
 tism, in answer to our prayers, into the baptismal font, so that 
 what before was water is now called from the fish pisci?ia 
 {a pisce)!' "The fish which is first taken," says St Jerome, 
 " in whose mouth was the coin which was paid as the tribute- 
 money to those who demanded it, was Christ, the second 
 Adam, at the cost of whose blood both the first Adam and 
 Peter, that is, all other sinners, were redeemed." " By that 
 fish whereof we read, which was caught in the river Tigris, 
 whose gall and liver Tobias took for the protection of his wife 
 Sarah and the enlightenment of the blind Tobias, we under- 
 stand Christ." " By the interior remedies of that fish," says 
 St Prosper of Aquitania,J "we are daily enlightened and fed;" 
 — words which contain a manifest allusion to the two Sacra- 
 ments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 It would be easy still further to multiply quotations from 
 the Fathers, showing how familiar to them was this identifica- 
 tion of the fish, wherever it might be found, with Our Blessed 
 Lord. But such an accumulation of proof is unnecessary. 
 The important thing to observe is already sufficiently clear, 
 viz., that all these hidden meanings of Holy Scripture were 
 derived from the simple fact tacitly assumed by them all, viz., 
 that the fish was the recognised conventional sign for Christ. 
 
 Hence we find a multitude of little fishes, in crystal, ivory, and in monu- 
 ments of art. 
 
 mother of pearl, enamel, and precious stones, in the graves of 
 the Catacombs ; § some of them with holes drilled through the 
 head, to be worn round the neck; one with the word snCAIC 
 (" Mayest Thou save us") engraved upon its back ; once, also, 
 we find a tombstone with a Pagan inscription on either side, but 
 
 * De Baptismo. f Lib. iii. Adv. Parmen. 
 
 + Or the author of the book Dc Proiuiss. et Pradic. Dei, which goes by 
 his name, ii. 39. § BtiUett. 1863, p. 38. 
 
2 I 2 
 
 Roma Sotter7'anea. 
 
 now used to close a Christian tomb, and, besides chipping 
 and cancelling the Pagan epitaph, a fish was roughly cut upon 
 the stone, as sufficient to claim for it a Christian sense. 
 The fish sel- Hence, also, we can interpret with certainty a number of 
 alone"^^^^ various complications of artistic symbols into which the fish 
 
 enters. And this is an important test of the truth of our 
 interpretation. For it is comparatively easy to assign a mean- 
 ing to a single symbol standing alone, since any isolated fact 
 will often lend itself to several different interpretations. But if 
 this symbol be found united with others of a similar character, 
 springing from the same source, but taking a different form, 
 and if this same meaning suffices to explain them all, it receives 
 and communicates a light and force quite irresistible, wresting 
 conviction even from the most unwilling mind. The differences 
 of the symbols thus brought together mutually illustrate and 
 perfect one another, and prove as fruitful of instruction as 
 their resemblances. Together they fix and establish with 
 certainty, what each, taken separately, may have left only 
 undetermined and probable. It is in this way that innumer- 
 able questions have been decided in the interpretation of 
 profane antiquities, and the process is as legitimate and as 
 successful when apphed to Christian antiquities. 
 
 Moreover, this test is the more easy of application here, 
 because it happens that the fish is rarely found quite alone 
 (either the word or the symbol) in the monuments of the 
 Roman cemeteries. In more than two-thirds of the numer- 
 ous instances in which it is repeated, it is found in union with 
 other symbols, and so intimately united with them as mani- 
 festly to have been intended as a part of one whole. Thus, it 
 is sometimes found in connexion with a ship. In three or four 
 Used together instances the fish is bearing a ship on its back ; and this com- 
 dove^or^an ^ bination naturally suggests to us Christ upholding His Church, 
 anchor. Much more frequently, — in more than twenty epitaphs, for 
 
 example, to say nothing of gems, in which these two symbols 
 are almost inseparable, — it is found in conjunction with the 
 
Symbolical Painlings. 
 
 213 
 
 anchor; and we understand at once, as plainly as if it had 
 been written in ordinary letters of the alphabet (as indeed it 
 often was), Spes in Christo, Spes in Deo, Spes in Deo 
 Christo, " Hope in Christ," &c. Another combination of the 
 symbol of the fish is with the dove. This we meet with in nearly 
 
 twenty instances ; and as we have already seen that this bird 
 with its olive branch, when found on a Christian gravestone, is 
 only another mode of expressing the m©st common of all 
 ancient epitaphs, Spiritus [tuus] in pace, "Thy spirit [be, or 
 is] in peace," so, when the fish is added, we recognise the same 
 inscription in its longer and fuller form, as we sometimes find 
 it written also, In pace et in Christo. On some ancient rings 
 or seals, a lamb or a dove may be seen standing on a fish, repre- 
 senting a Christian soul supported by Christ through the waves 
 and storms of this world. The fish is found also, either in 
 figure or in word, with the name of Jesus, or Christ, or the 
 monogram, or with the Good Shepherd.* These all speak 
 for themselves and require no comment. 
 
 There is another combination, however, of the fish with bread. Fish and 
 which is the most interesting and important of all Christian 
 symbols, and it deserves the most careful study. Probably it 
 will at once occur to the reader to connect these representa- 
 tions with the miracles of multiplying the loaves and fishes, 
 and sometimes, indeed, there is certain evidence that the 
 artist intended to allude to those incidents. P>en then, how- 
 ever, he nearly always violated the literal truth of the Gospel 
 
 Fig. 22. — Gravestone from most ancient part of St Friscilla. 
 
 * ^■i'-; 7 in page 55. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 story, for the express purpose (as it would seem) of showing 
 his intention to go beyond the letter, and to penetrate to the 
 hidden meaning of the text ; to idealise the history, as it 
 were, and raise it to the height of a symbol. Were it other- 
 wise, we should have no right to speak of it in this place, 
 but ought rather to reserve the whole subject till we come to 
 speak of the paintings which represent biblical histories. 
 But what biblical history can suffice to explain such paintings 
 as these ? — a fish swimming and carrying on its back a basket 
 of bread ? — a three-legged table with a large fish and two or 
 three loaves lying upon it ? — or the same again, Avith a man 
 standing before the table, apparently in the act of blessing 
 what is upon it, whilst a woman stands opposite, with her 
 hands expanded in prayer?* If these are not mere caprices 
 of the artist, it is clear that they must have been intended to 
 render sensible some doctrine rather than to represent any 
 fact, since there is no history to which they correspond ; they 
 were signs of religious ideas and truths^ rather than faithful 
 imitations of facts ; in a word, they were symbolical, or as 
 Raoul Rochette calls them, ideographical paintings, not histo- 
 rical ; and therefore they find their most fitting place in this 
 division of our subject. Nevertheless, it will be necessary, for 
 their full and complete elucidation, that we should first speak 
 of a painting which is of frequent recurrence in the Catacombs, 
 and which may be said to be partly historical and partly 
 symbolical. Its interpretation is provided by the Fathers 
 themselves. 
 
 A particular On the walls of several subterranean chapels there is a 
 instance of . . . , . , , . . , 
 
 these symbols pamtmg m which seven men are represented seated at a table, 
 
 united (St bread and fish before them ;t and there is a history in the 
 
 John XXI.) ^ ' •' 
 
 last chapter of the Gospel according to St John, of which it might 
 be taken as a literal representation. Jesus was manifesting 
 Himself to His disciples for the third time after His resur- 
 rection, and the evangelist has recorded the circumstances of 
 * See Plate XIV. I, 2 -V + See Plate XIII. 
 
SymbolicaL Paintings. 215 
 
 the manifestation with great minuteness. Of ourselves we 
 might not perhaps have noted anything very special in these 
 circumstances, of such a character as to lay a singular claim 
 upon the Christian artist above all other manifestations ; never- 
 theless we find, that as a matter of fact it did claim their 
 attention and occupy their pencil in a pre-eminent degree, 
 and even to the exclusion of every other history of the same 
 class. The details of the incident, which it is important for 
 us to observe, are these. Seven of the disciples had spent 
 the night in fishing, but had caught nothing. But when the • 
 morning was come, Jesus stood on the shore, and bade them 
 cast the net on the right side of the ship. They cast there- 
 fore, and were rewarded by a miraculous draught of fishes. 
 And as soon as they came to land, they saw hot coals 
 lying, and a fish laid thereon, and bread. And Jesus bade 
 them bring also of the fishes which they had themselves 
 caught. And when they had done so. He invited them to 
 come and dine, and " Jesus cometh and taketh bread and 
 giveth them, and fish in like manner.'" 
 
 All thoughtful students of Holy Scrij^ture can hardly fail to Explained of 
 recognise in this miraculous draught of fishes a prophetic type Eucharist ; 
 of the success which should attend the labours of the Apostles, 
 when engaged as fishers of men. Most of them also will pro- 
 bably suspect some connexion between the giving of bread by 
 Christ to His apostles (not on this occasion only, but on 
 others also, of His manifestation after His resurrection) with 
 the taking of bread and giving it them in the institution of the 
 Holy Eucharist ; more especially, since on one of these occa- 
 sions it is expressly mentioned that " He was made known to 
 them in the breaking of bread." f The following commentary, 
 then, of St Augustine on the narrative of St John, ought not to by St Augus- 
 appear strange or fanciful to any one, even though, in some of ' 
 its details, it may chance to be new to many of our readers. 
 He says that " in the dinner whicli the Lord made for those 
 * St John xxi. 13. t St l.ukt- xxiv 35. 
 
2i6 Roma Sotterra?iea. 
 
 seven disciples, of the fish which they had seen laid upon the 
 coals, to which He added of the fish they themselves had 
 caught, and of bread, Christ who suffered was really the fish 
 that was broiled (Fiscis assus, Christus passus) ; He is also the 
 bread, ' the bread which came down from heaven.' The 
 Church is the fish caught by the Apostles, which must be 
 incorporated into Christ, for the participation of everlasting 
 happiness ; we ourselves, and all true believers to the end of 
 time, are represented by those seven disciples " (the number 
 seven being often used in Holy Scripture for completeness or 
 universaHty), " that so we may understand that we too have a 
 share in so great a sacrament, and are associated in the same 
 happiness." And he concludes — " This is the dinner of our 
 Lord with His disciples, with which St John finishes his Gospel, 
 though he had many other things to say about Christ, inag7ia 
 nt existimo et reriim ?nagnartim coiiteinplatione as though 
 he would say, This history forms a suitable conclusion to the 
 whole Gospel, because it " exhibits a kind of link or transi- 
 tion from Christ's earthly to His heavenly kingdom ; " t inas- 
 much as it sets forth under a veil, or in a mystical manner, 
 the union of all Christian souls with Christ their Head, first, 
 by means of the bread from heaven, the Holy Eucharist, in 
 this world, and then in that yet more intimate enjoyment of 
 Him in the next world, whereof the sacrament of the altar is 
 at once a pledge and a foretaste. J 
 
 and the rest of 
 
 the Fathers. We have said that no thoughtful student of Scripture can 
 
 justly object to this interpretation of St John's words by the 
 
 great Doctor of the West, as though it were the mere fruit of 
 
 his own imagination, since it rests upon principles which are 
 
 even now universally acknowledged ; but this is far short of 
 
 what might have been said. For the truth is, that in the early 
 
 ages of the Church no other interpretation of the narrative was 
 
 * In Joann. Ev. Tract. 123, sec. 2, torn. iii. p. 2460, ed. Gaume. 
 t Keble on Eucharistical Adoration, c. ii. 
 
 :J: " In captura piscium commendavit Ecclesia; Sacramentum, qualis 
 futura est ultima resurrectione mortuorum." — St Aug. ubi supra. 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 2 1 7 
 
 ever dreamt of. So unanimous is the co?isenstis of the Fathers 
 in seeing here a mystical representation of the Holy Eucharist, 
 that Cardinal Pitra can only find a single ancient writer (the 
 pseudo-Athanasius) who does not so interpret it. We shall 
 content ourselves with quoting but one testimony. Prosper 
 Africanus, commenting upon this same part of the Gospels, 
 speaks of our blessed Lord as " that great Fish who satisfied 
 from Himself {ex Se Ipso) the disciples on the shore, and 
 offered Himself as a fish (IX0TN) to the whole world." 
 
 And we must remember that this is not the only passage of 
 Holy Writ in which the Fathers recognised the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment of the altar under the same symbol. We have already 
 quoted one who speaks of Christ as " that fish from whose 
 interior remedies we are both enlightened and fed;" referring, 
 of course, to the history of Tobias on the one hand, and to the 
 two sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist on the 
 other. St Augustine t also, speaking of the authority given to 
 man at the creation over the fishes of the sea, is immediately 
 reminded of these same sacraments, which he describes as 
 " that solemnity of sacraments whereby those whom God's 
 mercy seeks out amid many waters are first initiated, or that 
 other solemnity wherein that fish is manifested, which, when 
 it has been drawn forth from the deep, pious mortals eat." 
 These words would be absolutely unintelligible, unless we sup- 
 pose that to the waiter himself, as well as to his readers, the 
 idea of the fish as a symbol of the Holy Eucharist were per- 
 fectly familiar. 
 
 This familiarity is still further remarkably attested by two This interpre- 
 
 most ancient epitaphs ; one, of St Abercius, Bishop of Hiera- g^^'^" the tpi- 
 
 polis, in Phrygia, towards the end of the second century ; the ^''^P'^ 
 
 Abercius, 
 
 Other, of one Pectorius (as it would appear), who was buried 
 in the cemetery of St Pierre d'Estrier, near Autun, probably 
 during some part of the third century. The first of these 
 epitaphs has been long known, but was only imperfectly under- 
 * De Promiss. ii. 39. t Confess, xiii. 23. 
 
2l8 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 stood, until recent discoveries of Christian monuments had 
 thrown fresh hght upon its mystical language.* The only part 
 of it which concerns our present subject is contained in a few 
 lines towards its conclusion. Abercius has been describing 
 his many and distant travels through Syria and to Rome, and 
 he says — 
 
 Kat irapedTjKe Tpo4>w ^X^^'^ f^'-V^ ^"^^ Trrjyijs 
 Trafx/xeyedri, Kadapbv, 6v ebpd^aro irapdevos ayvT}' 
 Kal TovTov irapedojKe (pLXois ecrdeLV 5ta wavrbs, 
 oIpov xPV^t^v ^xofO'ci, KepacFfxa hhovaa /xer aprov 
 
 TavO^ 6 poup eij^ULTO virep fxov irds 6 crvpcfdbs. 
 
 " Faith led me on the road, and set before me for food 
 fish from the one fountain, the great and spotless fish which 
 the pure Virgin embraced ; and this fish she gave to friends 
 to eat everywhere, having good wine, giving wine mixed 
 with water, and bread. May he who understands these things 
 pray for me." The allusion contained in the words, " the one 
 fountain," will be better explained at a future time,t when we 
 come to speak of the representations of Moses striking the 
 rock, and the fountain flowing forth ; but all the rest is easily 
 understood when once we recognise that the fish was used as 
 a symbol of Christ and of the Holy Eucharist ; then bread and 
 wine and the fish come naturally together as the visible and 
 invisible parts of one great mystery, 
 and another The second epitaph we have spoken of was only discovered 
 arAutun^"^^^ about thirty years ago in the place already mentioned ; and its 
 chronology has been made the subject of much critical dis- 
 cussion, some placing it as early as the time of the Antonines 
 in the second century, others as late as the middle of the 
 fourth. Cardinal Pitra, P. Secchi, P. Garrucci, and other 
 
 * Spicil. Solesm. iii. 533 ; Acta SS. Bolland, Oct. torn. ix. p. 491. 
 
 t Chapter VII. of this Book. The bread and the fountain are also 
 brought together in a line of the Sibylline verses, vi. 15. ck 5e nirjs irrjyrjs 
 dprov Kopos ^aaeraL dvdpQp. And bread and the blessed Virgin in i. 359. 
 Pitra quotes an ancient title of our blessed LdLdy, /bus Bethlemkus ; and 
 P>eLhlehcm means the House f)f Bread. 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 219 
 
 learned authorities, assign it with more probabihty to the 
 earlier part of the third.* There is a flavour of antiquity 
 about it which cannot be mistaken, so that even those who 
 think it may have been put together in its present form in the 
 fourth century, do not hesitate to say that the particular part 
 of it which has reference to the fish, may have been as old as 
 the days of St Irenseus. In it Christians are called " the 
 divine children of the Heavenly Fish," and after an allusion to 
 their new and immortal life, received in the sacred waters 
 which enrich the soul with wisdom, it goes on to bid them 
 "receive the sweet food of the Saviour of the saints;" Eat 
 and drink," it says, " receiving and holding the fish in your 
 hands." 
 
 IxQvo^ ovpavLov detou yevos, 
 
 '^iOTTjpos 5' ayicou fxeXi-qdea Xdix^ave (ipCjatV 
 "Ec^te, irlve, dvoLv \-)(.dvv e'xwi' TraXd^ats. 
 
 No one can doubt what is here alluded to, and no one, we and by 
 think, can call in question our right to attribute to the early "J""^""^"*-^ °^ 
 Christian artists the same thoughts on this subject as were so 
 manifestly familiar to Christian writers. Nevertheless, that we 
 may satisfy the most sceptical of readers, we will add yet other 
 particulars, taken from the monuments of Christian art them- 
 selves, which, even if they stood alone, would in our opinion 
 abundantly justify the interpretation we have put upon this 
 ancient and popular symbol of the fish, when found together 
 with bread. These particulars are twofold ; first, there is the 
 fact that in all, or nearly all, the paintings of this dinner of Miracles of 
 our Lord to seven of His disciples, there is added some repre- [foVof the^'^'^ 
 
 sentation, either of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves l<^aves and 
 
 fishes, and of 
 
 and fishes, or the changing of water into wme at Cana in Galilee, the changing 
 events which had absolutely no connexion with it, or with each ^J'j^jJ^^ 
 other, historically, though mystically they are all most intimately 
 united. It can hardly be, necessary to make many citations 
 
 * Sec Cahier, Mel. d'Aich. iii. 156, iv. 118; Spic. Solesm. i. 560. 
 
220 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 from the Fathers, to prove that they saw in both these 
 miracles foreshadowings of the great mystery of the Holy 
 Eucharist ; and when they are brought together in the monu- 
 ments of art, the allusion to the two species in the Blessed 
 Sacrament is too transparent to be denied. We are all 
 familiar with the argument urged by St Cyril of Alexandria, 
 that since our Lord once turned water into wine, which is 
 something akin to blood, it ought not to be counted an in- 
 credible thing that He should also have turned wine into 
 blood ; and St Ambrose, commenting on the other miracle as 
 recorded by St Luke,* says distinctly, " In the ministry of the 
 Apostles on this occasion, the future distribution of the Body 
 and Blood of the Lord is foreshadowed;" and in another 
 place he brings the two miracles together, and makes the same 
 application of them both ; or rather, he quotes Pope Liberius 
 as having done so in a homily delivered on Christmas Day in 
 St Peter's, t 
 
 The Christian artists could not have been ignorant of this 
 spiritual interpretation of our Lord's miracles, and for this 
 reason they united in one scene events that were really very 
 distinct in time and place. Thus, a number of baskets of 
 bread always forms the foreground of the picture we have 
 described of the feast of the seven disciples. Moreover, be- 
 cause they desired that the minds of those who saw their 
 paintings should not rest in the outward semblance of the 
 scene, but be carried forward to its hidden and mystical mean- 
 ing, they always departed, more or less, from its literal truth ; 
 e.g.^ we never find seven or twelve baskets of bread, but eight; 
 nor six water-pots of wine, but seven. It was the symbohsm 
 of a religious idea they aimed at, and not the representation 
 of a real history. 
 
 Similar paint- second item of artistic evidence is still more conclusive. 
 
 ings 11) a Cata- ancient Christian cemetery has lately been discovered in 
 comb at Alex- 
 andria. Alexandria, subterranean, and in other respects also bearing 
 
 Comment, in S. Luc. c. ix. lib. vi. 84. t De \'irginibus, iii. i. 
 
Symdolical Paintings. 
 
 22 1 
 
 a certain resemblance to the Ro- 
 man Catacombs. In one of the 
 chapels, and precisely over the altar 
 where the sacred mysteries would 
 have been celebrated, there are the 
 remains of a pamting, belonging (De 
 Rossi believes) to the fourth century, 
 in which all these various scenes are 
 brought together, and their interpre- 
 tation given in writing. That is to 
 say — In the middle is our blessed 
 Lord, with Peter on His right hand 
 and Andrew on His left, holding a 
 plate with two fish, whilst several 
 baskets of loaves lie on the ground 
 before Him. Further to the right 
 is the miracle at Can a, our blessed 
 Lady and the servants having legends 
 over their heads,— - H ATI A MA PI A 
 — TA nAIAIA — "Holy Mary" 
 and " The Servants ; " and in the 
 corresponding compartment on the 
 other side are a certain number of 
 persons seated at a feast, with a le- 
 gend over their heads, TA2 ETAO- 
 ITA2 TOT XT E20IONTE2,— "Eat- 
 ing the benedictions of Christ." 
 Now, this same word, which we 
 have here translated benedictions^ is 
 the word used by St Paul* when 
 speaking of the communion of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ. The 
 verb belonging to it is used by the 
 Evangelists indifferently with the 
 
 \ 
 
 I Cor. X. 1 6. 
 
222 
 
 Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 corresponding verb of the Eucharist, both in their account of 
 the miracles of multiphcation, and also of the institution of 
 the Blessed Sacrament.'^ Lastly, it is the very word always 
 used by St Cyril of Alexandria (in whose city this painting is 
 found) to denote the consecrated bread and wine ; and when 
 the devotion of the faithful w^axed less fervent, and com- 
 munions became more rare, the same word was naturally 
 retained, and has ever since remained, to denote the blest 
 bread which was now received, instead of It. Here, then, we 
 have the evidence of the Christian artist himself, that the two 
 miracles we have referred to were understood and used as " a 
 kind of sacramental anticipation" (to use the words of St 
 Maximus) " of the chalice of the New Testament." 
 Summary of '^^^^ ^^"^^s discussion may have appeared somewhat long 
 
 evidence, and tedious, perhaps, to some of our readers, or at any rate 
 miportance or 7 j. i 7 1 j 
 
 the conclusion, out of place, yet it was not possible to avoid it if we desired to 
 show that we are building on solid foundations. For we have 
 been accused of wishing to force upon the paintings of the 
 Catacombs a meaning they will not bear, whereas we most 
 sincerely desire to ascertain what their meaning really is ; and 
 we have thought the best means of doing this is to compare 
 them with the literary and biographical details which have 
 come down to us wath reference to the thoughts and feelings 
 of those who executed them, or for whom they were executed. 
 We have been accused of " attempting to connect the fish with 
 the doctrine of Transubstantiation." What we have really 
 done is to prove by abundant testimonies that when fish and 
 bread were represented together on ancient Christian monu- 
 ments, there was meant a secret reference to the Holy Euchar- 
 ist, of which the bread denotes the outward and visible form, 
 the fish the inward and hidden reality, viz., Christ Jesus Our 
 Lord. 
 
 Before the recent discoveries, this was only a conjecture of 
 
 * St Matt. xiv. 19; XV. 36; xxvi. 26, 27. St Mark, vi. ^\ ; xiv. 22. 
 St Luke ix. 16 ; xxii. 19. St John vi. 11. 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 
 
 223 
 
 acute and learned antiquarians, but the pictures discovered in 
 the cemetery of St CaUixtus set before us most plain and un- 
 questionable representations of the Eucharistic table, side by 
 side with pictures recording the Gospel histories of the repasts 
 on bread and fish, and the baskets of multiplied loaves, and 
 thus they put in the strongest light the symbolical link which 
 united those repasts and miracles with the Holy Eucharist. 
 The secret of this connecting link was no less illustrated and 
 confirmed by the celebrated epitaph of Autun, where the 
 hieroglyphic of the fish is openly applied to the bread of the 
 Holy Table. From the first moment of the discovery of that 
 venerable monument, Cardinal Pitra — then a professor in a 
 neighbouring seminary — invited the attention of the learned 
 to the light which it threw on this instance of ancient Chris- 
 tian symbolism ; and the monuments of various kinds which 
 have since been brought to light, together with many others 
 which bad been known indeed long before, but not fully un- 
 derstood, provide so complete a demonstration of that secret 
 symbol, and of its gradual development in the hands of Chris- 
 tian artists, that it is no longer possible for any reasonable 
 man to refuse his assent to the interpretation, or to make 
 a demand for more abundant evidence. It is quite certain 
 that these figures, however unmeaning they might have been 
 to strangers, were as perfectly intelligible to cotemporary 
 Christians as the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt to those who 
 used them, or the letters of the F>nglish alphabet to ourselves. 
 
 When, then, we see on a Christian tombstone, as on a very Examples. 
 
 iYNTRoTHlojv 
 
 Fig. 24. — Tombstone from an ancient Christian Cemetery at Modena. 
 
 ancient one found at Modena, and represented in this figure, 
 a couple of fish, each holding a loaf of bread in its mouth, and 
 
224 
 
 Ro?7ta Sotlerj'anea. 
 
 five other loaves between them, we feel certain that the sur- 
 vivors of Serapion, whose tombstone it is, intended a symboli- 
 cal representation of the Holy Eucharist, that blessed sacra- 
 ment which had, doubtless, been his strength in life, and now 
 gave the sure hope of his resurrection to everlasting life.* In 
 
 Fish carrying like manner we have no difficulty in giving a Christian mean- 
 a basket of . , i i • ^ • ^ ■ • ^ 
 
 bread. that strange-lookmg ornament which is twice repeated 
 
 in one of the most ancient cubicula in the crypts of St Lucina, 
 and of which the reader will find an accurate copy in Plate 
 XIV. A fish, apparently alive and swimming, bears upon its 
 back a basket of bread. This bread is not of the ordinary 
 kind, but of a gray ashen colour, such as was used by the 
 people of the East, and especially by the Jews, as a sacred 
 offering of the first fruits to the priests, and was known to the 
 Romans by the barbarous name of mamphala. The bread 
 lies on the top of the basket, but in the middle of it, in both 
 pictures, may be clearly distinguished a something red, a some- 
 thing that seems best to represent a glass containing red wine; 
 and De Rossi produces a text from St Jerome, of which he 
 says he was irresistibly reminded as soon as he saw this paint- 
 ing. St Jerome is speaking of Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, 
 who had spent all his substance for the relief of the poor, and 
 he goes on to remark that " nothing, however, can be richer 
 than one who carries the Body of Christ in a basket made of 
 twigs, and the Blood of Christ in a chalice of glass." t In the 
 painting before us the basket is precisely of this kind, and it 
 was already known from other sources that baskets of wicker- 
 work were used in the sacrificial rites both of the Jews and 
 Gentiles, and that the Christians also had continued the use 
 of vessels of the same material for carrying the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, where gold or silver could not be had. % We cannot 
 doubt, therefore, that this singular painting — at once the most 
 
 * St John, vi. 55. 
 
 t Ep, 125, alias \, ad. Rusticum. torn. i. 1085, ed. Migne. 
 X See Marini, Fratr. Arvali, 396, 423. 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 
 
 225 
 
 ancient and the most simple that we know, of the fish united 
 with bread — was intended to refer to the mystery of the Holy 
 Eucharist. 
 
 Probably the painting also on the opposite wall of the same 
 cubiculum is another symbol of the Holy Eucharist, though this 
 
 is less obvious and certain. A milk-pail rests on a kind of Lamb carrying 
 
 11 1 •• ■. 1 • 1 milk-pail; 
 
 altar between two sheep,"' and the same mstrument may be 
 
 seen in the next chamber, on the right-hand side of the Good 
 Shepherd. Elsewhere it appears also in his hands. In these 
 latter instances, it might not unreasonably be taken as merely 
 one of the ornamental accessories of pastoral life, inserted 
 without any religious signification, but its position in the pre- 
 sent example seems to indicate something more important. 
 So also when we find it, as in some most ancient pictures in the 
 cemetery of St Domitilla, suspended from the pastoral staff 
 and by the side of the lamb ; or, as in a later painting in the 
 
 cemetery of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, resting on the back of 
 the lamb itself, we are reminded of the undoubted fact that 
 * See fig. 14, page 103. 
 
 P 
 
2 26 Ro}}ia Softer ranea. 
 
 milk was often used as a symbol of the Holy FAicharist.* In- 
 deed, the lamb carrying the milk pail on its own back seems 
 exactly analogous to the picture we have just been studying 
 of the fish carr)'ing the bread, 
 interpreted The Acts of St Perpetua — generally acknowledged as a 
 
 l)v the Acts of . 1 ^ . ^ . . ^ , , . . 
 
 s't Perpetua, genuine document oi the beginning oi the third century — 
 describe, as a part of the vision by which that saint was con- 
 soled and strengthened in prison, the Good Shepherd appear- 
 ing to her, milking His flock, and giving her to eat some of the 
 curds of the milk which He had drawn. " She received them 
 with hands crossed upon one another, and all the people 
 answered, Amen," — just the word and the action then used in 
 partaking of the Holy Eucharist, of which it was here evi- 
 dently intended to be a symbol. Something of the same kind 
 also occurs in other ancient Acts ; and some of the old com- 
 mentators point out that the good things of the Gospel are 
 sometimes prophesied and foretold under the figure of flesh, 
 sometimes of mixed wine, sometimes of milk. It may not be 
 out of place also to call to mind the primitive practice of 
 giving milk and honey to infants after baptism, — a practice 
 borne witness to by TertuUian and St Jerome as one of those 
 things which were handed on by tradition to the Church, and 
 which was continued, at least on Holy Saturday, as late as the 
 ninth or tenth century. t 
 
 and by the It is Still more to our purpose to quote the language of St 
 lanfTuage of . . , . r ,i -r. i j. , 
 
 St Augustine, Augustine m his commentary on one of the Psalms ; J and the 
 
 whole sermon in which it occurs is so remarkable, and bears 
 
 so directly upon the question of symbolism with which we are 
 
 engaged, that we are sure our readers will need no apology if 
 
 we quote from it at some length. The Doctor is commenting 
 
 on the title of the 33d Psalm, which refers to an incident in 
 
 * Buonarroti, Vetri, 32 ; Garrucci, Vetri. 62, 63, ed. 2da. 
 t TertuUian, De Cor. Militis, c. 3 ; Hieron. Dial. adv. Lucif. See 
 Martene, De Ant. Eccl. Rit. lib. i. c. i. xv. 16. 
 
 X Enarr. i"'^ in Ps. xxxiii. torn, iv, p. 301, ed, Gaume. 
 
Syinbolica I Paintings. 227 
 
 the life of David, not exactly as it is recorded in the historical 
 books : that is to say, in the Book of Kings the incident is 
 told of one person, and in the title of the Psalm it seems to 
 be attributed to another. And the Saint argues that this 
 change of name has not been made without a reason. He 
 inquires, therefore, into the mystical meaning of the whole 
 incident, which he maintains it certainly must have, whether 
 we can discover it or not ; because every other part of the 
 history of the Jewish people lias such a meaning ; and he 
 appeals to his hearers as knowing this fact as well as he does. 
 He specifies amongst other details of Jewish story, which fore- 
 shadowed mysteries of the Christian Church, the manna, the 
 passage through the Red Sea, and the striking of the rock. 
 He then speaks of David slaying the giant Goliath, as a type 
 of Christ killing Satan : — " But what is Christ who slew Satan? 
 It is humility slaying pride. When then I speak to you, my 
 brethren, of Christ, it is humility that is specially commended 
 to you. For He made a way to us by humility. . . . God was 
 made humble, that so the pride of the human race might not 
 disdain to follow the footsteps of God." And he continues 
 immediately as follows : — " But there was, as you know, in 
 former times a sacrifice of the Jews according to the order of 
 Aaron, with victims of cattle ; and this, too, was in a mystery, 
 because, as yet, there was not the sacrifice of the Body and 
 Blood of the Lord, which the faithful know and those who 
 have read the (iospels; which sacrifice is now spread {diffusimi) 
 throughout the whole world. Put then before your eyes those 
 two sacrifices; the former one according to Aaron, and this one 
 according to Melchisedec. For it is written, 'The Lord swore, 
 and will not repent ; Thou art a priest for ever according 
 to the order of Melchisedec' Of whom is this said, ' Thou 
 art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedec?' 
 Of our Lord Jesus Christ. But who was Melchisedec?" 
 Then, after giving the history of Alelchisedec, and calling 
 particular attention to his priesthood, to the blessing which 
 
228 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 he gave to Abraham, and to liis having brought forth bread 
 
 who speaks and wine, he continues, " The sacrifice of Aaron, then, is 
 of the sacrifice 
 
 of the Body taken away, and the sacrifice according to the order of Mel- 
 Chl-ift!°°'^ chisedec has begun to be. . . . Our Lord Jesus Christ has 
 willed our salvation to be in His Body and Blood. But 
 whence has He commended to us His. Body and Blood % 
 From His humility ; for except he were humble, He would 
 not be eaten and drunk. Consider His greatness : ' In the 
 beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
 the Word was God.' Behold this everlasting food ; but food 
 for Angels. Angels eat of it, and the powers above, and 
 heavenly spirits ; and eating, they are filled and satisfied ; yet, 
 that which satisfies and gladdens them still remains whole. 
 But what mortal could approach that food ? Whence could 
 he have a heart suitable for such food ? It was necessary that 
 that food should be made milk {jncnsa ilia lactesceret)^ and so 
 and the Holy come to little ones. But how does meat become niilk'? How 
 deTthTsymbol meat changed into milk, unless it first be passed through 
 of milk. flesh? And this is done by the mother. What the mother 
 eats, the same is also eaten by the infant ; but because the 
 infant is not fit to eat bread, the mother changes the bread 
 into her flesh {ips/nii pan cm viater incaniai), and so feeds the 
 infant on that very bread, through the lowliness of the breast and 
 the juice of milk. How then has the Wisdom of God fed us 
 on bread ' Because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in 
 us' (/;/ 7?obis). Behold then His humility; for man has eaten 
 the bread of Angels, as it is written, ' He gave them the bread 
 of heaven; man ate the bread of Angels;'"'' that is, man has 
 eaten of that Word whereon the Angels feed, and which is 
 equal to the Father ; for, ' being in the form of God, He 
 thought it not robbery to be equal with God.' The Angels 
 feed on him, but ' He debased Himself,' that man might eat 
 the bread of Angels, ' taking the form of a servant, being made 
 m the likeness of men and in habit found as a man, He 
 
 * Ps. Ixxvii. 24. 
 
Symbolical Paintinos. 229 
 
 humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the 
 death of the cross,' "' in order that from the Cross might be 
 commended to us the new sacrifice, the flesh and blood of 
 Christ." 
 
 Manifestly, then, it is by no means improbable that the milk- 
 pails to which we have called attention in early Christian monu- 
 ments may have had a religious symbolical meaning, though 
 we do not by any means pretend to put it on the same level 
 with the symbol of the bread and the fish. The examples of 
 the one symbol are comparatively rare, and its interpretation 
 is borrowed from the language of a few ; the other was inces- 
 santly repeated in every variety of combination, and is attested 
 by a great multitude of authorities. 
 
 Some of our readers may be surprised that nothing sliould Different 
 have been yet said about the cross or the monogram, which ^JJ^s^^ ' 
 by some writers are stated to have been the earliest and most 
 common of all Christian symbols. This statement is not, hov/- 
 ever, borne out by archaeological facts. We have already spoken 
 of the anchor being, in some instances, so formed in Christian 
 epitaphs as naturally to suggest the thought of the cross ; and 
 we need not quote the well-known passages of Tertullian and 
 others, which show the love of the early Christians for this 
 sign of salvation, and their frequent use of it. Christians were 
 criicis rcIigiosi\\ the cross was the sii^num C/irisfi, to xv^iazov 
 6ri(Milo]i.% Nevertheless, there were obvious reasons why this 
 sign should not be freely exposed to public gaze ; the famous 
 caricature of the Crucifixion, found on the Palatine, is a sufficient 
 proof of this. In the most ancient part of the lowest piano 
 of the cryj)t of St Lucina, we meet with a loculiis with the 
 inscription 
 
 POT^MNA 
 EirilNII 
 
 with a simple Greek cross beneath the latter name. But 
 
 * riiilij). ii. 6^<S. t Tei-Lull. Apol. i6. 
 
 ::J: St Clem. Alex. SUoiu. vi. ii. 
 
Roma Sottej^ranea. 
 
 most of the earliest forms of it that we can discover are 
 more or less disguised. It is contained, for instance, in the 
 monogram (Fig. 26, b)^ which occurs on an inscription of the 
 
 Fig. 27. — Different forms of the Cross and Moiiogrn)ii.. 
 
 year 268 or 279, as well as upon others not bearing certain 
 dates. It seems to have been intended to combine the first 
 letters of IHCOTC XPICTOC, and may be considered rather 
 a compendious form of writing than a symbol properly so 
 called. TertuUian quotes Ezech. ix. 4. Signa Tau super 
 frontcs, &c., and says : " Now the Greek letter Tau and our 
 own T is the very form of the Cross, which he predicted 
 would be the sign on our foreheads in the true Catholic 
 Jerusalem,"'" The number 300 being expressed in Greek 
 by this letter Tau, came itself, even in apostolic times, 
 to be regarded as equivalent to the cross. t We see examples 
 of this in the inscription ireTne, lately discovered in a part 
 of the Catacomb of San Callisto, belonging to the third cen- 
 tury ]% and also in the monogram of Tyranio (Fig. 27, p. 232), 
 in both of which the T is made prominent, evidently with a 
 symbolical meaning. We even find the letter itself inscribed 
 alone, or in combination with the letter P, on a tomb- 
 stone. § 
 
 The Constantinian monogram, as it is called (Fig. 26, r), 
 is formed of the first two letters of tlie (xreek word for Christ, 
 the X with the P. It is not easy to fix its date with any 
 certainty, but it was known to the Christians long before the 
 triumph of Constantine, although the few dated inscriptions 
 
 * Conlr. Marc. iii. 22. 
 
 t See Barnab. Ep. Cath., c. 9. ed. Ilefele.. p. 22. 
 
 X BulL'f., 1863, 35. 
 
 § Rom. Sott., torn. 2, xxxix, 28. 
 
Symbolical Paintings. 231 
 
 before that event do not supply us with any specimen of it. 
 It has been found scratched on the plaster, side by side with the 
 earlier forms {a and b), both in San Callisto and the Catacomb 
 of St Agnes, in galleries which bear every sign of being prior to 
 the time of Constantine. This monogram, and also the simple 
 Greek cross, appear on the coins of that emperor, and shortly 
 after his time we meet with the modifications of it {d and c). 
 The tail of the P is sometimes prolonged, as in /; in other 
 cases the same letter is reversed as in or the whole is placed 
 obliquely as in h and /. A form of the Cross, is sometimes 
 found on the garments of some of the figures painted in the 
 Catacombs during the fourth century, which is composed of 
 a fourfold repetition of the Greek r ; and because the symbol 
 thus formed was in use among the Buddhists and in other 
 Oriental superstitions, some French writers have attempted to 
 establish an historical connexion between them and the 
 Christian religion. It lias been demonstrated, however, by 
 De Rossi, that this crux ganuiiata^ as it was called, was of 
 comparatively late introduction into the Christian Church. 
 It was no spontaneous invention of the early Cliristians, no 
 fruit of early tradition; but rather was borrowed by the 
 Christians from some other source, and adopted for a while 
 for concealment's sake. 
 
 It may be remarked that the form -p- is an extremely slight 
 modification of a mode of writing the Greek P, with a transverse 
 line across it, not un frequently met with in ancient Greek in- 
 scriptions, and to be seen on some of the coins of Herod the 
 Great. This also, like the crux ganunata, was afterwards 
 studiously adopted by the C-hristians and supplanted tlie 
 original Constantinian monogram which that emperor com- 
 manded his soldiers to inscribe on their shields.* The plain 
 Latin cross seems to have been used much earlier in Africa 
 
 .* " Fecit ct jussus est. ut transversa x litlera, sumino capita circumflexo, 
 Christum in scutis notat." — Lactant de mort. persec. c. 44. See P. (jar- 
 rucci, Vetri Ornati, &.C., where he describes and discusses all the coins of 
 Constantine. 
 
232 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 than in Italy indeed, it was used more frequently in that 
 country than any form of the monogram. In Italy it began 
 about the beginning of the fifth century, and by the end of 
 the sixth century was very common everywhere. Once or 
 twice also we find on tombs in the Catacombs a monogram 
 formed from the union of and the letter N, being intended, 
 apparently, for the initials of the words XPICTOO NIK A, Christ 
 conquers, and belonging, of course, to post-Constantinian 
 times. 
 
 * De Rossi de Tilul. Caitliag. aixid Spic. Solesm. iv. 
 
 Fig. 28. — SnrcoJ'hn^iis found in Crypt of St Luciiia, representing Ulysses and the Siren. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ALLEGORICAL PAINTINGS. 
 
 HE second class of paintings in the Catacombs of which Parables not 
 
 at least by some of our Lord's parables, though they can ^"cient ar 
 hardly be said really to reproduce them, and therefore we 
 have called them allegorical. In truth, they are but a parti- 
 cular application and a further development of the same 
 principle wiiich has been already described under the name 
 of symbolism. They proceed from hieroglyphic writing to 
 artistic composition. Instead of a single symbol, or combina- 
 tion of symbols, they are whole scenes, inspired or suggested, 
 as we have said, by our Lord's parables, and themselves sug- 
 gesting the truths which He thereby designed to teach. We do 
 not, however, wish to be understood as saying that the first 
 Christians composed these scenes as a careful statement of 
 doctrine, and painted them on the walls of their cemeteries or 
 chapels with a distinct dogmatic purpose, for ihc sake of 
 teaching. Rather, we believe, that their minds and souls 
 being full of certain ideas, they naturally gave expression to 
 those ideas in corresponding artistic forms, which forms again, 
 when seen by others, necessarily revived and strengthened the 
 impression of the truths they typified. The teaching was real, 
 but unconscious. 
 
 Among the parables or ])aral)olical instructions of our Lord, 'I'he vine, 
 that of the vine and grai)es was certainly adopted by His 
 disciples during the first century;"' and the illustration we 
 
 we promised to speak, is of those which were si/ij^i^ested 
 
 accurately re- 
 produced in 
 ancient art. 
 
 * ritra, Spicll. Solcsm, ii. 449 458. 
 
234 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 have given in page 72, from the most ancient part of the 
 Catacomb of St Domitilla, is probably an example of it. The 
 presence of little winged putti amongst the branches does not 
 militate in any way against its Christian sense, though we 
 cannot agree with those who consider that those little figures 
 were intended to represent either men or angels. It seems 
 more probable that they were used as mere ornaments, pretty 
 but senseless accessories, according to the custom of the 
 classical school of art, from which the Christian school had 
 sprung and necessarily drawn some of its first inspirations. 
 
 The parable of the wise and foolish virgins appears occa- 
 sionally in some of the cuhiciila ; at least the wise virgins are 
 to be seen, not the foolish ; and even these have not lamps 
 in their hands, but burning torches, according to the Roman 
 fashion with which the artists were more familiar. On a grave- 
 stone, a man is represented in the act of sowing seed ; but it 
 is impossible to say with certainty that any allusion was here 
 intended to the parable. The scene may have had reference 
 to the occupation of the deceased, or to something else which 
 we cannot now discover. 
 
 The parable, however, of the Good Shepherd is one which 
 cannot be mistaken. Raoul Rochette, indeed, has made such 
 a display of the old heathen representations of Mercury carry- 
 ing a ram, of the Fauns, of shepherds and other young men 
 carrying a lamb, a sheep, or a goat on their backs, that it 
 would almost seem as if he doubted whether the Good Shep- 
 herd were a certain sign of Christianity, or, at any rate, that 
 he supposed the first Christians had taken the idea of their 
 Shepherd from the traditions of Pagan art rather than the 
 Gospel. Yet, in truth, these naked young men in the tomb 
 of the Nasones and elsewhere have very little in common 
 with what we see on Christian monuments. Sometimes, but 
 
 * Tlie foolish virgin? have l)ecn Lately found pninted in a ctibicnhuii in 
 (lie Catacomb of St Cyriaca ; but the painting is of a later date ; it belongs 
 lo the time of the first Christian emperors.— y^'////e//., J863, y>. 'J'j. 
 
Alleoorical Painfmgs. 235 
 
 very rarely, we find in Pagan tombs a sliepherd dancing with 
 a lamb or goat on his neck. The only one we know which 
 could at all be compared with those in the Catacombs, is 
 represented quite naked, among a lot of other figures, mani- 
 festly alluding to the seasons, and is essentially different from 
 the grave picture of the Good Shepherd, which occupies the 
 principal place in the roof or on the walls of so many Christian 
 chapels. Once, in wSt Domitilla's cemetery, both the Good 
 Shepherd and the dancer are to be found in the same chapel ; 
 but no one could pretend thrt there was no diff"erence between 
 them, or that one could be mistaken for the other. Of course 
 it is not unlikely that, amid so frequent a repetition of pastoral 
 scenes both by Pagan and Christian artists, there sliould be 
 an occasional resemblance, possibly even a direct imitation, 
 of some ancient and classical type ; but if so. Christian artists 
 have at least departed from the Pagan type in a thousand 
 different ways. 
 
 It seems to have been quite their favourite subject. We of very fre- 
 cannot go through any part of the Catacombs, or turn over 
 the pages of any collection of ancient Christian monuments, 
 without coming across it again and again. We know from 
 Tertullian that it was often designed upon chalices. We find 
 it ourselves painted in fresco upon the roofs and walls of the 
 sepulchral chambers ; rudely scratched upon grave-stones, or 
 more carefully sculptured on sarco])hagi ; traced in gold u|)on 
 glass, moulded on lamps, engraved on rings ; and, in a word, 
 represented on every species of Christian monument that has 
 come down to us. Of course, amid such a multitude of 
 examples, there is considerable variety of treatment. We 
 cannot, however, appreciate the suggestion of Kiigler, that this 
 frequent repetition of the subject is probably to be attributed 
 to the capabilities which it possessed in an artistic point of 
 view. Rather, it was selected l)ecause it expressed tlie vvhole 
 sum and substance of the Clnistian dispensation. In the 
 
 * Rcllori, p. 58; PictuicX Anl. (Jivpt. Rom., cd. Rottaii, p. 58. 
 
236 
 
 Ro7na Sotterranea. 
 
 language even of the Old Testament, the action of Divine 
 Providence upon the world is frequently expressed by images 
 and allegories borrowed from pastoral life ; God is the Shep- 
 herd, and men are His sheep. But in a still more special way 
 our Divine Redeemer offers Himself to our regards as the 
 Good Shepherd. He came down from His eternal throne in 
 heaven into the wilderness of this world to seek the lost sheep 
 of the whole human race, and having brought them -together 
 into one fold upon earth, thence to transport them into the 
 ever-verdant pastures of paradise. Moreover, in this work He 
 vouchsafes to receive some of His own creatures as coadjutors. 
 His gospel was committed to the ministration, not of angels, 
 but of men, and the commission was given to the Prince of 
 the Apostles, and in him to all His ministers, to " feed PI is 
 
 and variously sheep." Hence He is sometimes represented alone with His 
 represented. 
 
 flock ; at other times accompanied by His apostles, each 
 attended by one or more sheep. Sometimes He stands 
 amidst many sheep ; sometimes He caresses one only ; but 
 most commonly — so commonly as almost to form a rule to 
 which other scenes might be considered the exceptions — He 
 bears a lost sheep, or even a goat, upon His shoulders ; and 
 we cannot doubt that He was painted in these various atti- 
 tudes, not for artistic effect, but for their spiritual sense. 
 Reasonably so. Of course, since Jesus Himself had vouchsafed to assume this 
 name and title of a Shepherd, it was natural and lawful for 
 Christian artists to represent Him in all the attitudes, and 
 with all the instruments, of the pastoral profession, such as 
 the crook, the pipe of reeds, the milk-pail, &c. ; but even these, 
 as we have seen, are each capable of receiving a very apposite 
 Christian interpretation. And although it may please some 
 writers to turn into ridicule any attempt to aflrx a Christian 
 sense to every detail of an ancient fresco, it is hard to see upon 
 what principle such objectors rely, which would not absolutely 
 debar us from attempting to interpret the "motive" of any 
 painting whatever, of which tlie artist did not hai)pen to have 
 
Allegorical Paintings. 237 
 
 left his own explanation in writing. If it be attempted to put 
 
 a sense upon a painting, which it cannot be proved was ever 
 
 known to the age in which the artist lived, the attempt is 
 
 likely both to provoke and to deserve contempt ; but where it 
 
 is certain, on the contrary, that the sense suggested must 
 
 have been quite familiar to the artist, either from its being 
 
 contained in the broadest outlines and leading features of his 
 
 religion, or from its having been pressed upon his notice by 
 
 the controversies of his age. it seems reasonable to conclude 
 
 that such sense was intended ; as, for instance, that the Good 
 
 Shepherd leading or caressing a goat was intended to be a 
 
 protest against the hateful severity of the Novatians and other 
 
 heretics refusing reconciliation to penitent sinners. So again, 
 
 when we find on either side of the Good Shepherd, other men 
 
 busying themselves about other sheep, and those sheep all 
 
 disposed in various attitudes, it is natural and legitimate to 
 
 conclude, first, that those men are the apostles and ministers 
 
 of God's word and sacraments, whose duty it is to carry on 
 
 the work of the Good Shepherd ; and, secondly, that the various 
 
 attitudes of the sheep denote the various dispositions of those 
 
 to whom they are sent. And this is precisely what we see 
 
 in Plate XVI., which represents a painting over an arcosolium 
 
 in the Gatacomb of St Callixtus, that was afterwards cut 
 
 tln-ough in very ancient times for the sake of making a grave— 
 
 a sure sign of the high antiquity of the painting thus damaged. 
 
 On either side of the Good Shepherd, who occupies the centre. Explanation of 
 
 Plate XVI 
 
 we see two men, probably SS. Peter and Paul, " representing 
 the whole Apostolate from the beginning to the end, hasten- 
 ing away from Christ, as sent by Him to the world. On either 
 side, before each of the two, tliere rises a rock, which is Christ 
 himself, the true Rock of the desert, pouring down streams 
 of living waters.! These waters include all the sacraments and 
 graces of Christianity. The apostles are seen joining their 
 hands to catch this water, in order to turn it afterwards on 
 * I Cor. X. 4. t St John iv. lo, 13, &€. 
 
238 
 
 Roma Sotteri^inea. 
 
 our heads, /.<f., in order to communicate it to the world. 
 I'he world to which they are sent is represented by two sheep 
 standing before each of them. On one side, one of the sheep 
 is listening attentively, not quite understanding as yet, but 
 meditating and seeking to understand ; the other turns his 
 tail ; it is an unwelcome subject, and he will have nothing to 
 do with it. On the other side, one of the two sheep is drinking 
 in all he hears with simplicity and affection ; the other is eating 
 grass ; he has something else to do ; he is occupied with the 
 cares and pleasures and riches of this world."'"' Moreover, the 
 artist has so distributed the streams of water as they flow forth 
 from the rock, that they fall in exact accordance with the 
 spiritual condition we have supposed the artist to have intended 
 by the various positions into which he has placed his sheep ; 
 for, whereas a perfect torrent is falling on the head of the 
 animal that stands with outstretched neck and head lifted to- 
 wards the apostle, the other, which has turned its back, is left 
 without any water at all. 
 
 * Palmer's Early Christian Symbolism, p. 3. 
 
 Fk;. "Zi^.— Inscription frtnu titc Crypts of St Lncina. See p. 206. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BIBLICAL PAINTINGS. 
 
 E have found it impossible, as we anticipated, to Even the bibli- 
 
 classes of paintings in the Catacombs with whicli we set out. 
 The classification itself is just, but there is such an intimate 
 relation between the several members of it, and they are so 
 frequently intermixed, even in the same composition, that in 
 treating of some, it became necessary to anticipate our explana- 
 tion of others, if we did not wish to leave our whole commen- 
 tary incomplete and unsupported l)y its legitimate proofs. We 
 are forcibly reminded of this, now that we come to treat of the 
 paintings which re})resent histories from the Bible. 
 
 This class is far more rich and varied than that of the 
 parables ; yet, when compared with the abundance of the 
 source from which they are taken, even these seem poor and 
 limited. If we had been told that the early Christians were in Their limited 
 the habit of decorating their burial-places and places of""'" 
 assembly with paintings of subjects taken from the Bible, and 
 had been invited to speculate on the probable subjects of their 
 choice, we should certainly not have confined the range of 
 Christian art within those narrow limits which we find from an 
 examination of its existing monuments that it really observed. 
 Nor is it easy, at this distance of time, to discover the causes 
 which led to so great a restriction of the artists' liberty. The 
 fact, however, is plain and undeniable. Out of the infinite 
 variety of histories in the Old and New Testaments, which 
 
 keep inviolate that distinction between the several 
 
 cal paintings 
 symbolical. 
 
240 
 
 Roma Sottein^anea. 
 
 seemed to offer both fitting subjects for the pencil and useful 
 lessons of instruction or consolation to tlie faithful, only a few 
 were taken ; nor did either painter or sculptor often venture 
 to transgress the boundaries assigned to them. " The inci- 
 dents that exemplified the leading dogmas of fiiith were chosen 
 in preference to others," says Kiigler, " and thus the arts 
 become the index of the tenets that were prominent at differ- 
 ent periods." 
 
 and fixed cliai- Not only were the artists limited within a narrow cycle of 
 
 acter. 
 
 subjects ; even in their mode of treating these, they were not 
 left wholly to themselves. They did not treat them either 
 accurately as facts of history, nor freely as subjects of the 
 imagination, but strictly with a view to their spiritual meaning; 
 and since this is always the same, religious dogma imparted 
 something of its own fixedness of character to the art which it 
 vouchsafed to employ. We may apply almost literally to the 
 state of Christian art as exhibited in the Catacombs, the same 
 language that was used so many centuries afterwards during 
 the Iconoclast controversy : — Non est imaginum sii'iicUira pic- 
 toriim im'eiitio, sed ecclcsicE Catholicce probata Icgislatio ettraditio* 
 The details only of the execution belonged to the artist ; the 
 choice of subjects, the general design and plan of the whole 
 was more or less under the control of authority. And this or 
 that story was selected, not at all for its own sake, but for the 
 sake of what was associated with it in the mind of the Church ; 
 in other words, even the historical paintings were essentially 
 symbolical. 
 
 "The symbolical system of this hieratic cycle," says De 
 Rossi, is established beyond all dispute, not only by the 
 choice and arrangement of subjects, but also by the mode of 
 representing them, and, in a few instances, even by inscriptions 
 Noe in the accompanying them.'' Take the history of Noe, for example : of 
 baptisl?^^ what an endless variety of compositions is not this subject cap- 
 able, and how variously has it not been treated in all the schools 
 * Cone. Nic. III. Actio vi. Collect. Labbe, torn. vii. fol. 831, 832. 
 
Bid lie a I Paintings. 2 4 1 
 
 of modern art ? Yet throughout the whole range of the Roman 
 Catacombs we find but one type of it, and that removed as 
 far as possible from historical truth. Instead of a huge ark 
 riding upon the waves, and containing eight persons, together 
 with a vast multitude of living animals, we have a single indi- 
 vidual almost filling the small box in which he stands, whilst a 
 dove, bearing an olive-branch, flies towards him.'"^ Some 
 persons have supposed that this scene was a direct but imper- 
 fect imitation of the famous coins of Apamea, belonging to not copied 
 the reign of Septimius Severus, on which a man and his wife Apaj^ea 
 stand in a similar box, with a raven perched behind them, and 
 a dove flying towards them : and however difficult it may be 
 to account for this representation on a heathen coin struck in 
 Phrygia in the beginning of the third century, the letters 
 Nfl or NHE, which appear on the front of the box, leave us 
 no choice as to referring it to the history of the patriarch. 
 Nevertheless, De Rossi claims for some paintings of the same 
 subject in the Catacombs, particularly for those in the entrance 
 to the Catacomb of St Domitilla, referred to in a former 
 chapter,t an undoubted priority in point of time. Moreover, 
 as he justly remarks, there is no proof of any community of 
 idea between the Christian and the Pagan artist, except as to 
 the form of the ark, and this was in a manner forced ujjon 
 them both, by the conditions of space within which they 
 worked ; in all other parts of the composition there are many 
 differences. In the Christian paintings, the raven never 
 appears, nor is there any legend identifying the person as 
 Noe. On the contrary, it is often not a man but a woman ; 
 and once her name is added,— the name of the deceased on 
 whose grave it was painted, Juliana. We have not far to seek 
 for an explanation of this painting. St Peter, in one of his 
 Epistles,^ had spoken of a certain figurative resemblance 
 between those eight souls who were " saved by water in the 
 
 * See Plate YHI. 2. t See page 73 ; and Bul/cft. 1865, ]). 43. 
 
 X I J'eter iii. 20, 21. 
 
 Q 
 
242 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 days of Noe, when the ark was a-biiilding," and those Chris- 
 tians who are now " saved by baptism, being of the Hke form 
 and some of the most ancient commentators on Holy Scrip- 
 ture draw out the resemblance in all its details. As the waters 
 of the deluge cleansed the earth from all its iniquities, so the 
 waters of baptism cleanse the soul ; as those only were saved 
 who took refuge in the ark, so now also the Lord " adds daily 
 to the Church such as should be saved ; " * and these are 
 taken from among " all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and 
 tongues," even as the ark also contained " of every living 
 creature of all flesh, wherein was the breath of life." We must 
 confine ourselves to a single witness, Tertullian, who has 
 expressed this doctrine with his usual terseness in the follow- 
 ing words :t — " As after the waters of the deluge, in which the 
 old iniquity was purged away, as after that baptism (so to call 
 it) of the old world, a dove sent out of the ark and returning 
 with an olive-branch, was the herald to announce to the earth 
 peace and the cessation of the wrath of heaven, so by a similar 
 disposition with reference to matters spiritual, the dove of the 
 Holy Spirit, sent forth from heaven, flies to the earth, i.c.^ to 
 our flesh, as it comes out of the bath of regeneration after its 
 old sins, and brings to us the peace of God ; where the Church 
 is clearly prefigured by the ark." When, therefore, we find 
 this scene of a man inclosed in an ark, and receiving the olive- 
 branch from the mouth of a dove, painted upon the walls of a 
 chapel in the Catacombs, we cannot doubt that it was intended 
 to express the same general doctrine, viz., that the faithful, 
 having obtained the remission of their sins through baptism, 
 have received from the Holy Spirit the gift of Divine peace, 
 and are saved in the mystical ark of the Church from the 
 destruction which awaits the world. And if the same picture 
 be rudely scratched on a single tomb, it denotes the sure faith 
 and hope of the survivors that the deceased, being a faithful 
 
 * Acts ii. 47. 
 
 t l.ib. dc Baptismo, vii. 
 
Bib ilea I Pa uithigs. 243 
 
 member of the Church, had died in the peace of God, and had 
 now entered into his rest. 
 
 This picture of Noe and the ark is not unfrequently placed Jonas and the 
 very near to the history of Jonas ; indeed, in one instance,'"' the ?esufrec"-^ 
 dove which belongs to Noe is represented on the poop of the 
 vessel which is carrying off the prophet. The history of Jonas 
 having been put forward so emphatically by our Lord Him- 
 self,t as a type both of His own and of the general resurrection, 
 it is not to be wondered at that it should have held the first i)lace 
 among all the subjects from the Old Testament represented 
 in the Catacombs. It was continually repeated in every 
 kind of monument connected with the ancient Christian 
 cemeteries; in the frescoes on the walls, on the bas-reliefs of 
 the sarcophagi, on lamps and medals, and glasses, and even 
 on the ordinary grave-stones. Christian artists, however, 
 by no means confined themselves to that one scene in the 
 life of the prophet in which he foreshadowed the resurrection, 
 viz., his three days' burial in the belly of the fish, and his de- 
 liverance from it, as it were from the jaws of the grave. The 
 other incident of his life was painted quite as commonly, viz., 
 his lying " under the shadow of the booth covered with ivy on 
 the east side of the city " for refreshment and rest ; or again, 
 his misery and discontent, as he lay in the same place, when 
 the sun was beating upon his head and the ivy had withered 
 away. 
 
 We speak of the ivy, because it is so called in the Vul- 'I'lie ivy ui- the 
 gate ; but all scholars are familiar with tlie disi)ute between 
 St Jerome and St Austin as to the right translation of the 
 Hebrew word used in this place ; and althougli the language 
 of Rufifinus in his invectives against St Jerome for his new trans- 
 lation of the Scriptures % would seem to imply that the learned 
 Saint had appealed to the pictures in the Catacombs in defence 
 of his own rendering of the word, their authority certainly 
 
 * Rottari, 1'av. cxxxi. t St Matt. xii. 39. 
 
 X Op. S. Ilieron., voh li., p. 663, cd. Vallas, 1735. 
 
244 
 
 Roma Sotteri^anea, 
 
 appears to us to be all in favour of St Austin and the gourd. 
 However, this is unimportant ; the real point of present 
 interest to us, in this matter, is that the paintings in the 
 cemeteries should have been appealed to at all in the course 
 of a religious controversy before the close of the fourth 
 century, and appealed to as already an ancietit witness 
 veterum sepiilchris), by one whom we know""' to have been a 
 frequent visitor to them in the days of his youth. No direct 
 Patristic testimony is at hand, showing the particular intent 
 with which this part of the history of Jonas was so frequently 
 set before the eyes of the faithful : it is not difficult, however, 
 to see how salutary a lesson of patience and encouragement it 
 could be made to preach to the poor persecuted Christians, 
 whose lot, as witnesses to God's truth, was cast in a city both 
 more populous and more wicked than that to which the pro- 
 phet had been sent. The four scenes we have described 
 sometimes occupy the four highest spaces on the walls of a 
 cubicuhim; sometimes only two are given, opposite to one 
 another ; and occasionally even the whole history is crowded 
 together into one compendious scene, the prophet being cast 
 out by the great fish so as to fall immediately under the booth 
 covered with the gourd. t Ttie fish is quite unlike any real 
 inhabitant of the deep ; it resembles only some of those marine 
 monsters, sea-horses or cows, with which the Pagans delighted 
 to ornament the walls both of their drawing-rooms and of their 
 sepulchres, either as mere freaks of the imagination, or as the 
 conventional representation of the beast in the fabulous tale of 
 Andromeda. Even the Christians, too, used the same figure 
 as a mere ornament in their most ancient decorations, but 
 finally it was confined to the history of Jonas; a monstrous 
 dragon, with a very long and narrow neck, and a large head 
 and ears, sometimes also with horns. Perhaps it was repre- 
 sented in this way as a type of death, l)y way of distinguishing 
 U from the real 1X0 TC, or Saviour. 
 
 * See pR-r 97. t See Plate VII. 
 
Biblical Paintings. 
 
 245 
 
 Daniel in the lions' den is usually rei:)resented in the Daniel in the 
 
 paintings of the Catacombs as standing naked * between [heThtee Chil- 
 
 two lions, with his arms outstretched in the form of a ^^''^^^ ]}'^ ^^^^ 
 
 fiery furnace. 
 
 cross.t History may have been intended either as a figure 
 of the resurrection,:}: or as a source of encouragement to 
 the Christian flock under the extraordinary sufferings and 
 dangers to which they were exposed at the command of 
 idolatrous rulers. St Cyprian, writing in the midst of 
 persecutions, § makes this use of the history, and also of 
 the history of the Three Children (as we are wont to call 
 them) who were cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to 
 worship the golden image set up by Nabuchodonosor. He 
 (juotes them as signal instances of the greatness of God's 
 mercies and the power of His protection ; these men having 
 all acquired the merit of martyrdom through the boldness of 
 their confession, yet being delivered by His might out of the 
 hands of their enemies, and preserved for His greater glory. 
 By others of the Fathers,|| these same histories find their place 
 among the numerous symbols of the resurrection from the 
 dead, " whence also they were received as in a figure \ " IF 
 and of course either interpretation is equally legitimate. 
 
 Indeed, these various interpretations, taken from the writings 
 of men who themselves lived during the ages of persecution, 
 are a sufiicient proof of the kind of use which was then made 
 of the Old Testament histories, and of their application to the 
 circumstances of the day : and since it is only natural to suppose 
 
 * Le Blant (Inscriptions, Chretiennes de la Gaule, toni. i. 493) is only 
 able to quote five examples of ancient Christian art in which Daniel is 
 clothed, and all of these are of much later date than the paintings of the 
 Catacombs, See, however, our Fig. 11 in page 73. If hi-itorical truth had 
 been the artist's aim, the prophet should have been painted sitting, and 
 with seven lions (Dan. xiv. 39). 
 
 t See centre of roof in Plate VL, also centre of sarcophagus in Plate 
 XIX. 
 
 % S. Hieron. in Zach., lib. ii. c. ix. 864, 
 § Ep. Ixi. or Iviii., ed. Baluz. 
 
 11 St Irenseus, lib. v. c. 5, 2; TertuU. De Resurrect. 
 ^[ Heb. xi. 19. 
 
246 
 
 R oma Sot terra n ca . 
 
 that the very same purpose animated the artist wlien he 
 represented to the eye, and tlie preacher when he addressed 
 himself to the ear, we are not arbitrarily imposing a sense of 
 our own upon these paintings, but only seeking to discover, 
 by sure rules of interpretation, what meaning was really present 
 to the mind of their authors, and what lessons they conveyed 
 to the minds of those who saw them. In the writings of later 
 Fathers, such as St Augustine, St Chrysostom, and others, the 
 history of the Three Children is used as a type of the history of 
 the Church ; at first forbidden by the rulers of this world to 
 worship the true God, and suffering all kinds of persecution 
 because she will not heed the prohibition, then triumphing 
 over her enemies, and persuading even her very persecutors to 
 become her children and protectors. And it would almost 
 seem as if the early Christians, even in their darkest hours of 
 trial, had enjoyed some prophetic anticipation of this blessed 
 Adoration of change, and looked upon the adoration wdiich the infant 
 the Ma^i. Saviour had received from the Wise Men of the East as a kind 
 of foretaste and first-fruits, as it were, of the homage which the 
 whole world should one day give Him, since we find them 
 repeatedly bringing together, in the most marked way, these 
 two histories, the Three Children refusing to adore the image of 
 Nabuchodonosor from the Old Testament, and the three Wise 
 Men adoring the infant Jesus from the New. The juxtaposi- 
 tion of these two subjects is far too frequent to allow us to 
 look upon it as fortuitous."^ It should be mentioned that this 
 history of the Three Children is usually represented with more 
 truth and literal accuracy than most others ; at least, we find 
 them always " with their coats, and their caps, and their shoes, 
 and their garments," t just as the sacred text describes them ; 
 and these garments are always of an Oriental character, the 
 Phrygian tiara, tunics, and tlie sa?'abaUi, or trousers, just as 
 
 ■* They are found together, not only in the Catacombs, but also in a 
 sarcopliagus at Nismes, and other Christian monuments at Milan, &c., 
 Bull. Arch. 1866, p. 64. t See Plate IX. 2. 
 
Biblical Paintings. 247 
 
 tlie worshippers of Mithras or other Easterns are represented 
 on Pagan marbles. 
 
 Another pair of subjects which seem in like manner to be Moses sti iking 
 studiously brought together from the two Testaments, are resur're"- 
 Moses striking the rock and the resurrection of Lazarus.* 
 
 rus. 
 
 Sometimes they are found in the same compartment of a paint- 
 ing ; sometimes roughly sketched side by side on a grave- 
 stone ; still more frequently they are together on a sarcophagus. 
 Some antiquarians consider the point of connexion between 
 them to be the display of Divine power in bringing living water 
 out of a dry rock, and a dead man to life out of his rocky 
 grave ; but this analogy hardly seems to be sufficiently close : 
 any other of the miracles of Our Blessed Lord might have been 
 selected with almost equal propriety. Others, therefore, prefer 
 to look upon these two subjects as intended to represent the 
 beginning and end of the Christian course ; " the fountain of 
 water springing up unto life everlasting ; " f God's grace and 
 the gift of faith being typified by the water flowing from the 
 rock, " which was Christ," and life everlasting by the victory 
 over death and the second life vouchsafed to Lazarus. And 
 this interpretation seems both more probable in itself and is 
 more confirmed by ancient authority ; since Tertullian % dis- 
 tinctly identifies the water which flowed from the rock with the 
 waters of Baptism, which is the beginning of the Christian life, 
 as a resurrection is unquestionably the end. St Cyprian also 
 agrees with Tertullian, saying § that it was foretold that if the 
 Jews would thirst and seek after Christ, they should drink with 
 us Christians, />., should obtain the grace of Baptism. "If 
 they should thirst in the desert," says Isaias (xlviii. 21), " He 
 will lead them out : He will bring forth water out of the rock 
 for them, and cleave the rock, and my people shall drink." 
 " And this was fulfilled in the gospels " (he continues) " when 
 
 * Marligny, Diet, dcs Antuj., artic. Lazare, p. 361. 
 
 t St John iv, 14. X Baplismo, § ix,. 
 
 § Epist. Ixiii. 8, toin. ii. 151, ed. Fell. 
 
248 
 
 Roma 'Sotterranea. 
 
 Christ, who is the rock, is cleft with the stroke of the lance in 
 
 His Passion ; Who, reminding them of what had been foretold 
 
 by the prophet, cried aloud and said, ' If any man thirst, let 
 
 him come and drink ; he that beUeveth in me, as the Scripture 
 
 saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'* And 
 
 that it might be made still more clear that the Lord spoke 
 
 here about Baptism, the Evangelist has added, ' Now this He 
 
 said of the Spirit, which they should receive who believed in 
 
 Him ' ; for the Holy Spirit is received by Baptism.'' 
 
 Moses taking Moses may sometimes also be seen in the act of taking off 
 off his slioes. , , 
 
 his shoes before approaching the burning bush ; and this is 
 
 treated by some of the Fathers as emblematical of those 
 
 renunciations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, which all 
 
 the faithful have made in Baptism ; f or it might typify that 
 
 reverence which is required of all who approach the Christian 
 
 mysteries. 
 
 In one instance, in a fresco of the cemetery of St Callixtus, 
 we find these two scenes in the life of Moses represented 
 close together, almost as parts of the same picture ; % but the 
 figure of Moses in the two scenes is manifestly difterent. In 
 the first, where he takes oft" his shoes, having been called by 
 the hand of God coming out of a cloud to go up into Mount 
 Sinai to receive the law, he is young and without a beard ; in 
 the second, where he strikes the rock, and the thirsty Jew is 
 drinking, he is older and bearded ; and both the general look 
 of his hair and beard, and the outline of his features, seem to 
 present a certain marked resemblance to the traditional figure 
 of St Peter. 
 
 These are the principal scenes from the Old Testament his- 
 tory of which it is necessary that we should speak ; and the few 
 which are taken from the New Testament will fall more natu- 
 rally under other branches of our division. We shall have 
 occasion also to return to one or two of those which wt have 
 
 * St John vii. 37-39. + St Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 42. 
 
 X See Plate IV. 
 
Biblical Paintings. 249 
 
 mentioned from tlie Old Testament, as, for instance, Moses 
 striking the rock, when \ve come to its more complete 
 exhibition, not in paintings on the walls, but on the gilt 
 glasses of the third and fourth centuries which have been 
 found in the Catacombs. For the present, the interpretation 
 given by Kiigler, though not very exact, may be quoted as 
 sufficiently intimating its general sense. " Where we find 
 Moses," he says, " striking the rock, with kneeling figures 
 drinking the waters," — these are not generally found in tlie 
 paintings, but only on the sarcophagi, — " we understand the 
 miraculous birth of Christ, who, according to the prophet 
 Esaias, is the Well of Salvation from which we draw waters 
 with joy — the Spiritual Rock from which we drink." 
 
 We conclude our present chapter by observing, that Ave 
 should gather even from the writings of the Apostles them- 
 selves, that nothing was likely to be more familiar to the 
 minds of the early Christians than the symbolical and pro- 
 phetical meaning of the facts of the Old Testament ; so that 
 the sight of these paintings on the walls of their subterranean 
 chapels was probably as a continual homily set before the 
 practised minds of the faithful of the first three centuries, 
 and by them perfectly understood. Moreover, the constant 
 repetition of the same subjects makes it impossible to suppose 
 that there was no unity in their choice ; and a careful study of 
 the order and mutual dependence in which they are usually 
 disposed, seems to reveal a certain theological knowledge in 
 those who presided over their arrangement. Indeed, it is 
 scarcely too much to say, that some of these artistic com- 
 positions might be made to take the place of a well-ordered 
 dogmatic discourse. This has been noticed long since even 
 by men who had no really extensive or intimate acquaintance 
 with the subject, e.g., by Kiigler, who imagined that he saw in 
 the order of histories chosen for the adornment of one of these 
 chapels, an intention to set forth under typical forms the Birth, 
 the Sufferings, and the Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord 
 
250 Ronia SotterraJiea. 
 
 in proper succession. Lord Lindsay also writes to the same 
 effect, when he says that " Rome seems to have adopted from 
 the first, and steadily adhered to, a system of typical parallelism, 
 of veiling the great incidents of redemption and the sufferings, 
 faith, and hope of the Church, under the parallel and typical 
 events of the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations." * This, 
 however, is a branch of the subject to which we shall have 
 occasion to return when we speak of the liturgical paintings, 
 wliere this principle is singularly prominent. 
 
 * Sketches of the History of Christian Art, 47. 
 
 Fig. 30. — Scnlptnra in the Lateran MuseHin, representing the ascent of 
 Rlids into hgai'i'u. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAINTINGS OF CHRIST, HIS HOLY MOTHER, AND THE SAINTS. 
 
 THE three classes of paintings we have hitherto described Historical 
 1 1-1 1 111 1 T 1 11 -1 paintings ( 
 
 — those which we have called symbolical, allegorical, tremely ra; 
 
 and biblical — were all animated by the same spirit, and were, ^^^^^Q'""'^' 
 in fact, only various manifestations of the same principle. 
 They were all cotemporaneoiis, therefore, and often mixed 
 together in the decoration of the same chambers. Whereas 
 then the genius of Christian art remained thus essentially 
 symbolical, we cannot be surprised at the utter absence from 
 the Catacombs of anything like real historical paintings of 
 what was then going on in the Church. Neither the sufferings 
 nor the triumphs of the martyrs employed the pencil of the 
 Christian artist during the three first centuries, or at least but 
 very rarely. Nevertheless, De Rossi enumerates scenes from 
 the lives of the Saints and the history of the CInirch, as a dis- 
 tinct class of paintings, because there is at least one picture 
 in the Catacomb of St Callixtus which seems to record some 
 such event. Two men are depicted standing before a Roman 
 magistrate on his seat of justice, or rather being led away from 
 before it after their condemnation ; and as there is good reason 
 to believe that the two martyrs. Saints Parthenius and Calo- 
 cerus, were buried in the cliamber in which this painting 
 occurs, it has been conjectured that it is a part of their historv 
 which it represents. Moreover, as these martyrs had been the 
 guardians, during life, of tlie young lady whose family (we be- 
 lieve) gave this portion of ground for the use of the Church as 
 
252 
 
 Roma Sotter^^aiica. 
 
 a cemetery,''' there was nothing improbable in supposing that 
 the memory of their noble confession of the faith may have 
 been thus recorded for future ages. One or two other ex- 
 amples, scattered here and there throughout the Catacombs, 
 seem to invite a similar interpretation. Nevertheless, we re- 
 ceive it with much hesitation ; the instances are so rare, and 
 they seem so alien to the spirit and temper of the countless 
 multitudes of paintings of a different description executed 
 during the three first centuries. Of course, after the conver- 
 sion of Constantine there was a revolution in this as in every- 
 thing else ; but it was not till the end of the fourth, or even the 
 beginning of the fifth century, that paintings were executed 
 such as those which Prudentius describes, for example, repre- 
 senting the various sufferings of the martyr St Hippolytus. 
 
 No real por- It is certainly more remarkable that there should not have 
 trait of Christ, 
 
 or of Blessed been found here any genuine portraits, either of Our Blessed 
 Mary, &c. -j^^^^j^ p^-^ -^^^^ Mother, or His Apostles, which De Rossi 
 enumerates together as forming another class of paintings. 
 Raoul Rochette f has said very positively that there was no 
 consecrated model in the first ages of the Church for the 
 figures of these sacred objects of Christian devotion and wor- 
 ship ; and although this statement may perhaps require some 
 slight modification with regard to the two Princes of the 
 Apostles, Saints Peter and Paul, yet in the main it is cer- 
 tainly true, so far as we may judge from the testimony of what 
 still remains to be seen in the Catacombs. 
 
 Indeed, Our Blessed Lord is scarcely ever represented there 
 at all, excepting either under the typical character of the Good 
 Shepherd, or in the act of performing one of His miracles, or 
 sitting in the midst of His Apostles ;t and in all these cases 
 He is generally painted as a young and beardless man,§, with 
 
 * See page 127. t Tableau des Catacombes, 164. 
 
 X We knoM' of no other very ancient picture in the Catacombs of our 
 Lord's Baptism, except that ofwhich we have given a copy at p. 119. That 
 in the cemetery of San Ponziano is very much later, of the 7th or 8th century. 
 
 § In the mosaics, on the contrary, He is usually bearded. 
 
Paintings of Christ, &c. 
 
 nothing very marked in His appearance to distinguish Him 
 from others of the children of men. Once, indeed, His head 
 and bust form a medallion, occupying the centre of the roof 
 in a cubicidujii of the cemetery of Saints Nereus and Achilles, Kuglei's 
 the same in which is a representation of Orpheus and his of a^busrof 
 lyre. This painting, in consequence of the description ^^^[^^''^JJjJg^^ 
 it given by Kiigler, is often eagerly sought after by strangers 
 visiting the Catacombs.''" It is only just, however, to add 
 that they are generally disappointed. Kiigler supposed it to 
 be the oldest portrait of Our Blessed Saviour in existence, but 
 we doubt if there is sufficient authority for such a statement. 
 He describes it in these words — " The face is oval, with a 
 straight nose, arched eyebrows, a smooth and rather high fore- 
 head, the expression serious and mild ; the hair, parted on the 
 forehead, flows in long curls down the shoulders ; the beard is 
 not thick, but short and divided ; the age between thirty and 
 forty.'' 
 
 This description may, perhaps, remind some of our readers 
 of the well-known letter of Lentulus to the Roman Senate, 
 in which the personal appearance of our Lord is thus 
 described — " His hair curling, rather dark and glossy, flows 
 down upon His shoulders, and is parted in the middle, after 
 the manner of the Nazarenes. The forehead is smooth and 
 very serene ; the countenance without line or spot, of a plea- 
 sant complexion, moderately ruddy. The nose and mouth are 
 fauUless ; the beard thick and reddish like the hair, not long, 
 but divided ; the eyes bright, and of varying colour." We 
 need not stop to inquire into the genuineness of this letter, 
 nor the means which its author had of knowing the truth ; for, 
 with respect to the description given by Kiigler, it must be at 
 once acknowledged that it is too minute and precise, too 
 artistic, for the original, as it is now to be seen. A lively 
 imagination may perhaps supply the details described by 
 our author, but the eye certainly foils to distinguish them. 
 * Kiigler misnames the Catacomb, calling it of St Callixtus, 
 
254 
 
 Rojna Sottei^ranea. 
 
 Eusebius has mentioned painted likenesses of our Lord and 
 of His Apostles, handed down from ancient times, and similar 
 allusions occur in St Augustine, St Basil, and others.* Never- 
 theless, we repeat that the monuments of the Catacombs pre- 
 sent no authentic incontestable example of any real, or even 
 conventional, portraiture of either. Only two members of the 
 Apostolic College are generally distinguished from the rest, and 
 these keep with tolerable uniformity the same type. But, 
 ordinarily, all the saints were represented in the same way, 
 in the act of prayer; that is, with arms outstretched in the form 
 of a cross ; and the reason of this attitude is explained by 
 numerous inscriptions, speaking in the most distinct terms, 
 and showing, first, that the saints were beheved to be living in 
 God, and secondly, that survivors desired the help of their 
 prayers. 
 
 Among the innumerable oranti, as they are called (persons 
 praying), which appear on the walls of the Catacombs, there is 
 one of a woman, which is frequently found as a companion to 
 the Good Shepherd, and which a multitude of considerations 
 lead us to believe was intended for Our Blessed I^ady, or else 
 for the Church, the Bride of Christ, whose life upon earth is a 
 life of prayer, even as His Holy Mother is similarly employed 
 in heaven. The two interpretations do not necessarily exclude 
 one another. On the contrary, both may have been present 
 to the mind of the artist together, as there are several indica- 
 tions in ancient writers of a certain recognised resemblance 
 between the Blessed Virgin and the Church. St Ambrose 
 speaks of it distinctly ; t Pope Sixtus HI. (a.d. 435) set up an 
 inscription in Mosaic in the apse of the Lateran Basilica, in 
 which he commemorates the virginal maternity of the Church, 
 the Spouse of Christ; and long before either of these, the 
 
 Euseb. H. E. ii. 25 ; vii. 18. St Aug. De Consens. Ev. lib. i. c. 10, 
 St Basil, Ep. ccclx. ad Julian. Tertull. De Pudic. c. 10; and St Jerome in 
 Joann. iv. See also Macarius, Hagioglypta, ii. 
 
 t " Multain figura ecclesiac de Maria prophetata sunt." — Dc Instit. Virg., 
 
Paintings of Christ, cfc. 255 
 
 famous letter, written by the Church of Lyons about her 
 martyrs, expresses the same idea, when it calls the Church 
 " the Virgin Mother," '"' quite as though the phrase would be at 
 once understood by all. 
 
 It has sometimes been supposed that this female orante 
 denoted some martyr or person of distinction buried in the 
 principal tomb of the cuhiciiliim where the painting is found. 
 And possibly this conjecture may be sometimes correct. But 
 in the majority of instances, we feel certain that it is inadmis- 
 sible ; as, for instance, where it is manifestly intended as a 
 companion to the Good Shepherd ; and indeed, in some few 
 instances, we find this figure engraved upon the tombstones 
 instead of the Good Shepherd ; it stands with outstretched 
 arms between two sheep. And in many more instances it 
 occupies a part of a ceiling in which every other compartment 
 is filled by some person or story from the Bible, and where, 
 therefore, it is hard to believe that any memorial of a private 
 individual would have been allowed to remain. For these 
 reasons, then, we more willingly believe that either the Church 
 or the Blessed Virgin was intended ; and of these interpreta- 
 tions, we incline rather to the latter, first, because the Blessed 
 Virgin is to be found represented in this same attitude on 
 some of the gilded glasses in the Catacombs, either alone or in glasses, 
 between the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, and can be identi- "nTcoins" 
 fied in both cases by her name written over her head ; and 
 secondly, because she is represented in the same way also 
 upon a sepulchral marble of the earliest ages, in the Church of 
 San Giovannino, at St Maximin, in Provence. The inscription 
 on this monument runs thus, — Maria Virgo minester de 
 TEMPULo Gerosale,— which seems to refer to some legend 
 about her ministrations in the temple, recorded in one of the 
 apocryphal Gospels.f Moreover, it should not be forgotten 
 
 * Eus. Hist. Eccles. v. i, i; 40. 
 
 t Macarii, Hagioglypta, 36 ; Le Blant, Inscriptions Chieticnnes do la 
 Gaule, vol. ii. 277. 
 
256 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 that on Byzantine coins, and in works of Greek art generally, 
 down to this very day. Our Blessed Lady is often represented 
 in this ancient and most expressive attitude of prayer. Even 
 if the figure were intended principally to represent the Church, 
 it would be quite in keeping with the practice of early Christian 
 wTiters to represent the Church under the symbol of the Virgin 
 Mother of God.* 
 
 frequently also Whatever may be thought of the cogency of these arguments, 
 painted in the , , , , m t r ^ ^ 
 
 Adoration of — ^^^^ uelicve that they cannot easily be reiuted, — the 
 
 the Magi. question of Our Lady's position in the most ancient field of 
 
 Christian art by no means depends upon them. If these 
 
 paintings do not represent her, yet she certainly appears in 
 
 more than a score of other scenes, where her identity cannot 
 
 be questioned. A modern Protestant writer, indeed, laying 
 
 claim, too, to a perfection of candour, boldly says that he only 
 
 saw a single certain specimen of a painting of the Blessed 
 
 Virgin in all the Catacombs, and that was of a comparatively 
 
 late date, and that it is idle to attach much importance to so 
 
 singular an exception. He is evidently referring to the 
 
 Madonna in the (so-called) Catacomb of St Agnes, where she 
 
 is to be seen in the lunette of an arcosolium^ with her hands 
 
 outstretched in prayer, the Divine Infant in front of her, and 
 
 the Christian monogram on either side, turned towards her.f 
 
 The presence of this monogram naturally directs our thoughts 
 
 to the fourth century as the probable date of the work ; but 
 
 as there is no niuibus round the head either of Our Blessed 
 
 Lord or His Holy Mother, it is necessary to fix the earlier half 
 
 of that century rather than the later. De Rossi considers that 
 
 * See S. Clem. Alex. Posdag. i. 6. Dr Newman says on Apoc. xii. i : 
 " The Holy Apostle would not have spoken of the Church under this par- 
 ticular image imless there had existed a Blessed Virgin Mary, who was 
 exalted on high, and the object of veneration to all the faithful." — Letter to 
 Dr Pusey on his Eirenicon, p. 62. 
 
 t This picture, in which the Divine Infant is placed in front of his 
 virgin mother, unsupported, and simply to show who she is, forms the 
 original of a favourite Russian type of the Madonna which they call Zna- 
 ■iHcnskaia. See Palmer, 1. c. p. 66. 
 
Paintings of Christ, &c. 
 
 257 
 
 the style of execution indicates as nearly as possible the time 
 of Constantine himself. This, however, so far from being the 
 oldest or most interesting painting of the Blessed Virgin to be 
 seen in the Catacombs, is probably one of the latest ; and if 
 the author we have referred to saw no other, he can have seen 
 
 but very little of the Catacombs at all. There is quite a 
 numerous class of paintings,— De Rossi speaks of upwards of 
 twenty, — representations of the Magi making their offerings to 
 the Infant Jesus, in which she is always the central, or at least 
 the principal figure. Generally she sits at the end of the scene, 
 with the Holy Child on her lap, and the three Magi are before The Magi 
 her ; but in three or four instances she is in the middle ; and 
 here, in order to keep a proper balance between the two sides 
 of the picture, the number of the Magi is increased or 
 diminished ; there are either four, as in the cemetery of St 
 Domitilla, or only two, as in that of Saints Peter and Marcel- 
 linus. It is clear, however, that three was already known as 
 the traditional number ; for even in one of the instances we 
 have quoted we can still trace the original sketch of the artist, 
 designing another arrangement of the scene with three figures 
 
 * It is generally said that St Leo the Great, or St Maximus of Turin, 
 are the first witnesses to this tradition. Origen, however, seems to have 
 had the same idea. — Patrizi de Evangel, iii., diss, xxvii. pars. 2da. 
 
 Fig. z^.—Frcsco 0/ the Blessed Virgin and Child in the (so-ealledi Cemetery of 
 St A^nes. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 only ; then, mistrusting the result, he abandoned the attempt, 
 and sacrificed historic truth to the exigencies of his art. Paint- 
 ings of this subject belong to different ages, but De Rossi 
 assigns the two that have been specially mentioned to the 
 first and second half of the third century respectively. He 
 claims a much higher antiquity for the painting of Our Blessed 
 
 Our Blessed Lady represented in Plate X. i. He unhesitatindy says that 
 Lady with , / . ^ 
 
 Isaias. he beheves this to belong almost to the apostolic age. It is 
 
 to be seen on the vaulted roof of a locuhis in the ceme- 
 tery of St Priscilla, and represents the Blessed Virgin seated, 
 her head partially covered by a short light veil, and with the 
 Holy Child in her arms ; opposite to her stands a man, clothed 
 in the pallium, holding a volume in one hand, and with the 
 other pointing to a star which appears above and between the 
 two figures. This star almost always accompanies Our Blessed 
 Lady, both in paintings and in sculptures, where there is an 
 obvious historical excuse for it, e.g.^ when she is represented 
 with the Magi offering their gifts (Plate X. 2), or by the side 
 of the manger with the ox and the ass ; but with a single 
 figure, as in the present instance, it is unusual. There has 
 been some difference of opinion, therefore, among archaeolo- 
 gists as to the interpretation that ought to be given of this 
 figure. The most obvious conjecture would be that it was 
 meant for St Joseph, or for one of the Magi. De Rossi, how- 
 ever, gives many reasons for preferring the prophet Isaias, 
 whose prophecies concerning the Messias abound with imagery 
 borrowed from light. t This prophet is found on one of the 
 glasses in the Catacombs, standing in a similar attitude before 
 Our Blessed Lord, where his identity can hardly be disputed, 
 since he appears in another compartment of the same glass m 
 the act of being sawn asunder by the Jews (in accordance with 
 the tradition mentioned by St Jerome); J and Our Blessed 
 
 * The ox and the ass are found in a representation of the Nativity on a 
 tomb bearing the date a.d. 343. — Inscr. Christ, i. 54. 
 
 t Isa. ix. 2 ; Ix. 2, 3, 19 ; St Luke i. 78, 79. 
 
 X In Isaiam xv. c. 7- 
 
Paintings of Christ, &c. 259 
 
 Lady, as an orante, occupies the intervening compartment 
 between these two figures of the prophet. Bosio has pre- 
 sei-ved to us another fresco from the cemetery of St Calhxtus, 
 still more closely resembling that upon which we are comment- 
 ing from St Priscilla ; only there is no star, but in its stead the 
 battlements, as of some town, appear behind the Woman and 
 Child, by which it was probably intended to denote the town 
 of Bethlehem, as was so commonly done in the sculptures, 
 mosaics, and other works of later art. We have already said 
 that De Rossi considers this painting, with which we are now 
 concerned, to have been executed, if not in apostolic times, 
 and, as it were, under the very eyes of the Apostles themselves, 
 yet certainly within the first hundred and fifty years of the Chris- 
 tian era. He first bids us carefully to study the art displayed in 
 the design and execution of the painting, and then to com- 
 pare it with the decorations of the famous Pagan tombs dis- 
 covered on the Via Latina in 1858, and which are unani- 
 mously referred to the times of the Antonines, or with the 
 paintings of the cubiciila near the Papal crypt in San Callisto, 
 described in our next chapter, and known to belong to the very 
 beginning of the third century ; and he justly argues that the 
 more classical style of the painting now under examination 
 obliges us to assign to it a still earlier date. Next, he shows 
 that the Catacomb in which it appears was one of the oldest,t 
 St Priscilla, from whom it receives its name, having been the 
 mother of Pudens, and a cotemporary of the Apostles ; and 
 still further, that there is good reason for believing what Bosio 
 and others have said, that the tombs of Saints Pudentiana and 
 Praxedes, and therefore probably of their father, St Pudens 
 himself, were in the immediate neighbourhood of the chapel 
 in which this Madonna is found ; finally, that the inscriptions 
 which are found there form a class by themselves, bearing 
 manifest tokens of the highest antiquity. Everything, there- 
 fore, combines to satisfy him that this beautiful painting of Our 
 * Rom. Sott. p. 255. t See p. 66. 
 
26o 
 
 Roma Sottei^raiiea. 
 
 Blessed Lady is the oldest which has yet been discovered, and 
 it is needless to observe that she and her Divine Son are 
 clearly the principal figures in it. She does not enter here into 
 the composition of an historical or allegorical scene as a 
 secondary personage, but herself supplies the motive, so to 
 speak, of the whole painting. She seems also, as far as we 
 can make out from the imperfect remains of the painting, to 
 have been repeated in other parts of this loailus, both by 
 herself, and with her Holy Spouse and Child — a group which 
 Bosio and Garrucci also have recognised in other parts of the 
 Catacombs. De Rossi still further tells us — and again he is 
 able to quote Bosio and Garrucci * as having been quite of the 
 same opinion with himself — that there are other frescoes in 
 this same cemetery of St Priscilla, representing the Annuncia- 
 tion t by the Archangel, the Adoration by the Magi, and the 
 Finding of Our Blessed Lord in the Temple ; in a word, all 
 these archaeologists are agreed that this cemetery surpasses 
 every other, both for the number, the variety, and the antiquity 
 of the pictorial representations of Our Blessed Lady. 
 St Joseph, Some of our readers will be taken somewhat by surprise by 
 
 our mention of any groups representing " The Holy Family," 
 and especially of any representation of St Joseph. De Rossi 
 acknowledges that this class of monuments is still open to 
 some question, the paintings into which he is supposed to 
 enter being generally in a very bad state of preservation. In 
 the sarcophagi he certainly appears ; and in the most ancient 
 of them, as a young and beardless man, generally clad in a 
 tunic. In the mosaics of St Mary Major's, which are of the 
 fifth century, and in which he appears four or five times, he is 
 shown of mature age, if not old ; and from that time forward 
 this became the more common mode of representing him. 
 Probably the later artists followed the legend of St Joseph's 
 age and widowhood which occurs in the apocryphal Gospels, 
 
 * Bosio, Rom. Sott. 549; Macar. Hagiogl. 174, 242. 
 t Hagioglypta, p. 245. 
 
Paintings of Christ, &c. 
 
 261 
 
 especially that which bears the name of St James the Less, 
 and those on the birth of Mary and the infancy of the Saviour. 
 These legends had been quoted by St Epiphanius, St Gregory 
 Nazianzen, and other writers of the fourth century; and 
 allusions to them, or even whole scenes taken from them, 
 occur in the artistic monuments of the fifth and succeeding 
 centuries. Before that time Christian artists seem strictly to 
 have been kept within the limits of the canonical books of 
 Holy Scripture. Afterwards it was probably considered that 
 there was no longer any danger to the integrity of the faith, 
 and greater licence was given both to poets and artists. 
 
 F lu. i-2.—Sarcopliagiis found among- the ruins of an aJicient chamber in San Callisto. 
 
 * 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LITURGICAL PAINTINGS. 
 
 Liturgical T T might have been thought that the impenetrable secrecy 
 rare^'"^'' which in ancient times shrouded the sacred mysteries 
 
 from the gaze or knowledge of the profane would have ren- 
 dered any sensible representation of them by art on the walls 
 of the Catacombs quite impossible. And, doubtless, such 
 representations were very rare. The paintirfgs we are about 
 to describe are merely exceptional ; and they were executed 
 at the end of the second century, or quite in the beginning of 
 the third, before the invasion of the subterranean cemeteries 
 by the heathen had taught the necessity of caution. More- 
 over, by a careful use of Christian symbolism, and a mixture of 
 things natural and supernatural, simple and allegorical, the 
 artist has contrived to produce a work which, whilst eminently 
 liturgical in character (representing the administration of Bap- 
 tism and the consecration of the Holy Eucharist), and plain 
 enough and of the highest interest and value to us, yet to an 
 uninitiated stranger must always have been absolutely unintel- 
 hgible. The administration of Baptism, for example, is mixed 
 up with biblical histories and cllegories of various kinds ; and 
 the consecration of the Holy Eucharist is both complicated by 
 means of the hieroglyphic sign of the fish, and also veiled 
 under various historical scenes taken from the Old and New 
 Valuable Testament. These paintings deserve to be examined in the 
 
 specimen most minute detail. They are to be found in that series of 
 early in the 
 
 third century, aibicula in the immediate neighbourhood of the Papal crypt, 
 
L ihi 7^gica I Pa in tings. 263 
 
 concerning which it has been already shown * that they were 
 all made about the same time ; the oldest, before the end of 
 the second century, the latest, at no very advanced period in 
 the third. In three of them, the paintings are too much 
 destroyed to enable us to recognise all their details ; but as 
 far as we may judge from the fragments which remain, they 
 were of the same subjects, and of the same general character 
 with those of the two oldest chambers, which we propose to 
 describe. 
 
 On the wall at the left of the door as we enter the first, is General de- 
 p .... , , , scription of 
 
 the old familiar figure of a man striking the rock, whence the them. 
 
 water gushes forth. Next, we see a man fishing in the stream, 
 and then another man baptizing a youth who stands in the 
 same water. The paralytic carrying his bed on his shoulder 
 concludes the series on that side of the chamber.! On the 
 principal wall, orfthat which faces the doorway, we see a three- 
 legged table, having on it bread and fish, with a woman 
 standing on one side of it in the attitude of prayer ; and a 
 man on the other, clad only in the palliiuti^ extending his 
 hands, and especially his right hand, towards the table in such 
 a way as to force upon every Christian intelligence the idea 
 of the act of consecration. | This is followed by the scene 
 already described, of seven men sitting at table with bread 
 and fish before them, and eight baskets of loaves arranged 
 along the floor ;§ and then Abraham about to offer up his son 
 Isaac — a scene easily identified by the ram and the faggot of 
 wood at their side.|| These three scenes are painted, side by 
 side, on the interval between two graves ; and they are flanked 
 at either extremity by a full-length figure of a fossor, with his 
 left arm extended and a pickaxe resting on his right shoulder. II 
 The painting on the third side of this chamber has perished, 
 all the plaster having fallen to the ground and been reduced 
 to dust. But the plaster of the small recess on the right-hand 
 
 * See p. 126. t riate XII, X Plate XIV. 3. 
 
 § riate XIII. II Plate XI. i. ^ Plate XI. 3. 
 
264 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 side of the doorway is still perfect, and shows us the figures 
 
 of two men, not standing side by side, but one placed on a 
 
 higher level than the other (probably in consequence of the 
 
 narrowness of the space). One of these men is seated, and 
 
 might be supposed to be teaching from a long roll, probably 
 
 of parchment, which he holds in his hands ; the other seems 
 
 to be drawing water from a well which is already overflowing. 
 
 In tlie second chamber, we find the rock, the fisherman, the 
 
 feast of seven, the baptism, and the sitting teacher, much the 
 
 same as before. On the right-hand wall, which in the former 
 
 chamber was in ruins, we distinguish the raising of Lazarus from 
 
 the dead \ and whilst on one side of the doorway is a preacher 
 
 standing, the fragments of plaster found on the other show that 
 
 a fossor had once been represented there. 
 
 We have already said that the same subjects, with more or 
 
 less of variation, appear to have been reproduced in the 
 
 other chambers of this series ; and such frequent repetition 
 
 naturally suggests the presence of some hidden sense. Nor, 
 
 indeed, is it a work of any difficulty to ascertain what that 
 
 sense is. Already our readers have had the clue placed in 
 
 their hands, which, if carefully used, will guide them aright 
 
 through all this apparent confusion of sacramental rites, 
 
 biblical histories, and scenes from common life. 
 
 Their meaning A single author, Tertullian, who was in Rome about the time 
 
 Te^luUkui^^ ^^^'^ these paintings were executed, and may very probably 
 
 have often seen them, can be made to supply all the fresh 
 
 guidance that is needed for their complete interpretation. In 
 
 a former chapter we heard him describing Christians as little 
 
 The waters fish born in the waters of Baptism ; and in his treatise upon 
 of Baptism , ^ i n • r 1 
 
 typified by the that sacrament he speaks 01 those waters as nowmg forth 
 
 rock ""'^''^ from the rock. The rock, as we know from the Scriptures 
 
 themselves,'" was Christ, who refreshes with the spiritual 
 
 waters of His grace and of the faith the weary and thirsty 
 
 wanderers in the wilderness of this world. There is nothing 
 
 I Cor. X. ^ : Isa. xxxv. 6. 
 
L iturgical Paintings, 265 
 
 in the picture to show who it is that is here striking the rock ; 
 but we must anticipate for a moment what will be brought 
 before us in a future chapter,* and say briefly that Moses is 
 here a figure of Saint Peter, who succeeded to him, and became 
 " the leader of the new Israel," as Prudentius says ; with him 
 was the authority to draw forth the true living waters of 
 sacramental grace which flow from the Rock, and are first 
 given in Baptism, and to communicate them to the whole 
 Church. t 
 
 The rock, then, followed by a man fishing, and another and the fi.sh( 
 baptizing,:}: is a very striking instance of that characteristic of 
 ancient Christian art which we have heard Lord Lindsay 
 call " typical parallelisms." The truths of the Gospel are 
 veiled, yet revealed, under the parallel and typical events, 
 either of the Old Law or of common life. The pictures spoke 
 to the Christians of those days (the second and third centuries), 
 in a very plain and intelligible way, of the gate of all the 
 sacraments, the beginning of Christianity, the sacrament of 
 Baptism. 
 
 And the same mystery was again set before them in the and the 
 next painting on the same wall, the paralytic carrying his bed. canymo-'^his 
 Those who have ever visited the (so-called) Catacombs of 
 St Agnes with Father Marchi, will remember that he used 
 always to identify this painting with the sacrament of Penance, 
 supposing it to refer to the man that was healed at Caphar- 
 naum, to whom Our Lord addressed those words, " Be of good 
 cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee ; " and, indeed, that miracle is 
 expressly quoted in the ajjostolical constitutions as symbolical 
 
 * Chapter VII. 
 
 t St Cyprian, Ep. ad Jul)., torn. ii. 332. Hence in the writings of 
 the Fathers, the font of the one Baptism and its derivation from the one 
 Rock was a favourite type of the origin and unity of the faith, the sacra- 
 ments, and the Church. And the impugners of the validity of Baptism 
 administered by heretics, had no stronger argument against their enemies 
 than this undoul)ted unity of Baptism and of the Church, and the preroga- 
 tive of Peter as its liead. i I'late XII. 
 
266 
 
 Roma Sotter7'anea. 
 
 of this sacrament. Nevertheless, it would have been obviously 
 out of harmony with the prevailing tone of thought and prac- 
 tice among the Christians of the days of persecution that 
 they should have represented grievous sin and repentance 
 as a probable interlude between the sacraments of Baptism 
 and the Holy Eucharist. It is far more probable, therefore, 
 that all the paintings on this wall were intended to have 
 reference to Baptism, just as all those on the next speak 
 clearly of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar ; and it is better to 
 understand this picture of the paralytic, as representing that 
 other miracle wrought at the pool of Bethsaida, which Tertul- 
 tian, Optatus,'^ and others, have interpreted as typical of the 
 healing waters of Baptism. 
 The next We pass on, then, to the next three pictures, which form a 
 
 no^e^thVco'n S^'O'^P themselves, quite as intimately connected with one 
 
 secration and another as those we have been just now considering, and 
 participation , . ^ . 
 
 of the Holy followmg from them m strict theological sequence. It is 
 
 Euchaiist. exactly the same train of thought and combination of ideas 
 which we have found before in the ancient epitaphs of St 
 Abercius and of Autun, in both of which there is a natural and 
 easy transition from the waters of Baptism to the heavenly Fish 
 of the Holy Eucharist. Moreover, we must not forget that, 
 according to the ecclesiastical discipline of those days, these 
 two sacraments followed one another much more closely than 
 they do now ; they were, in fact, often administered simul- 
 taneously. 
 
 There are certain details, however, in the mode of repre- 
 senting the symbols of the Holy Eucharist in these paint- 
 ings which require a few words of additional explanation. 
 Some persons, for instance, might take exception to that which 
 we have called a picture of the consecration, in consequence 
 of the insufficient clothing of the man we have supposed to be 
 Consecrating the priest. He is clad only in the pallium^ and as he stretches 
 
 priest clothed q^^. |-^-g hand over the table, his breast and arm, and one 
 in the palluim 
 
 only. * De Baptismo, c. 4 ; De Schism. Don. ii. 6. 
 
L iturgica I Pa intings. 
 
 267 
 
 whole side of his body become much exposed. There can be no 
 doubt, however, that this simple austerity of dress, which was 
 a characteristic of the better class of heathen philosophers, 
 was at one time, — and especially at the time to which these 
 pictures belong, — adopted also by the Christian clergy. The 
 Greeks and Romans always looked on the philosopher's cloak 
 as a guarantee of more than ordinary knowledge. Eusebius * 
 distinctly mentions of Justin Martyr, that he " preached the 
 Word of God in the dress of a philosopher ; " but it is not 
 quite certain that he was a priest. Before him, Aristides of 
 Athens, and after him TertuUian, Heracles, a priest of Alex- 
 andriaj Gregory Thaumaturgus, and others, did the same. 
 TertuUian expressly defends and applauds this mode of dress 
 in his treatise De Pallio.\ Prudentius, who (as we know) 
 frequented the Catacombs, must have had before his mind's 
 eye some such painting as we are now explaining, when 
 he described, in the beginning of his Pyschomachia, Faith 
 coming down to do battle with idolatry, attired almost in this 
 very way. He represents her as carried away by the eager- 
 ness of her zeal, and descending into the arena but imperfectly 
 clad, with bare arms and shoulders, and other limbs un- 
 covered. | St Cyprian, indeed, who lived about fifty years later 
 than TertuUian, denounced the vainglorious immodesty of the 
 bare breast of the heathen philosophers, § and spoke of 
 Christian teachers, by way of contrast, as being philosophers 
 not in words but in deeds, not making any outward show of 
 wisdom by their dress, but holding it in truth. But this only 
 
 * Ilist. Eccl. iv. II. See also the opening of Justin's dialogue with 
 Trypho. 
 
 t See note at beginning of Oehler's edition of this treatise, Leipsic, 
 1853, torn i. 913. Also St Hieron. Ep. Ixxxiii., ad Magnum. Catal. Horn. 
 111. cxx. " Humertim exeriits" is the very word used by I'ertuUian, c. 3. 
 X "Agresti turbida cultu, 
 Nuda JuiDieros, intonsa genas, exserta lacei'tos, 
 ... nec telis meminit nec tegmine cingi, 
 
 Pectore sed fidens valido, me7nhrisqtie retcctis.'" — Vv. 21-25. 
 § De Bono Patientieie, § 2, 3. " Exerti ac seminudi pectoris inverecunda 
 jactantia." 
 
268 
 
 Roma Sotter7^a7iea. 
 
 indicates a change of taste and feeling upon the subject which 
 
 had come over the Christian mind between the end of the 
 
 second century and the middle of the third ; and, in point of 
 
 fact, almost all the pictures of men, painted in the Catacombs 
 
 subsequent to this date, represent them as clothed with the 
 
 tunic underneath the pallium. Thus we seem to be provided 
 
 with a very sure criterion as to the date of these paintings in 
 
 San Callisto ; and it is important to observe how precisely it 
 
 agrees with the result to which we had been led before by a 
 
 multitude of concurrent indications of a totally different kind. 
 
 The Church Another detail in these paintings which has been made the 
 
 represented bv , . , ^ ,. . . , . ^ ^ 
 
 a woman. ' subject 01 some discussion, is the true meaning oi the woman 
 
 who stands opposite to the priest, with outstretched arms in 
 the attitude of prayer; whether she is intended to represent 
 some deceased lady, buried in this chamber, or whether she 
 does not rather stand as a symbol of the Church. Looking, 
 however, at the whole character of this series of paintings, we 
 cannot doubt that the latter interpretation is the more correct. 
 Just as the person represented here as receiving baptism is a 
 mere boy, or very young man, not because the artist intended 
 to denote some one determinate person who was really of that 
 age, but because youth is the age of baptism, and it was even 
 customary to call neophytes, of whatever age they might be, 
 infantes or pueri ; so, in like manner, at the table of the tre- 
 mendous mysteries, a woman was represented, not because it 
 was desired to do honour to any particular lady whose tomb 
 might be near, but rather because, when the whole body of 
 the faithful was spoken of, it was most usual to speak of them 
 under this figure. Both in the Epistles of St Paul, and in the 
 writings of the most ancient Fathers, the Church is the Bride 
 of Christ, without spot or wrinkle. She partakes also, as we 
 have already noticed, of the marvellous privilege of Our Blessed 
 Lady, and, whilst still a virgin, is yet a fruitful mother, so that 
 many things which are said of the one may be said also of the 
 other, and a woman becomes a very natural artistic symbol 
 
L iturgica I Pain tings. 269 
 
 for the whole Church. Thus, in the old mosaics, e.g., of 
 Sta. Sabina in Rome, put up by Pope Celestine in the earlier 
 half of the fifth century, the legends under two female figures 
 expressly designate them as Ecclesia ex Gentibus., and Ecclesia 
 ex Cirainicisione, i.e., the Church from the Gentiles and from the 
 Jewsj and it is certainly more probable that these mosaics con- 
 tinued, with more or less of modification, the ancient types of 
 Christian art, than that they invented new ones. Indeed, the 
 tradition of this symbolical language was continued among 
 Christian artists; e.g., it occurs in liturgical illuminations of a 
 Paschal candle in a MS. of the Barberini Library, belonging to 
 the eleventh or twelfth century. However, whether this female 
 figure, standing here in prayer, be really meant for the Church, 
 for Our Blessed Lady, or for some one Christian soul, is com- 
 paratively unimportant. It is her position and occupation 
 which command our attention, reminding us of the words of St 
 Cyril,'* "that those prayers are most prevailing which are made 
 with the consecrated gifts lying open to view." 
 
 Of the seven men seated together, and partaking of bread Answers to 
 and fish, we have already spoken ; we will only add here, in "'^J^*^^^""^- 
 answer to a German critic who would fain transfer the refer- 
 ence from the Blessed Sacrament to the eternal banquet in 
 heaven, first, that the mere uniformity in all these paintings 
 of the number and sex of the guests, would alone suffice to 
 distinguish them from the representations either of the agapte 
 or of the joys of paradise. Specimens are not wanting of 
 either of these subjects, but in both of them women appear as 
 well as men, and in various numbers. Moreover, the position 
 and adjuncts of this feast in these chambers seem absolutely to 
 determine its sense. In one instance, where the two scenes 
 are compressed into a single wall of the chamber, it stands 
 side by side with the representation of Baptism. In another, 
 where a type or figure of each sacrament is joined with its 
 literal representation, as the fishing is next to the baptism, so 
 * Lect. xxiii. y, Oxf. Trans. 275. 
 
270 
 
 Roma Sottem^anea. 
 
 the consecration of the Holy Eucharist is next to this enter- 
 tainment. To doubt, then, of its appHcation to the Sacrament 
 of the Altar, especially when we remember how universally 
 the history was so interpreted by ancient Christian teachers, 
 seems a wilful closing of our eyes against the truth, and can 
 best be accounted for by the rejection of the ancient doctrine 
 which the symbol expresses. 
 The sacrifice We have seen that after the paintings of the fishing and 
 cal onheToly baptizing, there followed, on the same wall, the paralytic, 
 
 sacrifice of the ^j^jch we therefore referred to the same sacrament. Here 
 Mass. 
 
 also upon this wall, is a third scene, that of Abraham and 
 Isaac," which, in like manner, must be connected with the 
 Holy Eucharist; and although the same German critic, already 
 referred to, finds a difficulty in accepting a figure of the 
 bloody sacrifice on the cross as a suitable figure also of the 
 unbloody sacrifice on the altar,t his scruples will scarcely be 
 considered conclusive, even by his co-religionists. For surely 
 the sacrifice of Isaac by his father might, in some respects, 
 claim to be considered a more lively type of the sacrifice of 
 the Mass than of the sacrifice on Mount Calvary; since, 
 although, as St Paul twice repeats, Abraham " offered up 
 his only-begotten son," yet the blood of Isaac was not really 
 shed; he was only " as it were slain, Abraham ''received 
 him from the dead for a parable. "§ The offering, then, of 
 Isaac by his father is frequently sculptured on the Christian 
 sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries, together with 
 other biblical stories prefiguring the priesthood and sacri- 
 nce of the New Law. Here it is the pendant (so to speak) 
 to that other picture already described, wherein the priest 
 
 * Both are represented as praying, — a faggot and the ram behind them 
 alone enable us to identify them. Another fresco of the same subject was 
 seen by Bosio. — Rotn. Sott. 503. 
 
 t Yet it is expressly named in the Church's hymn Laiida Sion, " In 
 figuris prassignatur, cum Isaac immolatur;" and in the Canon of the Mass 
 it is named with the sacrifices of Abel and of Melchisedec. 
 
 X Apoc. V. 6. § Heb. xi. 1719. 
 
L ihirgicai Paintings. 2 7 1 
 
 is consecrating, "filling the place of Christ/' as St Cyprian* 
 
 speaks, " imitating what Christ did, offering a true and perfect 
 
 sacrifice in the Church to God the Father," 
 
 Not a vestige remains of the principal subject which was The serlescon- 
 
 cludeswith the 
 
 painted on the remaining wall, opposite to the paintings of lesunection 
 Baptism. Nevertheless, we may venture with confidence to Lazams. 
 supply it from the corresponding picture in the next chamber. 
 It was, as we have already intimated, the resurrection of Laza- 
 rus, which to the Christians of that age would have seemed the 
 most natural, and almost necessary, complement to representa- 
 tions of the Holy Eucharist. Not only did the language which 
 Our Blessed Lord made use of, on occasion of that miracle, bear 
 a very striking resemblance to parts of His discourse upon the 
 Blessed Sacrament, t but He had also seemed to connect a re- 
 surrection to everlasting life in so special a manner with the 
 eating of His flesh and drinking His blood, that the Fathers 
 always speak of the one as a kind of pledge and earnest of the 
 other. We may see from the language of Prudentius % how 
 naturally the Christian mind passed from one of these subjects 
 to the other; as when he suddenly stops in the midst of his 
 reflections upon the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, 
 bearing upon their relation to the Holy Eucharist, and, as 
 though he feared that he was in danger of revealing secrets 
 forbidden to profane ears, abruptly addresses himself to Laza- 
 rus, as the next subject of which it would naturally become 
 him to speak. 
 
 It is to be observed that Lazarus is not here represented 
 in the ordinary way in which he was represented during the 
 third century, as an adult, and swathed like a mummy just 
 emerging from the tomb, but as a youth, having the winding- 
 sheet loosely hanging about his person, as though to mark him 
 as an ideal and allegorical, rather than an historical personage. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should draw out at length the 
 
 * Ep. ad Corn. liv. f Cf. St John xi. 25 with vi. 58, &c. 
 
 X Apotheosis, v. 73. 
 
2/2 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 hidden sense of that series of paintings of the history of Jonas, 
 with which the upper part of these walls is decorated, their 
 bearing on the trials of this present life and the hope of a 
 future one being sufficiently obvious. There remain, how- 
 Supplement- ever, two other figures on which we ought to make some 
 of DoctoiTand observations. One of them is seated, apparently in the act 
 ex^pkiiied unrolling a volume, or, at least, holding a long roll of 
 
 parchment in his hands ; the other stands, drawing water 
 from a well which is already overflowing. In the next cham- 
 ber, the same figure appears twice, once standing, once sitting, 
 but on both occasions holding a book, and seemingly engaged 
 in the work of instruction. He wears the same ascetic dress 
 of Pagan philosophers as the priest who was consecrating. 
 
 Our first impulse at sight of the well with its overflowing 
 waters is to refer it to the conversation of Our Blessed Lord 
 with the Samaritan woman at the well,* wherein He promised 
 to give water to them that believe in Him, such as should 
 " become in them a fountain of water springing up unto life 
 everlasting." And, doubtless, this would be a very beautiful 
 and appropriate termination to a series of symbolical paintings, 
 beginning with the stream of grace, drawn from the rock of 
 Christ by him who was himself a rock, and now ending 
 with the Well of Living Water and the promise of eternal life. 
 A more careful consideration of the subject, however, has led 
 De Rossi to adopt another interpretation. He supposes this 
 figure to represent a Christian doctor of the faith, possibly St 
 Callixtus himself, who perhaps devised this whole symbolical 
 series, and is then commemorated in them, just as the mere 
 material workmen (the fosso?rs) were also represented on the 
 same walls. He takes the drawing of the water at the well to 
 be only an expression in art of what Origen had said in words, 
 when he. speaks of " the Well whence spiritual waters are to be 
 drawn for the refreshment of the believers ; " t and that the 
 
 * St John iv, 14 ; vii. 37, 38. 
 
 t Horn. XII. in Num. tom. ii. p. 311--314. 
 
Liturgical Paintings. 273 
 
 reason for making use of these unusual memorials of individuals 
 
 was the fact that this cemetery was tlie first which had ever 
 
 belonged to the Church in her aggregate capacity.'"' 
 
 Doubtless, this same reason explains also the exceptional This whole 
 
 . T series seems 
 
 character of the whole system of decoration that was adopted inspired by 
 
 in these chambers. They form one uniform group, adorned ^^"^^o^^^X- 
 with the same symbols and in the same style, freely changed 
 in their composition and arrangement, yet constant in their 
 hidden meaning and theological sense ; whereas in all the 
 other ciibicida of the same area there is no trace of the 
 same system of decoration. It may well be doubted whether 
 any private individuals would have ventured on such bold 
 representations of the sacred mysteries for the adornment of 
 their family vaults ; neither would every artist have had suffi- 
 cient theological knowledge to design them. On many ac- 
 counts, therefore, they seem to bear the stamp of authority, 
 and are certainly one of the most valuable monuments of 
 ancient Christian art that have come down to us. 
 
 Bosio and others before De Rossi have discovered in the A few other 
 Catacomb of St Priscilla other paintings of a liturgical charac- scenes^else- 
 ter, but not so full and complicated a series. They represent where, 
 the taking of the veil by some consecrated virgin, the laying 
 on of hands for ordination, and perhaps, also, for public pen- 
 ance. And, as we have ourselves also before observed, many 
 of the emblems and decorations in various parts of the Cata - 
 combs have a distinct liturgical sense and reference, even 
 when they seem at first sight to be simply historical. Indeed, 
 a recent English writer, who has published a work on " Ancient 
 Christianity and Sacred Art in Italy," trying to enlist them on 
 the side of Protestantism, or, at least, to effect a separation of 
 them from the cause of Catholic truth, does not refuse to 
 acknowledge that " if any one could so cast away bias and 
 prepossession as to form for himself the ideal of a Christian 
 church exclusively from the records of the past that meet us 
 * See pp. 83 -86. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 in the Catacombs, his impartial and calmly-adopted conclu- 
 sion would be that, in the worship of such a church, all should 
 revolve round a mystic centre of sacramental ordinances." 
 
 Before taking leave of tliis interesting series of liturgical 
 paintings, which we have been examining, it is worth remark- 
 ing how accurately they illustrate and confirm the remarks 
 which were made in a former chapter,* on the order in which 
 the several classes of paintings succeeded one another in the 
 development of Christian art. We are sure that these cham- 
 bers were excavated in the very earHest period of the third 
 century, if not in the end of the second ; and there can be 
 little doubt that the paintings were executed at the same 
 time, and the same subjects were painted in all of them. 
 But in the latest of the cubicula, they are represented only by 
 means of the biblical stories, without any admixture of scenes 
 merely allegorical or hieroglyphical. In a yet later cubicidum 
 near the tomb of St Eusebius, the same substantial idea is 
 still there, in that picture of the Good Shepherd and His 
 Apostles, and the various attitudes of the sheep, described 
 in page 237 ; but it is reduced to an expression less secret, 
 and in more literal conformity to the text of the histories 
 and parables. The rock is there, whence flowed the waters 
 of Baptism, and by its side on the next wall is the symbol of 
 the Holy Eucharist ; but it is merely in a representation of the 
 two Apostles bringing the bread and fish to Our Blessed Lord 
 before the miraculous multiplication. It is, therefore, rather 
 an accurate representation of an historical fact, than a myste- 
 rious symbol, though, of course, we do not doubt that it was 
 with a mystical intent that it was painted there. 
 
 * See page 196. 
 
CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 GILDED GLASSES FOUND IN THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 HERE are, in many of the great museums of Europe, Various 
 
 -L collections more or less extensive of articles found in 
 
 in the 
 
 the Catacombs of Rome. Rings, coins, terra-coita lamps Catacombs, 
 with Christian emblems upon them, and various other ob- 
 jects of domestic use or ornament, have been from time to 
 time discovered in the Christian cemeteries. They have been 
 found stuck into the cement which surrounds the lociili^ and 
 must have been placed there at the time of burial, and by 
 surviving friends who desired thus to express their own affec- 
 tion, and to distinguish the grave of their departed relative 
 from those around it. In some few instances the instruments 
 of martyrdom were buried with the martyr; and although 
 many of the articles exhibited under this appellation are 
 undoubtedly fictitious, still there seems no reason why we 
 should doubt the genuineness of some of the unguloi^ or iron- 
 claws, and of the plumbatcB^'' or scourges loaded with lead 
 which are to be seen in Christian museums, and which cor- 
 respond exactly to the instruments of torture described in 
 the Acts of the Martyrs, and other ancient records. The 
 Vatican Library contains the largest collection of these Chris- 
 tian antiquities ; but very rarely has any account of the locality 
 in which they have been discovered been preserved, and thus 
 they have lost much of their interest and historical value. 
 • Another class of objects, however, have an interest and value Gilded glass. 
 * R. S. ii. 164. 
 
276 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 of their own, and tell their own story ; although here also, in 
 many instances, we have to regret the absence of information 
 as to the locality in which they were discovered. These are 
 the fragments of glass, ornamented with figures and letters in 
 gold, of vv'hich the largest collection is to be seen m the 
 Vatican Library. Smaller collections may be found in the 
 Kircherian Museum at the Roman College, and in the museum 
 of the Propaganda. The British Museum possesses about 
 thirty specimens, the museums of Paris, Florence, and Naples, 
 not so many. Among private collections, Mr C. W. Wilshere's 
 in this country is probably one of the best; it contains about 
 twenty specimens, the more important of which are at present 
 in the loan collection of the South Kensington Museum. 
 Description of These glasses are, the greater part of them, evidently the 
 mThr ^^^"^^ bottoms of drinking cups. Their peculiarity consists in a 
 Catacombs. design having been executed in gold leaf on the flat bottom of 
 the cup, in such a manner as that the figures and letters 
 should be seen from the inside, like the designs on the glass 
 bottoms of the ale tankards so popular at Oxford and Cambridge. 
 The gold leaf was then protected by a plate of glass, which 
 was welded by fire so as to form one solid mass with the cup. 
 These cups, like the other articles found in the Catacombs, 
 were stuck into the still soft cement of the newly-closed grave ; 
 and the double glass bottom, imbedded in the plaster, has 
 resisted the action of time, while the thinner portion of the 
 cup, exposed to accident and decay by standing out from the 
 plaster, has in almost every instance perished. Boldetti 
 informs us that he found two or three cups entire, and his 
 representation of one of these is given in Padre Garrucci's 
 work.'"' Even the bottoms of these glass cups have frequently 
 perished in the attempt to detach them from the plaster, and 
 the impression left in the cement is often all that remains to 
 show the loss sustained by Christian archaeology. 
 
 The discovery of these glasses is coeval with that of the 
 * Vetri ornati di fijjure in oro. — Tav. xxxix. nn. 7 a, 7 b, first edition. 
 
Gilded Glasses foimd in the Catacoinbs. 277 
 
 Catacombs themselves. Bosio found five or six fragments of Their dis- 
 covery by 
 
 them during all his researches on the Via Appia and Via Bosio and 
 
 Ardeatina, and then found an equal number of whole unbroken ^oj^^^^ii" 
 
 specimens in a single gallery on the Via Salaria ; and when Catacombs. 
 
 Aringhi published the drawings and descriptions of these, he 
 
 added an account of a few others that had been discovered 
 
 since. Buonarruoti's work contains an account of about 
 
 seventy specimens, which were all that were known in his 
 
 time. Boldetti added about thirty more. Padre Garrucci, 
 
 however, has obtained accurate drawings of all the specimens 
 
 now extant in the various museums of Europe, so that in his 
 
 publication we have a full collection of about 340, twenty of 
 
 which, however, only exist in the pages of Boldetti, Olivieri, 
 
 and other authors. Modern exploration has not brought to 
 
 light many new specimens. In the course of twenty-three 
 
 years of labour in the Catacombs, De Rossi has only come 
 
 upon two fragments, and two or three have been brought to Two found at 
 
 Cologne. 
 
 light by the excavations recently made at Ostia. Until 1864 
 not a single specimen had been discovered except in the 
 neighbourhood of Rome, but in that year a very remarkable 
 fragment of a gilded glass plate was found at Cologne in 
 excavating the foundations of a house near the Church of 
 St Severin ; and in 1866 another, though of a different work- 
 manship, was discovered, together with some charred bones, 
 in a rough stone chest about thirty inches in length, and 
 fifteen in width and de])th, in a similar excavation near the 
 well-known Church of St Ursula and her companions. This 
 last specimen is now in the Slade Collection in the British 
 Museum ; and a woodcut of the other is given in page 290. 
 
 These two exceptions scarcely seem sufficient to overthrow The art of 
 the general opinion of archaeologists that Rome was the only ]^n^w"fonh'1n 
 place where this kind of glass was manufactured. Garrucci Ro^ie ; 
 has, indeed, adopted a further conclusion, and considers the 
 art to have been confined to the Roman Christians. It is, 
 however, exceedingly improbable that the Christians should 
 
278 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 have been acquainted with any ornamental art which was 
 unknown to their Pagan cotemporaries. Besides, several of 
 the figures represent gladiatorial combats and scenes firom 
 Pagan mythology, such as no Christian artist of the early ages 
 would have thought of depicting, nor can either the figures or 
 the inscriptions which accompany them be in any way adapted 
 so as to bear a Christian signification. How, then, it may be 
 asked, are we to account for the fact of these glasses scarcely 
 ever having been found except in Christian sepulchral crypts? 
 We acknowledge the fact, but deny the inference ; for it is no 
 less a fact that these glasses have never been discovered in 
 any Christian building or sepulchre above ground, and yet we 
 know that from very early times, and more especially after 
 A.D. 312, the Christians possessed many places of burial which 
 were not subterranean. That no such glasses have come 
 down to us from antiquity, except those found in the Cata- 
 combs, is to be ascribed to their extremely fragile nature, 
 which the peculiar circumstance of their having been imbedded 
 in mortar alone preserved from destruction. Cavedoni con- 
 jectures, with much probability, that vessels of glass thus orna- 
 mented have been destroyed in great quantities for the sake of 
 the gold which they contained, and this conjecture is confirmed 
 by one or two instances recently found, in which some of the 
 gold leaf has been scraped away with an instrument forced 
 in between the plates of glass.''' The Jew " dealers in broken 
 glass," who plied their trade in Trastevere, even in the days 
 of Martial,t may have had some share in producing the scarcity 
 of specimens of this kind of manufacture, 
 and practised It is difficult to determine precisely the period to which 
 
 these glasses are to be assigned. Olivieri discovered one 
 
 m 
 
 in the third 
 and fourth cen- 
 turies, the cemetery of St Callixtus, in the middle of which was 
 
 * Cavedoni, (3sservazioni, &c., p. 6, &c., quoted in Bullettiuo, 1864, P- 82. 
 + Transtyberinus ambulator, 
 Qui pallentia sulphurata fractis 
 Permutat vitreis. — Epig. i. 42. 
 
Gilded Glasses found in the Catacombs 2 79 
 
 represented a heap of money, and in the centre of the heap, 
 on the top of all the rest, was to be distinguished the head of 
 Caracalla.'""^ Another glass bears the name of Marcellinus, 
 who was martyred under Diocletian in a.d. 304.t From an 
 examination of the style of dress, and of the mode of arranging 
 the hair, as also from the orthography of the legends and other 
 indications, Padre Garrucci considers them all anterior to the 
 time of Theodosius ; and De Rossi speaks more precisely, 
 assigning them to a period ranging from the middle of the 
 third to the beginning of the fourth century. 
 
 The subjects depicted on them are more varied than Subjects de- 
 those painted on the walls of the Catacombs. A few are, as 
 we have already mentioned, scenes from Pagan mythology : Pagan. 
 Plercules, Achilles, and Pagan gods and goddesses. Others 
 represent boxers contending for the prize, charioteers, and 
 hunting scenes ; a ship-builder with his men variously em- 
 ployed ; a money-coiner, a tailor, and a druggist, each in his 
 shop. Domestic scenes from the nursery and the schoolroom Social and 
 are also here to be met with ; a father and mother, with 
 one or more of their children in front of them ; or still more 
 frequently, a husband and wife, standing side by side, some- 
 times with hands joined over the nuptial altar, which is 
 generally presided over by Christ, either represented by His 
 
 married couple. In one instance, it seems to be an angel 
 instead of Christ, who is assisting at the union ; but it is quite 
 possible that this may be a Pagan scene, and the winged 
 figure may be intended for Cupid. Five or six specimens 
 exhibit the seven-branched candlestick, the ark containing the Jewisli. 
 rolls of the law, and other Jewish symbols; but the great 
 majority are manifestly Christian. 
 
 Three of these, of which two are in the possession of Mr Most fre- 
 Wilshere, have one or two figures in the centre, and, grouped tian"*^^^ ^ 
 around these, a number of subjects from Holy Scripture. 
 * Ganucci, Tav. xxxiii. n. 5. f lb., Tav. xix. n. 3. 
 
 monogram 
 
 person crowning the 
 
28o 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Description of Thiis in One * we have Christ with the rod of power changing 
 some of these. 
 
 the water into wine ; Tobias with the monster fish ; Christ 
 with the rod of power enabhng the paralytic to carry his bed ; 
 and lastly, with the same rod of power protecting the Three 
 Children in the flaming furnace of Babylon. Another, also in 
 the possession of Mr Wilshere,t has the Apostles Peter and 
 Paul in the centre, and the six compartments around them 
 contain successively figures of the Three Children ; a man, 
 supposed by Garrucci to be the prophet Isaias, with a roll of 
 a book taken out of a chest, and a symbolical figure of the 
 sun ; then a female figure praying, possibly the Virgin, whose 
 maternity the prophet saw in vision ; next a man, probably the 
 prophet Isaias, being sawn asunder by two executioners ; then 
 another man with a rod and a serpent in front of him, probably 
 Moses and the brazen serpent, which Our Lord tells us was a 
 type of Himself ; and lastly, Moses striking the rock. These 
 and other scriptural subjects, such as the Fall, Noe in the Ark, 
 the sacrifice of Isaac, the destruction of the dragon by Daniel, 
 and the history of Jonas, are found sometimes singly, and 
 sometimes together. Our Lord is frequently represented as 
 the Good Shepherd, or as multiplying the loaves, or changing 
 the water into wine; but in this latter miracle the number of 
 water-pots is invariably represented as seven instead of six, 
 apparently to signify that the symbolical meaning of the 
 miracle as a type of the Holy Eucharist was principally in 
 the artist's mind. 
 
 Figure^ of The Blessed Virgin is represented sometimes alone, with 
 
 Saints. , , , . . 
 
 her name over her head, praymg between two olive-trees ; 
 
 sometimes with the Apostles Peter and Paul on either side of 
 
 her ; sometimes accompanied by the virgin martyr St Agnes. 
 
 St Agnes is found on several glasses with similar variations. 
 
 Other saints, as St Lawrence, St Vincent, Hippolytus, Callix- 
 
 tus, Marcellinus, Sixtus, Timotheus, &c., are found more 
 
 * Garrucci, Tav. i, n. i. 
 
 t lb. I. c. n. 2. 
 
Gilded Glasses found in the Catacombs. 281 
 
 rarely. But the favourite subject is evidently the representa- 
 tion of the two great Apostles Saints Peter and Paul. 
 
 Those who have passed a summer in Rome will not easily Feast of 
 forget the enthusiasm with which the Romans still keep the ancrpalil"^^^ 
 festa of their great patrons. Even the vast basilica on the 
 Vatican appears full of citizens in gala dress, when they listen 
 with proud satisfaction to the glorious hymn : 
 
 " O felix Roma ! quae duorum Principum 
 Es consecrata glorioso sanguine, 
 Horum cruore purpurata cceteras 
 Excellis orbis una pulchrituclines." 
 
 The sermons of St Leo the Great, and the poems of Pruden- at Rome in 
 tius, show us with what solemnity the festival was observed in '^"^"^^^ 
 the fourth and fifth century. " The people flock together," 
 sings the latter, " for more than ordinary joys. Tell me, my 
 friend, what this may be ? They run to and fro through the 
 whole of Rome, and shout for joy, because to us this festal 
 day of the Apostles' triumph has come again, this day enobled 
 by the blood of Peter and of Paul." * These festivities were 
 then, as now, apt to run into excess, and hence St Jerome, 
 while thanking Eustochium for her childish presents of sweet- 
 meats, adds the caution, " It is the feast and birthday of 
 Blessed Peter . . . and therefore we must take all the more 
 care that we keep this solemn day not so much with the 
 abundance of our food, as with the gladness of our souls. 
 For it is very absurd to propose with over-eating to honour 
 a martyr, who you know pleased God by his fasts." t St 
 Augustine laments the dishonour done by scenes of riot 
 to the saints, "whom drunkards now persecute with their 
 cups, as much as the furious Pagans used to pursue them 
 with stones;" J and he specially mourns over the scandal 
 given by the wine-bibbing in "the basilica of St Peter," § 
 where agapce were celebrated in the portico for the benefit of 
 
 * Perlsteph. xii. f Ep. xxxi., ad Eustochium. 
 
 X Enarr. in Ps. lix. § Ep. xxix., ad Alypium, § lo. 
 
282 
 
 Roma Sotterranea, 
 
 the poor. Paulinus of Nola tells us how the agapce thus de- 
 generated, how " the table of Peter receives what the teaching 
 of Peter denounces," and at the same time he draws a graphic 
 picture of a fesia in the fourth century. " Among the crowds 
 attracted thither by the fame of St Felix," he says/"' — and with 
 one alteration we may fairly transfer his description to Rome 
 on the 29th of June, — "there are peasants recently converted 
 who cannot read, and who, before embracing the faith of 
 Christ, had long been the slaves of profane usages, and had 
 obeyed their senses as gods. They arrive here from afar, and 
 from all parts of the country. Glowing with faith, they despise 
 the chilling frosts ;t they pass the entire night in joyous watch- 
 ings ; they drive away slumber by gaiety, and darkness by 
 torches. But they mingle festivities with their prayers, and, 
 after singing hymns to God, abandon themselves to good 
 cheer. They joyously stam with odoriferous wine the tombs 
 of the saints. They sing in the midst of their cups, and by 
 their drunken lips the devil insults St Felix. I have there- 
 fore," continues the good bishop, " thought good to enliven 
 with holy pictures the whole temple of St Felix. It may be, 
 when the sight of them strikes their astonished minds, these 
 coloured representations will arrest the attention of the rustics. 
 Inscriptions are placed above the pictures, in order that the 
 letters may explain what the hand has depicted. While they 
 point them out to one another, and read by turns these 
 pictured objects, they forget their eating till a later hour. 
 The enjoyment of the sight beguiles their hunger, better 
 habits are formed in these gazers, and studying these sacred 
 histories, chastity and virtue are engendered by such examples 
 of piety. ... And as they spend the day in gazing more and 
 more, their potations become less frequent, and only a short 
 time remains for their repast." 
 
 * Poema xxvi. {aliter xxxv.) ; De Felice, Natal., carm. ix. v. 541, seqq. 
 
 t The contadini who spend the vigil of Saints Peter and Paul on the 
 steps and under the colonnade of the Piazza di San Pietro are not in danger 
 of frost. 
 
Gilded Glasses found in the Catacombs. 283 
 
 Whether the same idea of restraining the potations of the Figures ot 
 
 . Saints Peter 
 
 Roman Christians, by depicting figures which could only be and Paul on 
 seen to advantage when the glass was empty, suggested the S^^^^^^- 
 use of these gilded cups, we shall not pause to inquire. It is 
 at any rate certain that the feast of Saints Peter and Paul was 
 observed as a general holiday in Rome during the fourth century, 
 very much as Christmas is now amongst ourselves, and the repre- 
 sentation of the two apostles on eighty glasses out of the three 
 hundred and forty published by Garrucci, is a strong argument 
 of their having been intended in some way or other to commemo- 
 rate that day. The inscriptions, where they occur, with the 
 figures of the apostles, confirm this supposition, for they are all 
 of a convivial character. We give a few examples — Dignitas 
 
 AMICORVM PIE ZESES CVM TVIS OMNIBVS BIBAS. DiGNITAS AMI- 
 CORVM PIE ZESES CVM TVIS OMNIBVS BIBE ET PROPINA. CvM 
 
 TVIS FELiciTER ZESES. Thesc may be translated — " A mark 
 of friendship.,'^ drink^^ ajid \long\ life to thee., with all thine. 
 May est thou live \long\'^ " A mark of friendship, drink, and 
 \long\ life to thee, with all thine, drink [or, live\ and propose a 
 toast.'" May est thoic live happily with thine own^'' or, more 
 freely, Life and happiness to thee and thine y A more reli- 
 gious inscription has : — Hilaris vivas cvm tvis omnibvs 
 
 FELICITER SEMPER IN PACE DEI ZESES; that is, Joyfully 
 
 may est thou live with all thine; happily may est thou live for 
 ever in the peace of God.''' Doubtless in Rome many a pious 
 pilgrim followed the practice which St Monica learned in 
 Africa, of whom St Augustine records, with the playful fond- 
 
 * Dignitas Amicorvm appears to have been equivalent to the phrase 
 Digni amici, with which a Roman host was accustomed to pledge his 
 guests before drinking their health. Perhaps it would have been more 
 exactly rendered by " Here's to our frietidship.'''' The phrase is evidently 
 alluded to by St Augustine in the passage quoted below, where digna- 
 tionem stands for the honour paid to the saints by St Monica with her cup 
 of wine. r 
 
 t Pie, ZESES, for Trte, ^T/cr^s, Greek words in popular use in Rome. 
 BiBAS may be understood as it stands, or as written for Vivas. The 
 latter is more in conformity with the spelling on the inscriptions in the 
 Catacombs, in which \'ixiT is usually written BixiT. 
 
284 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 ness of filial affection, that she used to bring to the festivals 
 a small cup of wine, diluted according to her own abstemious 
 habits, which for courtesy she would taste (' nude digjiationem 
 sumeret'). And if there were many shrines of the departed 
 saints to be honoured in that manner, she would carry round 
 that one same cup which she used everywhere ; and this, even 
 when it had become not only very watery, but unpleasantly 
 lukewarm, she would distribute to those about her by small 
 sips, for she sought there devotion, not pleasure."* 
 Ancient A question here naturally arises as to the representations of 
 
 of these^ the Apostles, how far they may be considered to be real like- 
 Apostles, nesses, or whether they were purely conventional, invented and 
 perpetuated merely by Christian art. We have the testimony 
 of Eusebius that he had " seen representations of the Apostles 
 Peter and Paul, and of Christ Himself, still preserved in 
 paintings;" and he adds, "that it is probable that, according 
 to a practice among the Gentiles, the ancients were accus- 
 tomed to pay this kind of honour indiscriminately to those 
 who were as saviours or deliverers to them.f Moreover, it 
 cannot be denied that there is a certain uniformity of type 
 about the figures of these Apostles on most of the glasses of 
 which we are speaking, so that they might often be distin- 
 guished, even if there were no legends over their heads. 
 
 The oldest representation of them now extant is probably 
 that on a bronze medal preserved in the Vatican Library. J This 
 medal is about three inches in diameter ; it is executed in a fine 
 style of classical art, and the heads are finished with great care. 
 This was found by Boldetti in the cemetery of Domitilla, and 
 has every appearance of having been executed in the time of 
 the Flavian emperors, when Grecian art still flourished in Rome. 
 The portraits are very life-like and natural, bearing a strong im- 
 press of individual character. One of the heads is covered with 
 short curly hair, the beard clipped short and also curled, the 
 features somewhat rough and common-place. The features 
 * Conf. vi. 2. Hist. Eccl. vii. c. 18. % See Plate XVII. i. 
 
Gilded Glasses fo2L)id in the Catacombs. 285 
 
 of the other are more noble, graceful, and strongly marked, 
 the head is bold, and the beard is thick and long. This 
 valuable medal confirms the tradition preserved by Nice- 
 phorus * of the personal appearance of the two Apostles, the 
 first being that of St Peter, and the latter that of St Paul ; and, 
 as we have already said, these characteristics are in the main 
 retained in most of the glasses, excepting a few which are of 
 very inferior execution. The two Apostles are represented Variously 
 
 . , , . , . , . , T represented 
 
 Side by side, sometimes standing, and sometimes seated. In ^^^^ glass, 
 some instances Christ is represented in the air (that is, from 
 heaven, as it were), holding over the head of each a crown of 
 victory ; or, in other instances, a single crown is suspended 
 between the two, as if to show that " in their death they were 
 not divided." This crown becomes sometimes a circle sur- 
 rounding the labarum or , which is often supported on a 
 pillar, thus symbolising " the pillar and ground of the truth," 
 which is "that very great, very ancient, and universally known 
 Church founded and organised at Rome by the two most 
 glorious Apostles Peter and Paul." t For there certainly seems 
 to be good ground for Mr Palmer's conjecture,^ that in some 
 
 of these glasses the Roman Church is intended to be symbol- sometimes 
 
 , . , /- 1 r 1 1 11 symbolical of 
 
 ised in the persons of her founders and patrons, rather than Roman 
 
 the Apostles themselves to be represented personally. In this ^^^^^^'^'i- 
 
 way we can account for their being placed on either side of 
 
 the Blessed Virgin, § of St Agnes, or of other saints, who have 
 
 their hands uplifted in prayer, whilst the Apostles are not in 
 
 the same attitude, and moreover, are made to appear of very 
 
 diminutive stature. It can never have been intended to 
 
 represent St Agnes as superior to the chiefs of the Apostles, or 
 
 * See also St Jerome, Comment, in Ep. ad. Galat. i. i8, tom. vii. p, 
 329, ed. Migne. It is a curious coincidence also that in the apocryphal 
 Acts of the Apostles, edited by Tischendorf, it is said of Dioscorus, the ship- 
 master, who had followed St Paul to Rome, and was mistaken for the 
 Apostle and beheaded in his stead, that he was bald, "/cai ai^ros a.va.tpakav'bo'i 
 vTrdpx^v,'' p. 4. f S. Irenneus, Ha^r. iii. 3. 
 
 X Early Christian Symbolism, p. 21. § Sec Plate X\'III. i. 
 
286 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 as making intercession for those who had " finished their 
 course " nearly a century and a half before her. Rather, we 
 understand St Agnes, St Peregrina, and the rest, even our 
 Blessed Lady herself, as praying for the Roman Church which 
 these Apostles had founded, and through it for the Church at 
 large. St Agnes was always accounted a very special orna- 
 ment and glory of the Roman Church, and we have certain 
 proof of the Roman Christians of the fourth century asking 
 her prayers in the inscription by Pope Damasus, still to be 
 seen at the entrance of her church ftiori le 7m0'a — 
 
 UT DAMASI PRECIBUS FAVEAS PRECOR, INCLYTA VIRGO, 
 
 She was also represented alone upon these glasses almost 
 
 more frequently than any other saint excepting the two 
 
 Apostles of w^hom we have been speaking. 
 
 St Peter under '^^^ relative positions of these two Apostles, in ancient 
 
 the type of works of art, have been a subject of frequent discussion ever 
 Moses; ' . 
 
 since the days of St Peter Damian. It seems impossible, 
 
 however, to establish any theory upon them. St Peter is 
 generally at the right hand, but by no means always so ; and 
 if any one attempts to prove from this that the Roman 
 Christians looked upon the two Apostles as in all respects 
 equal and co-ordinate, he is met by the fact ; — first, that Our 
 Lord Himself is found once standing on the left of St Paul ; St 
 Agnes, too, in the place of honour, where she appears with 
 the Blessed Virgin ; and husbands, often placed on the left of 
 their wives : moreover, that Pagan artists, when they placed 
 Jupiter between Juno and Minerva, observe the same indiffer- 
 ence as to the relative position of the two goddesses, f And 
 secondly, that the primacy of St Peter is distinctly attested in 
 some of these glasses by another symbol which can hardly be 
 misunderstood. We mean those in which he appears under 
 the type of Moses striking the rock. The rock, of course, at 
 once suggests the passage of St Paul : " They drank of that 
 * See Plate XVIII. 2. t BuHett. 1868, 43. 
 
Gilded Glasses found in the Catacombs. 287 
 
 spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ ; " 
 but we should hardly have ventured to affirm that the figure 
 striking the rock was St Peter, if his name had not, in two 
 instances at least, been unmistakably given at his side. One 
 of these glasses has been long known to antiquarian visitors to 
 the Vatican Museum,* and within the last few months a 
 second, preserved in the same place, but whose surface had 
 become corroded and opaque, has been cleaned and rendered 
 transparent by Professor Tessieri. It does not differ in any 
 essential respect from the other, yet there is just sufficient 
 difterence to indicate the hand of another artist. 
 
 To- — Bottom of a Gilded Glass found in the Catacombs, and lately cleaned , and 
 restored to the Vatican Muse ion. 
 
 These invaluable glasses suppi}- us with a key to many of 
 the paintings in the Catacombs and sculptures on Christian 
 sarcophagi, where the same scene is so frequently repeated. 
 They show us that St Peter was considered to be the Moses 
 * Sec Plate XVI r. 2. 
 
288 
 
 Roma Sotter7^anea. 
 
 of " the new Israel of God," as Prudentius speaks, and they 
 explain the reason why the rod, the emblem of Divme power, 
 is never found except in three hands, those of Moses, Christ, 
 and Peter. It belongs primarily, and by inherent right, to 
 Christ, the eternal Son of God. By Him it was of old dele- 
 gated to Moses, of whom God testified, "He is most faithful 
 in all my house."'"' For a few years the rod of power was 
 visibly wielded by the Incarnate Word ; and when He with- 
 drew His own visible presence from the earth, " afterwards," 
 to use the words of St Macarms of Egypt,t " Moses was suc- 
 ceeded by Peter, to whom is committed the New Church of 
 Christ, and the new priesthood." We understand, also, that it 
 also in sculp- is not without reason that in the sarcophagi the figure striking 
 phTg?^ the rock is almost invariably found in immediate juxtaposition 
 with the Prince of the Apostles led captive by the satellites of 
 Herod Agrippa, and there is frequently a studied similarity in 
 the features of the principal figure in both scenes. The most 
 striking example of this is in the large sarcophagus which 
 stands at the end of the principal hall in the Lateran Museum. 
 In one of the four compartments into which the front of that 
 sarcophagus is divided, we have an epitome of St Peter's life. 
 First, he stands with the rod of power, already given to him 
 by his Divine Master, who is warning him of his fall, sym- 
 bolised by the cock at his feet. Next, he is taken prisoner by 
 the satellites of Agrippa, but he still bears the rod, for " the 
 Word of God is not bound," and no worldly violence can 
 wrench the rod of jurisdiction from him to whom Christ has 
 given it.{ Lastly, he appears under the symbol of Moses, 
 
 * Num. xii. 7 ; compare Heb. iii. 5, 6. f Hom. xxvi. c. 23. 
 
 X There must have been some special cause for the fi-equent repetition of 
 this scene. The most reasonable explanation is, that St Peter's imprison- 
 ment and miraculous deliverance, after which " he v^-ent into another place " 
 (Acts xii. 17), was the occasion of his coming to Rome, where the same 
 scene was enacted again and again in the apprehension and martyrdom of 
 so many of his successors. The parallel event in the life of St Paul (his 
 imprisonment and deliverance at Philippi) is nowhere reproduced in early 
 Christian art. See Palmer's " Symljolism," p. 18. 
 
Gilded Glasses foMiid in the Catacombs. 289 
 
 using the rod to bring from the spiritual Rock " the streams 
 
 of grace, at which the Israel of God slake the thirst of their 
 
 souls. We have already seen that the same idea runs through 
 
 the paintings in the earliest cubiciila of the Catacombs. All and in frescoes 
 
 . 1 Catacombs, 
 
 sacramental grace is there represented as nowmg from that 
 
 one stream over which Peter presides. Early in the fifth cen- 
 tury, St Augustine expressed the same idea when, writing to 
 Pope Innocent I., he said, " We do not pour back our stream- 
 let for the purpose of increasing your great fountain, but we 
 wish it to be decided by you whether our stream, however 
 small, flows forth from that same Head of rivers whence comes 
 your own abundance." * And in his reply the Pope says of St 
 Peter, " from whom the very Episcopate, and all the authority 
 of this name (of the i\postolic See) sprung . . . that thence 
 all other churches might derive what they should order; whom 
 they should absolve ; whom, as bemired with ineffaceable 
 pollution, the stream that is worthy only of pure bodies should 
 avoid; just as from their parent source all waters flow, and 
 through the different regions of the whole world the pure 
 streams of the fountain well forth uncorrupted." f 
 
 Among the glasses delineated by P. Garrucci may be noticed Large pateuce 
 a great number of very small size. These had been sup- medamans let 
 posed to belong to glass cups of small dimensions ; but a "^''^ 
 careful examination of them, especially since the discovery 
 which we have mentioned of the fragments of a glass plate at 
 Cologne, has proved that they once formed parts of similar 
 patence. It will be observed that they rarely contain a whole 
 subject at once. Thus one of them will contain the figure of 
 Adam, another that of Eve, while the tree and the serpent 
 coiled round it will be represented on a third. The Three 
 Children are represented each on a separate glass, and so are 
 the three Magi. Our Lord, or St Peter, as the case may be, 
 
 * S. Aug. Epist. clxxvii. vol. ii. p. 938, ed. Gaume. 
 
 t Inter Epist. S. Aug. 181 ; ib., p. 949. See Note C. in Appendix, 
 on the Chair of St Peter, and its connexion with the Baptismal Font on 
 the Vatican. 
 
Roma Sotte7'ranea. 
 
 is represented about a dozen times standing alone with a rod 
 in his hand, while on other glasses are to be seen the paralytic 
 carrying his bed, Lazarus as a mummy at the door of his 
 
 Fig. 34. — Fragments of a Glass Patena found at Cologne. 
 
 sepulchre, and the rock with the stream issuing from it. It 
 is true that sometimes these small glasses have been taken out 
 of the series to which they belong. Thus, one published by 
 
Gilded Glasses foiuid in the Catacombs. 291 
 
 Garrucci in Tav. iv. 9, which is in the Vatican, was found in 
 the plaster round a child's grave, in the cemetery of St Pris- 
 cilla, surrounded with a circle of iron with a ring by which it 
 had been hung round the neck as a medal ; and yet the sub- 
 ject is one of the three Magi. But the general use of these 
 small glasses is proved by the fragments discovered at Cologne, 
 of a flat plate about ten inches in diameter made of clear glass, 
 into which have been inserted, while in a state of fusion, a num- 
 ber of small medallions of green glass exactly similar to those 
 found separately in Rome, and which together form a series of 
 scriptural subjects. These medallions, being of double glass, 
 have resisted the ravages of time and accident which have de- 
 stroyed the more thin and fragile glass of the patena. De Rossi 
 has seen in the plaster oiloculi in the Catacombs the impression 
 of large plates of this description, which have probably perished 
 in the attempt to detach them from the cement."' 
 
 We have alluded to the probable use of these glasses at the ^'I'^^s clialicc. 
 AgapcE, and the subjects on many of them suggest their having 
 been also used on other festive occasions, as marriages, birth- 
 days, &c. It is however a more interesting question to con- 
 sider whether it is not possible that some of them may have 
 been used as patens or chalices in the celebration of the Holy 
 Eucharist. The well-known passage in which Tertullian scoffs 
 at the Roman Pontiff for painting on his chalice the figure of 
 tlie Good Shepherd,! would lead us to suppose that the 
 chalices of the second and third century must have been fre- 
 quently of similar material and workmanship to the glasses of 
 which we are treating. Tlie celebrated Graal or Sacro Cafina, 
 preserved at Genoa, which is supposed to have been the 
 chalice used by pur Saviour at the Last Supper, and in search 
 for which so many romantic adventures were encountered by 
 legendary knights, is of glass, and of hexagonal form ; but it 
 
 * Bulldt. 1864, pp. 89-91. 
 
 t " Ipsae picture calicum vestrorum, si vel in illis perluccbit interpretatio," 
 &c. ; and again, "pastor quern in calice depingis." — Terf. De Fudicit. 7, 10. 
 
292 
 
 Roma Sotterra7iea, 
 
 would not be safe to deduce any archaeological argument 
 from so doubtful a relic. The Liber Pontljicalis says of St 
 Zephyrinus, that " he made it a constitution of the Church, 
 that ministers should carry glass patens into the church in 
 front of the priests, while the bishop celebrated mass with 
 the priests standing before him, and that in this manner 
 masses should be celebrated, care being taken for what be- 
 longed to the rights of the bishop, that the clergy only should 
 take away for all present the Holy Loaf {coroitaui) consecrated 
 by the bishop's own hand, and that the priest should receive 
 it to administer it to the people." About twenty years after- 
 wards, St Urban " made the consecrated vessels all of silver, 
 and set apart twenty-five silver patens," From these notices 
 later writers, such as Honorius of Autun, have affirmed that 
 " the Apostles and their successors celebrated masses in 
 wooden chalices ; Pope Zephyrinus in glass ; but Urban, Pope 
 and martyr, ordained that the Holy Sacrifice should be offered 
 in gold or silver chalices and patens.'" + The passages, how- 
 ever, do not bear out so absolute a limitation of the period of 
 glass chalices to the few years between Zephyrinus and Urban. 
 It is not said that the latter Pope forbade the use of chalices 
 of less precious materials ; it is merely stated that he provided 
 sacred vessels of silver, and especially a number of patens 
 corresponding to the number of the city ///////. The history 
 of St Sixtus n. and St Laurence shows that the treasures of 
 the Church Avere constantly liable to confiscation, and it would 
 have been as impossible to ensure the sacred vessels being 
 always of the precious metals in Rome, during the ages of 
 persecution, as it is now for those Christian communities which 
 groan under the bondage of Mohammedanism, | When hap- 
 
 * See Didron, "Christian Iconography," vol. i. p, 270, note, (Bohn's 
 trans.) t De Gemma Animje, i. 89. 
 
 X The present writer once received a visit from a Coptic priest, who 
 begged earnestly to have given him for a chalice one of the ale-glasses 
 which he saw on the table of the Nile-boat saloon. Glass chalices are 
 universal throughout Egypt in the Coptic churches. 
 
Gilded Glasses foiuid in Ihe Catacombs. 293 
 
 pier days came, and the munificent gifts of gold and silver 
 chalices displaced the glass vessels, it was not at all unlikely 
 for some of the latter to be put up as tokens of affection and 
 distinction on the tombs of the departed, and hence it is quite 
 possible that some of our glasses may be fragments of chalices. 
 
 The patcnce vitrece which St Zephyrinus required, belong to a Glass patcme 
 different category. I'hey were not for the use of the celebrant ^'^^^'^ ^"'^ 
 bishop or priest ; but in conformity with that ancient practice 
 which required all tlie priests in cathedral cities on Sundays 
 and great festivals to assist at the bishop's mass, St Zephy- 
 rinus ruled that the priests of the several titles should be 
 attended on such occasions by a minister with a glass patena^ 
 in Avhich a requisite number of consecrated hosts (made then 
 in the form of the Roman circular biscuit ciambetia, and hence 
 called corona) should be placed at the bishop's mass, and taken 
 by the priests to be administered to the faithful in the different 
 parishe3, who thus signified their union with the bishop by 
 " being all partakers of that one bread " consecrated by his 
 hands. "Take heed," says St Ignatius of Antioch, " that you 
 have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and one chalice in the unity of His blood. One 
 altar, as there is but one bishop, with the priests, and the 
 deacons, my fellow-servants." " Now, the fragments of the 
 two large patence discovered at Cologne, correspond exactly 
 to the kind of glass paten here mentioned. The scriptural 
 subjects, and the absence of any allusions to secular feasting, 
 accord well with so sacred a purpose, and we may therefore 
 fairly presume that those other smaller glasses of which we 
 have also spoken may also be remains of the patencc used to 
 convey the Blessed Sacrament from the Pope's altar to the 
 parish churches in Rome. Padre Garrucci thinks this not 
 improbable, although he does not admit that any of our Cata- 
 
 * S. Ign. ad Philadelph. c. 4; compare ad Smyni. c. 8 : — " Lot that 
 be deemed a sure Eucharist which is [administered] either by the bishop, or 
 by one to whom he has entrusted it." 
 
294 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 comb glasses ever formed portions of Eucharistic chalices. 
 The patena found near the Church of St Ursula differs from 
 the other discovered two years before, in having the subjects 
 depicted in gold and colours on the surface of the glass, in- 
 stead of being within medallions of double glass. The draw- 
 ing is also in a better style of art. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SARCOPHAGI. 
 
 IN the course of the preceding chapters we have frequently Christian use 
 had occasion to mention the sarcophagi, or stone coffins, ^'"^'^^P^^^S^ 
 in which some of the more illustrious of those buried in the 
 Catacombs were laid to rest. The use of sarcophagi comes 
 down from the remotest Egyptian antiquity, and, as we have 
 already remarked, it prevailed in Rome before the practice of 
 burning became general. Examples of Pagan Roman sarco- 
 phagi may be seen in almost every museum, and the most ex- 
 tensive collection of Christian sarcophagi is to be found in the 
 great hall of the Lateran Palace. It was arranged by Padre 
 Marchi, and additions have been made from time to time under 
 the direction of the Commendatore De Rossi. Before exam- 
 ining this interesting collection of early Christian sculpture, it 
 is worth while to inquire into the Christian use of this mode of 
 burial, in order that we may gain some general idea as to the 
 date of the specimens before us. 
 
 We have seen that the Catacomb of St Domitilla,* which dates from 
 bears every mark of having been constructed in the time of ^^jj^gg^"^'^ 
 the Flavian emperors, appears originally to have been intended 
 solely for the reception of those buried in sarcophagi. The 
 loculi^ cut through the plaster which covers the walls of the 
 first portion of this cemetery, are manifestly later additions ; 
 while the wide recesses, in which the sarcophagi once stood, 
 prove the original design of the sepulchre. In fact, the body 
 of St Petronilla lay here in a stone sarcophagus, in which it 
 * Sec page 71. 
 
296 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 was translated to St Peter's by Pope Paul I. In 1474, King 
 Louis XI. of France restored the altar of this saint, and in 
 consequence the sarcophagus was exposed to view; and there 
 is a letter of Pope Sixtus IV. to the king, in which' he describes 
 it as having four dolphins at the corners. The inscription, 
 
 AURELIAE PETRONILLAE FILIAE DVI.CISSIMAE, 
 
 is said to have been engraven by the hand of St Peter himself, 
 whose daughter, in the Gospel, this saint of Caesar's household 
 was. The sarcophagus of Linus, the immediate successor of 
 St Peter, is related by Severano * to have been found in the 
 time of Urban VIII., during the restoration of the Confession 
 of St Peter. The Christian use of sarcophagi, then, appears 
 to have been coeval with the introduction of Christianity. 
 There were, however, several reasons which made this mode 
 of burial far from general among the Christians. 
 They were not, In the first place, the sarcophagus was an expensive article, 
 very^general mass of the Christian community was composed of 
 
 the poor. The conveyance of a heavy stone coffin from the 
 city to the cemetery required the presence of a considerable 
 number of workmen, and must have attracted more attention 
 to the Christian cemeteries than was generally desirable. 
 Consequently we find, at a very early period, the sepolcro a 
 viensa^ which is nothing else but a sarcophagus cut out of the 
 living rock ; and the later form of this kind of sepulchre was, 
 as we have seen, the arcosoliii77i^\ which has been described as 
 " an excavated sarcophagus, with arched niche above." 
 Christian sub- Even when the Christians did bury their dead in sarcophagi, 
 "Sptiu-edon ^^^^ appear, until the ages of persecution had passed 
 
 sarcophagi away, to have ornamented them with sculptures of a distinctive 
 
 during ages ,.. , i 
 
 of persecution. Christian character. Out of the four hundred and ninety-three 
 dated inscriptions, described by De Rossi as belonging to the 
 first four centuries, only eighteen are found on sarcophagi, and 
 of these not more than four bear dates anterior to the time of 
 
 * See page 65. f Sec fig. 4, 5, in page 30. 
 
Christian I Sai^copkagi. 297 
 
 Constantine. These are ornamented with genii, or griffins, or 
 pastoral or hunting scenes ; and the earhest dated sarco- 
 phagus, with a distinctively Christian subject sculptured upon 
 it, is one from the Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, 
 upon which is represented the Nativity with the ox and ass, 
 and which bears a consular date corresponding to a.d. 343. 
 
 This tardy development of Christian sculpture cannot be 
 explained by the supposition that the Church forbade or dis- 
 couraged the representation of sacred subjects and symbols, 
 for if such had been the case, the same rule would have 
 applied to painting, and we have seen that no restriction was 
 placed upon the Christian artist even from the apostolic age. 
 A simple explanation of the contrast presented by these two 
 branches of Christian art is .to be found in the consideration 
 of the widely different circumstances under which the painter 
 and the sculptor pursued their respective callings during times 
 of persecution. The Christian artist, concealed in the bowels 
 of the earth, prosecuted his labours without fear of danger; 
 while the sculptor would be unable to execute Christian sub- 
 jects in his workshop without drawing a dangerous attention 
 to his work. Hence upon the sarcophagi, prior to the time of 
 Constantine, w^e find Christianity, if represented at all, veiled 
 under forms which were not unknown even to the Pagans ; 
 while upon those belonging to the period which followed the 
 peace of the Church, we notice at once the reproduction in 
 marble of the same series of sacred subjects which we have 
 seen reduced to a regular symbolical system in the subter- 
 ranean fresco-paintings of the second and third centuries. In 
 fact, no sooner was peace given to the Church than Christian 
 art sprang up everywhere, and sarcophagi of the fourth cen- 
 tury, adorned with Christian sculptures, have been found in 
 Aries and Saragossa as freely as in Rome, Ravenna, or Milan.* 
 
 * A great number of Christian sarcophagi, discovered in the neighbour- 
 hood of Aries, may still be seen in the museum of that city. There ap- 
 pears to have been a very considerable school of Christian sculpture there. 
 
298 
 
 Roma Sottcrranca. 
 
 Sul))ects 
 selected by 
 Christians 
 from the 
 Pagan shops. 
 
 Pastoral 
 scenes. 
 
 Ulysses and 
 Syrens. 
 
 From the difficulties in t!ie way of anything like the for- 
 mation of a Christian school of sculpture during the ages of 
 persecution, it is evident that those who wished to procure 
 sarcophagi must have had recourse to the shops of the heathen ; 
 and an examination of the fragments which remain of these 
 ages proves, that they took considerable pains to select those 
 which did not directly offend against the Christian religion by 
 representing idolatrous rites, or false gods, or scenes clearly 
 peculiar to Paganism. Sarcophagi with such scenes sculptured 
 upon them are sometimes indeed to be met with in the Cata- 
 combs, but they have either been carefully defaced with a 
 chisel, or turned against the wall ; and when used to close 
 /ocnii, the sculpture has been turned towards the inside of the 
 tomb. For instance, a bacchanalian scene sculptured on a 
 sarcophagus was found in the cemetery of St Lucina, turned 
 against the wall, while the rough side was exposed to view, 
 and on this side was inscribed the name of the deceased, 
 IRENE. The sarcophagi usually found in Christian ceme- 
 teries are ornamented either by wave-lines,'" or by scenes of 
 pastoral life, agriculture, the chase, and (more rarely) comic 
 figures. Figures with their hands raised in prayer, orauti, 
 were not unknown on Pagan tombs. A shepherd with a sheep 
 on his shoulders is also to be found among heathen subjects. 
 These were at once expressive of thoroughly Christian ideas, 
 and were consequently in great request, as the numerous 
 examples of them testify. Sometimes, other subjects appear 
 less susceptible of a Christian interpretation. Cupid and 
 Psyche are represented side by side with a Good Shepherd, 
 who is overturning a basket of fruit, an omen of evil rather 
 than good, f It is however fair to add, that this sculpture 
 was found with signs of plaster upon it, and had been buried 
 beneath the floor of the chamber. Another, found in the 
 crypt of St Lucina, represents the story of Ulysses and the 
 Syrens, and it is probable that the monogram of tyranio was 
 * As in Y'v^. 15, page 109. + Fig. 32, page 261. 
 
Christian Sarcophagi. 299 
 
 a clisguised form of the Cross. This is not the only instance 
 of the representation of this fable on Christian tombs; and in 
 the fifth century, St Maximus of Turin explained the ship of 
 Ulysses to be a type of the Church, the mast being the Cross, 
 by which the faithful are to be kept from the seductions of the 
 senses, " for in that Christ Our Lord was fastened to the Cross, 
 so let us pass through the ensnaring perils of the world 
 with as it were closed ears; thus shall we be neither held 
 back by the pernicious hearing of the world's voice, nor 
 swerve from our course to the better life and fall upon the 
 rocks of voluptuousness."! Both these fragments of sarco- 
 phagi may be seen in the Catacomb of St Callixtus. 
 
 The Good Shepherd at each end of one of the sarcophagi in 
 that Catacomb, which still contains the well-preserved body of 
 a man, was probably taken from the Pagan shops. The dog at 
 his feet is foreign to Christian art. % Yet the chamber was 
 probably not made before the fourth century, and another 
 sarcophagus in it is covered with subjects wholly biblical. 
 In the Lateran Museum a good specimen of a Pagan Good 
 Shepherd, adapted to Christian purposes, may be seen about 
 the middle of the hall, on the right-hand side. It represents 
 three shepherds, one holding a sheep by his tail, the second 
 with a sheep on his shoulders and another at his feet, while 
 the third leans on his staff and watches three sheep feeding on 
 the mountain-side, a fourth lying at his feet. This sarcophagus 
 
 bears the inscription : — 
 
 ENGAAE IIATAEINA 
 KEITAI MAKAPfiN 
 ENI X12P0 
 UN KHAET:i:E IIAKATA 
 EHN ePEIITEIPAN 
 TATKEPHN 
 APIAN EN XP12 
 
 *' Here Pauline lies in the place of the blessed whom Pacata buried 
 [for she was] her sweet and holy nurse in Christ." 
 
 * P'ig. 28, page 232. 
 
 t S. Maxim. Horn. i. De Cruce Domini. See also Philosopluunena, vii. 
 c. I, Clark's edition, vol. i. p. 267. % Fig. 35, page 294. 
 
300 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Bosio says that it was dug up out of the cemetery of St Priscilla 
 on the Via Salaria, and he infers from the inscription that that 
 cemetery was a celebrated resting-place of saints.'" The sar- 
 cophagus, with Orpheus and a fisherman sculptured upon it, 
 of which a lithograph is given in Plate XX. at the end of the 
 volume, belongs to the same category. 
 
 Sarcophagi in Since sculpture cannot be said to have existed as a Christian 
 the Lateral!. 
 
 That nearest art before the time of Constantine, we may safely attribute all 
 the entiance. ^j^^ sarcophagi, with distinctively Christian subjects sculptured 
 upon them, to the fourth and fifth centuries ; and having thus 
 determined an approximation to their date, we may pass on to 
 examine some of the more remarkable specimens. We will 
 commence with the large sarcophagus which stands at the end 
 of the hall in the Lateran, and which is usually the first to 
 attract the attention of visitors. A lithograph is given of it at 
 the end of the volume. f This sarcophagus was recently found 
 above the tomb of St Paul, when the excavations were made 
 for the construction of the magnificent Ealdacchino which now 
 covers the high altar in his basilica on the Via Ostiensis. 
 That basilica was rebuilt by Theodosius towards the close of 
 the fourth century, and this sarcophagus appears to have been 
 placed there about that time. The unfinished faces of the 
 busts in the centre, doubtless intended for the man and 
 woman to be buried in it, and other heads in the same incom- 
 plete condition, show that some circumstance prevented the 
 execution of the original design. It has been suggested that 
 the invasion of the Goths under Alaric was the cause, and this 
 would fix the date at a.d. 410. 
 The Holy Beginning at the right hand of the upper part of the sar- 
 
 Innity. cophagus, we have three bearded figures, representing by 
 their unity of operation the Three Persons of the Ever- 
 Blessed Trinity. The Eternal Father, as the source and 
 fountain of Deity, is symbolised by the figure in the chair, 
 veiled, as the episcopal chair was, in token of His supreme 
 * Bosio, Rom. Sott. p. 513. + Plate XIX. 
 
Christian Sai'cophagi. 301 
 
 dignity. In front of Him is a figure who represents the 
 Eternal Word, by whom all things were made, in the act of 
 creating Eve from the side of the sleeping Adam. Behind the 
 seated figure stands a third, to represent the Holy Ghost, who 
 co-operates in the work of creation. In the next group we The Fall, 
 see the serpent with the fatal apple in his mouth, which he 
 offers to our common mother, while between the guilty pair is 
 Our Lord, here represented without a beard, because it was in 
 the depth of the shame of the fall that He was revealed as the 
 promised seed who should be born of the woman, and the Incar- 
 nation is expressed by the signs of youth. He gives to Adam 
 a sheaf, for " in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread ; " 
 while to Eve he gives a lamb, a type of domestic labour in 
 spinning, and also of the Lamb of God whom the second Eve 
 was to bring forth to atone for all the evil that the first Eve 
 had brought upon mankind. Immediately below we see two TheEpiphany. 
 other groups, evidently intended to contrast in some way with 
 those already described. Here the Eternal Word is again 
 represented, but this time not according to His divine nature 
 by which He is co-equal with the Father, but He is the Word 
 made flesh, an infant on His mother's knee. The Holy Ghost 
 is represented just as before, for it was by the operation of the 
 Holy Ghost that Mary conceived the Second Person of the 
 Blessed Trinity in her virginal womb. Her chair is not veiled, 
 to distinguish the most blessed of creatures from the unap- 
 proachable Creator ; and to mark the twofold generation of 
 Christ, that which is invisible by which He was born of the 
 Father before all worlds, and that which was made manifest by 
 which He was born of His mother in the world. The uni- 
 versality of His kingdom is typified by the three Magi, the 
 representatives of the whole Gentile Church. And finally, the 
 application of the universal redemption to the individual is set 
 
 forth by Christ giving sight to the blind, while He holds in ^"i' Lord 
 T-r- 11 11-1 • -r TT- T • • • giving sijjht to 
 
 His hand a roll, either to signify His divme mission, or to the blind. 
 
 show that it is His doctrine wliich alone can enlighten tlie 
 
302 Rovia Sotte7'ranea. 
 
 Eucharistic eves of the darkened understandings of men. Tiirnins: now to 
 types. . ^ ^ 
 
 the upper portion of the other side of the sarcophagus, we see 
 
 our Lord Vv'ith the rod of His power changing the water into 
 wine, and multiplying the loaves, the well-known patristic 
 symbols of the Holy Eucharist, in which the wine becomes 
 His blood, and the bread His flesh, which He gives for the life 
 of the world. And then, as a type and foreshadowing of the 
 power of the Holy Eucharist even upon the mortal body, accord- 
 ing to the promise, " He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My 
 blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up in the last 
 day," we have a third group, mutilated indeed, but with enough 
 remaining to show that it represents the raising of Lazarus. 
 St Peter, Beneath this Eucharistic series, as we may call it, we see St 
 Peter, having had already committed to him the rod of power, 
 which Our Lord held in the former series, and yet receiving 
 from his Master the solemn warning, " Before the cock crow 
 thou shalt deny Me thrice." The uplifted hand of Our Lord, 
 and the cock at St Peter's feet, express this with sufficient 
 clearness, while the rod in the Apostle's hand shows that his 
 fall would not deprive him of his great prerogatives, but that, 
 being converted, he should " confirm his brethren." The next 
 group represents the apprehension of St Peter ; the bearded 
 face and general similarity of expression identify the Apostle, 
 and distinguish him from his Divine Master. The Jewish 
 caps mark the satellites of Herod Agrippa, and it is worthy of 
 note that, though they have power to lead the Apostle whither 
 he would not, yet he still retains the rod, for " the Word of 
 God is not bound," and imperial soldiers, who repeated the 
 scene over and over again in the person of Peter's successors, 
 have never been able to wrest from him the rod of power with 
 which he rules the Church as Vicar of Christ. Another reason, 
 which probably led to the very frequent representation of this 
 scene in St Peter's life, is that his imprisonment and miracul- 
 ous deliverance was the immediate cause of his coming to 
 Rome and founding the Church there ; and thus Roman 
 
Christian Sarcophaoi. 303 
 
 Christians would see in the apprehension of St Peter the 
 symbol of "the Holy See of Blessed Peter, through which," in 
 the words of St Leo, Rome " was made a priestly and royal city, 
 and the head of the world, extending her sway more widely by 
 the religion of God than ever she had done by earthly domi- 
 nation.'''"" The next group is a mutilated representation of 
 Moses striking the rock, of the waters flowing from which the 
 people of Israel are drinking. We have seen that the glasses 
 found in the Catacombs enable us to interpret this as a symbol 
 of St Peter, and in him the Christian priesthood, touching with 
 the rod of power the Rock from which the spiritual Israel draw 
 grace for all their needs. The remaining group, beneath the Daniel among 
 busts of the persons for whom the sarcophagus was intended, ^'^^ 
 represents Daniel in the lions' den, protected by God under 
 the figure of an old man, while the figure offering to Daniel a 
 basket of food represents the prophet Habacuc, whom " the 
 angel of the Lord took by the top of his head, . . . and set 
 him in Babylon, over the den, in the force of His spirit. 
 Then Habacuc cried, saying : ' O Daniel, thou servant of 
 God, take the dinner that God hath sent thee.'"t This group 
 is met with very frequently both in painting and sculpture. It 
 is found in the earliest known Catacomb, and it may be seen 
 in the subterranean church of San Clemente, among frescoes 
 of the tenth century. The continuator of the Liber Pontifi- 
 calis mentions Gregory IV. having adorned altar frontals with 
 gilded representations of Daniel in the lions' den. The 
 writings of the early Fathers inform us that the Christians saw 
 in Daniel the type of the Christian martyr, sometimes like 
 Daniel unharmed by the savage beast to which he was 
 exposed in the arena, but always victorious over those who 
 could at most only destroy the body, and consoled in the 
 dungeon, in which he awaited his martyrdom, by the Christian 
 
 * Serm. i. in Nat. Apost. See Corn, a Lap. in Act. xii. 17. 
 + Dan. xiv. 32-3S. In the Protestant version it is called " The Story of 
 I5el and the Dragon." 
 
304 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 priest who strengthened him for the conflict with the heavenly 
 food of the Holy Eucharist. Thus St Cyprian applies the 
 history : " For since all things are God's, nothing will be 
 wanting to him who possesses God, if God himself be not 
 wanting to him. Thus a meal was divinely provided for Daniel : 
 when he was shut up by the king's command in the den of 
 lions ; and in the midst of wild beasts who were hungry and 
 yet spared him, the man of God was fed." 
 Sarcophagus On either side of this sarcophagus are two small statues of 
 with Jonas. Good Shepherd. Eusebius tells us that statues of Our 
 
 Lord, under this form, were set up by Constantine at Con- 
 stantinople, but in Rome early Christian sculpture is nearly 
 always confined to bassi rilicvi. A remarkable exception will 
 be noticed before we leave this museum. 
 
 The first sarcophagus on our left, as we pass up the hall, is 
 one whose lid is ornamented with sea-monsters, and bears the 
 inscription — marivs . vitellianvs . primitivae . conivgi . 
 FiDELissiMAE . AAiKCBBiN " Marius Vitclhanus to his 
 
 most faithful wife Primitiva. Hail, innocent soul ; dear wife, 
 mayest thou live in Christ." f This lid, however, in all proba- 
 bility, belongs to another sarcophagus, since in Bosio's time 
 this latter was used as the cistern for a fountain in the Medici 
 Gardens, on the Pincio, whither it had been removed from the 
 crypt of St Peter's. The central group, immediately beneath 
 the inscription, again represents the smitten rock and the 
 apprehension of St Peter ; while on the one side is Our Lord 
 calling Lazarus as a mummy out of the tomb, close to which 
 stands Martha ; her sister Mary kneels at the feet of Our Lord, 
 and the disciples stand around. On the other side is a Good 
 Shepherd watching over two sheep in a temple-like house, 
 probably intended for the Church. But the most striking 
 subject on the sarcophagus is the history of Jonas, who is 
 * S. Cypr. De Oratione, 21. 
 
 t Such at least is the interpretation adopted by De Rossi, who follows 
 Mafifei in understanding the congeries of letters at the end as the initials of 
 Ave anivia iimocens kara conjjix bihas in Christo. — Biillctt. 1868, lo. 
 
Christian Sarcophagi. 305 
 
 represented first as being cast out of a ship, the large sail of 
 which is filled with the wind from the conch-shell of the winged 
 figure above. The sea-monster opens his enormous jaws to 
 receive Jonas, and a female bust in the sky apparently indi- 
 cates the calm which succeeded. The same monster is next 
 represented as vomiting forth the prophet upon the dry ground, 
 upon which crabs, lizards, and snails are seen crawling about. 
 Close to this scene is the reclining figure of Jonas asleep under 
 the grateful shade of the gourd. The sculptor has filled every 
 bit of available space with figures, and the same water in which 
 float the sea-monsters is made to bear up a little square box, 
 intended for the Ark, in which Noe sits and receives the 
 olive-branch from the dove, which is made, perhaps not with- 
 out meaning, to come from the place of refreshment where the 
 prophet reposes. At the water's edge, on either side, are 
 represented fishermen — in one case hooking a fish which a boy 
 is assisting him to land, and in the other, giving the basket 
 of fish to the boy. A water bird is also looking out for prey, 
 and may be intended to convey the warning, that others, 
 besides those whom Christ has made " fishers of men," are on 
 the watch for those who are born of the waters. 
 
 On the same side of the hall is another sarcophagus, upon Sarcophagus 
 the lid of which are two shepherds, each taking care of three Abel offering 
 sheep rather larger than themselves. Every one of the sheep sacrifice, 
 holds a circular roll of bread in his mouth, evidently a figure 
 of the Holy Eucharist, which (we have already said) was for- 
 merly consecrated in bread made in the shape of a corona. 
 The sarcophagus itself is ornamented with sacred subjects, the 
 first of which is the sacrifice of Cain and Abel. The invisible 
 God is represented by the bearded figure seated on a stone, 
 which possibly has reference to the rude altar of patriarchal 
 times; Cain, as the eldest, offers his fruits first, while Abel 
 follows with his lamb. In the next group, the Fall is again 
 represented, but Eve has taken the apple, and the promised 
 
 Saviour, beardless, as in all representations of the Incarnation, 
 
 u 
 
3o6 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 holds the sheaf in His hand, but extends it towards the seated 
 figure, as though to imply that the bread obtained by the 
 sweat of Adam's brow is to be offered to God, if His blessing 
 is to be expected upon the labour of man. He does not here 
 give the lamb to Eve, Abel's offering, perhaps, sufficiently con- 
 st Mary Mag- veying the lesson. The central figure is a female with an 
 open box in her hand, the "alabaster box of precious oint- 
 ment " which Mary poured on Our Lord's head, and of which 
 He said, " Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the 
 whole world, that also which she hath done shall be told for a 
 memory of her." The remaining subjects are the paralytic 
 carrying his bed, Our Lord giving sight to the blind, changing 
 the water into wine, and raising Lazarus from the tomb. 
 
 Sarcophagus Proceeding still further along this side of the Museum, the 
 from S. Paolo . . . ^ , , , 
 
 fuori le nmra. Visitor Will hardly fail to nonce a very finely sculptured sarco- 
 phagus, in the centre of which are the busts of two men, whose 
 refined and intellectual expression of face contrasts strongly 
 with the rude grotesquesness of most of these sculptures. It 
 is impossible to say who these two men were ; but the sarco- 
 phagus, which probably once contained their remains, formerly 
 stood beneath the altar in the tribune of 6". Paolo fuori leimira^ 
 and the relics of the Holy Innocents were placed within it. 
 Sixtus V. removed it with the relics to a chapel built by him 
 in Sta. Maria Maggiore. The upper series of figures represent 
 Mary kissing Our Saviours hand in gratitude for having 
 restored her brother Lazarus to life ; Peter warned of his 
 denial before the cock should crow ; and Moses receiving the 
 law from a hand stretched out from heaven. Another out- 
 stretched hand checks the uplifted arm of Abraham as he is 
 about to sacrifice his son Isaac, who kneels with his hands 
 Pilate washing bound behind his back. The sacrifice of the true Isaac is not 
 uo lan s. found among the subjects selected by early Christian art, but 
 the article of the Creed, " crucified under Pontius Pilate," is 
 set forth here with sufficient clearness in the group which 
 * St Malt. xxvi. 13. 
 
Chinstian Sarcophagi. 307 
 
 represents the servant with the ewer and basm stancUng ready 
 to wash the hands of the irresohite governor, who, seated on 
 his veiled judgment-seat, turns away his head in token of his 
 repugnance in condemning the innocent blood. Our interpre- 
 tation of Moses as the figure of St Peter is confirmed by this Peter, 
 sarcophagus, on the lower portion of which we see that 
 Apostle in the hands of Herod's satellites, still pointing to the 
 stream which flows from the rock above his head ; while 
 Christ, or possibly St John, is represented as also engaging the 
 attention of the satellites, either in allusion to His own appre- 
 hension in the Garden, or else to teach that He suffers still in 
 the persecution of His Church. Again, we see Daniel in the 
 lions' den, and the prophet Habacuc, while, on the opposite 
 side, Our Lord gives sight to the blind, and multiplies the 
 loaves and fishes. In the centre, however, is a group which 
 has somewhat puzzled the learned. Bosio makes the old man 
 under the tree to be Moses giving the law to the people, and 
 the head which appears between the branches of the tree to be 
 that of Zaccheus climbing up in order to see Our Lord. 
 
 On the same side of the hall is a sarcophagus, with the Sarcophai,aKs 
 nearest resemblance to the later representations of Our Jal^^^twi 
 Saviour's Passion to be found in early Christian art. It is 
 
 Fig. 36. — Snrco/'/ing!ts in Lnterait M nsfiim of fourth or fifth coit/ny. 
 
 divided into five compartments by twisted Corinthian pillars, 
 the pediments above wliich are decorated with scenes from 
 the vintage. In the central compartment is the labannjh 
 surrounded with a crown of immortality, and supported on a 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Representa 
 tions of the 
 Passion. 
 
 cross, on each of the arms of which is a dove pecking at the 
 crown, thus symbohcally representing the hope of an immortal 
 crown with Christ, which feeds the soul, although here below 
 its only resting-place is His Cross. The guards appointed by 
 Constantine to keep watch over the sacred standard are re- 
 presented below by two soldiers ; and we may see here a type 
 of the Christian army, who, whether they sleep or wake, live or 
 die, find rest beneath the Cross. Two of the side compart- 
 ments represent Our Lord witnessing a good confession before 
 Pontius Pilate, above whom hangs a crown, the reward of 
 those who confess Christ before men. On the other side a 
 soldier places a crown on the head of Our Saviour, but it 
 resembles rather the crown of glory which is the recompense 
 of the crown of thorns endured for Him on earth. The last 
 compartment contains a representation of Our Lord carrying 
 His Cross under the guard of a soldier, but there are none of 
 the traces of suffering with which later artists, following the 
 sacred narrative, have familiarised our imagination, and the 
 crown above points to the reward for bearing the Cross after 
 our suffering Master. Above this sarcophagus is let into the 
 wall a fragment of another, which represents a number of per- 
 sons, some listening with devout attention to one who is read- 
 ing to them, while others of the same company are partaking 
 of the agape. 
 
 Perhaps the finest specimen of Christian sculpture among 
 under canopy. ^ sarcophagi in the Lateran Museum is that which stands 
 under a canopy supported by two beautiful columns of Pavon- 
 azzetto marble, and is placed in this position to show how the 
 sarcophagi were arranged in the ancient basilicas ; for this, as 
 well as the one last described, were found in the crypt of St 
 Peter's. The front of the sarcophagus is sculptured with 
 figures in high relief, divided into groups by eight richly 
 ornamented pillars. The groups at the two extremities are 
 Abraham's sacrifice, and Our Lord before Pilate, who is wash- 
 ing his hands. The rest of the figures are the Apostles 
 
 Saixophagus 
 
Christian Sarcophagi. 309 
 
 grouped around Our Lord, who is seated in the centre as in Our Lord in 
 
 glory sur- 
 
 glory, the vault of heaven beneath His feet being expressed rounded by 
 (as in Pagan monuments) by the veil which a female figure Apostles, 
 holds above her head. De Rossi remarks that the grace and 
 refinement of the faces of Our Lord and the Apostles would 
 incline us to ascribe this work to the age of Septimius Severus,* 
 rather than to that of Constantine, did not the on one 
 of the sides indicate the latter as its actual date. The two 
 principal figures among the Apostles are manifestly intended 
 for St Peter and St Paul, and the characteristics of each Saints Peter 
 Apostle, which we have noticed on the gilded glasses, are ' 
 easily to be discerned here. St Paul is on the right, distin- 
 guished by his baldness from St Peter, who receives, with 
 hands reverently veiled, the new law from the Mediator of 
 the New Testament, just as heathen magistrates were wont to 
 receive from the emperors the book of the constitutions where- 
 by they were to govern the province committed to their charge. 
 Often, on similar representations, Our Lord is represented as 
 giving the volume to the Apostle, but saying nothing. In 
 others, again, the roll bears the inscription, dominvs dat 
 LEGEM, or PACEM, sometimcs one, and sometimes the other, 
 whence the Bishop Eribert was led to engrave on the Book of 
 the Gospels provided for the cathedral of Milan the words 
 " LEX ET PAX."' Here again we see Peter represented as the 
 Moses of the new dispensation, and every such discovery in- 
 creases the probability that in all other representations also of 
 Moses, the chief Apostle was really meant to be understood. 
 The two sides of this sarcophagus are covered with sculpture. 
 
 On one is represented the denial of St Peter, with a basilica r)enial of 
 
 .St Peter. 
 
 and a baptistery in the background, the latter of which (no 
 doubt by an intentional anachronism) is surmounted with the 
 On the other side is a similar kind of background, but 
 in front is the smitten rock, and, apparently, the Noli Me taii- 
 
 * Sickler, Almanach aus Roni. pp. 173, 174, actually assigns to it that 
 date. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 gere,'' although this latter group may be intended to represent 
 the gratitude of Mary for the resurrection of her brother. 
 Sculpture of On the visitor's right, as he ascends the staircase at the end 
 in'rl^^o^hTaven ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ notice a spirited sculptured representation 
 nnd leaving of the ascent of P^Has into heaven in the fiery chariot." The 
 
 his pallijim to 
 
 Eliseus. sons of the prophets are gazing with eager astonishment at 
 Eliseus, who reverently, and with veiled hands, receives from 
 the ascending prophet the cloak or pallium, the symbol of the 
 double portion of the Spirit which rested upon him. In Elias, 
 St Ambrose and other Fathers saw a figure of Our Lord ; and 
 Rupertus explains further : " When Elias was on the point of 
 being translated, he laid \\\?> pallium on Eliseus ; because Christ 
 Our God and Lord, when about to pass out of this world unto 
 the Father, gave to the Apostles both His office and His 
 Spirit." t " Eliseus," says the Venerable Bede, " took the 
 mantle of Elias, and with it struck the waters of Jordan, and 
 when he invoked the God of Elias, they were divided, and he 
 passed over. The Apostles took up, the Church founded by 
 them took up, the sacraments of her Redeemer, and with them 
 is spiritually enlightened, cleansed, and consecrated ; and she 
 also invoked the name of God the Father, and learned how to 
 conquer the torrent of death, and despising the hindrance of 
 it, to pass over to eternal life." J This history forms the 
 subject of a painting which may still be seen in the Catacomb 
 of SS. Nereus and Achilles. It is carved also at the end of a 
 sarcophagus near the door of the sacristy of St Peter's, con- 
 taining the bodies of Popes Leo 11. III. and IV. ; and on two 
 or three other sarcophagi, copied in the works of Bosio, 
 Bottari, and others. It would certainly have reminded 
 Roman Christians of the pallium, the symbol of jurisdiction 
 worn by the Bishops of Rome, and given by them to metro- 
 politans as from the very body of St Peter, — '^de corpore Saiicti 
 Fefriy^ It is worthy of notice, in connexion with this subject, 
 
 * See Fig. 29, p. 251. f Rupert. Abb. De Trin. v. c. 15. 
 
 Honi. in Ascen. Dom. § See Note F in Appendix. 
 
Christian Sarcophagi. 3 1 1 
 
 and also with the roll given to St Peter by the ascended 
 Saviour in the last sarcophagus, that the most ancient part 
 of Filocalus' catalogue of the Popes commenced tiius : — 
 Passus est Dominiis noster Jesus CJwistus diiobus Geminis 
 consul ibiis viii Kal. Apr lies, et post Ascenstun ejus beatissiinus 
 Pet r us episcopatum suscepit, ex quo temp ore!'' &:c. 
 
 "Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the 25th March, the two Gemini 
 being consuls, and after His Ascension the most blessed Peter undertook 
 the episcopacy, after which time," &c. 
 
 Above the translation of Elias is a fragment of a small sar- The Nativ 
 cophagus representing the Nativity, with the ox and ass and 
 the Magi ; and below is a rude intaglio of the raising of 
 Lazarus, on a marble covering of one of the loculi, with an 
 inscription to datvs. But our readers will easily be able to 
 interpret for themselves most of the other sculptures in this 
 museum. 
 
 As we pass out of the great hall into the upper corridor, Sarcophagi 
 around which Rossi has arranged the mscriptions from Bassus. 
 the Catacombs, we may observe a number of casts of a sar- 
 cophagus similar to some that we have described, and yet 
 possessing certain remarkable features peculiar to itself. Many 
 of our readers will have seen the original in St Peter's crypt, 
 where it stands on the right hand of the passage leading to 
 the subterranean chapel, and bears the inscription : — 
 
 IVN • BASSVS VC QVI VIXIT ANNIS • XLII MEN . II . IN IPSA 
 
 PRAEFECTVRA VRBIS 
 NEOFITVS IIT AD DEVM • VIII KAL SEPT EVSEBIO ET 
 YPATIO COSS 
 
 "Junius Bassus, who lived forty-two years and two months. In the 
 very year in which he was Prefect of the city, he went to God, a neophyte 
 on the 23d of August, a.d. 359." 
 
 The noble family of the Bassi is mentioned by Prudentius 
 as having been among the first of patrician rank to embrace 
 the Christian religion ;t and the death of this very Junius 
 
 * Rom. Sott. ii. 307. 
 
 + Contra Symmachum, i. 55S. 
 
312 
 
 Ro7na Sotterranea. 
 
 Bassus is recorded by a cotem- 
 porary writer * as having taken 
 place soon after his appointment 
 as Praefect of Rome. The sarco- 
 phagus is of white marble, hand- 
 somely carved in the Corinthian 
 style ; and besides the representa- 
 tions of Adam and Eve, the sacrifice 
 of Isaac, Daniel among the lions, 
 and Our Lord in glory delivering 
 the law to His Apostles, we have, 
 on the upper portion, a group in 
 which is represented the apprehen- 
 sion of Our Saviour in the garden ; 
 and again His condemnation by 
 Pilate. The apprehension of St 
 Peter appears on the other side, 
 the Apostle being distinguished from 
 his Lord by the beard, thus con- 
 firming our explanation of a similar 
 scene on other sarcophagi. The 
 lower portion also contains in the 
 centre Our Lord's entry into Jeru- 
 salem ; and, at one extremity. Job 
 comforted by his friends, while his 
 wife, with her handkerchief to her 
 nose, illustrates the complaint of 
 the afflicted patriarch, "My wife hath 
 abhorred my breath." t The other 
 extremity contains the representa- 
 tion of a person bound and led 
 away, which, from the baldness of the 
 head, and the sword in the hand of 
 one of his guards, we may consider 
 Ammianus Marcellinus. t Job xix. 7. 
 
Christian Sarcophagi. 3 1 3 
 
 to be intended for St Paul being conducted to the place of his 
 
 execution on the Ostian Way. The spandrils of the five arches Symbolical 
 
 , . - , 1 , . , . , - fitrures of the 
 
 which make up the lower portion are ornamented with figures Lamb work- 
 
 which form perhaps the most interesting feature in this sarcopha- "^S "Miracles, 
 gus. The subjects indeed have been explained before in other 
 sculptures, but here it is a lamb who occupies the place of the 
 Three Children in the furnace of Nabuchadonosor. A lamb with 
 a rod touches the rock from which another lamb drinks. Again, 
 a lamb with the rod multiplies the loaves ; a lamb imposes his 
 foot upon the head of another lamb, while a dove pours down a 
 stream of light upon the latter, signifying the seven-fold gift of 
 the Holy Ghost in the sacrament of Confirmation or of Holy 
 Order. Further on, a lamb approaches reverently to receive 
 the law ; and lastly, a lamb with the rod brings forth Lazarus 
 from his tomb, These six subjects prove incontestably the 
 symbolical character of the subjects represented on these sar- 
 cophagi, and teach us that, whether in the hand of Moses, or 
 of Peter, or of the Lamb, the divine rod is the power of Christ, 
 by whom the miracles of grace in the saci-aments of the Church 
 are still worked." 
 
 Our account of the Christian sculptures in the Lateran Statue of St 
 
 Museum will not be complete without some notice of the ^T'l"*"'-^^"'" 
 
 statue of St Hippolytus, which stands at the upper end of the 
 
 hall, and which is pronounced by Winckelmann and other 
 
 critics to be the finest known specimen of early Christian 
 
 sculpture. This statue was discovered, a.d. 155 i, when some 
 
 excavations were being made near the basilica of San Lorenzo 
 
 fiund le nuira^ and must have stood either in the subterranean 
 
 cemetery of St Hippolytus, or in a basilica close by. It bears 
 
 * These six subjects, three of which are shown in Fig. 37, are more clearly 
 to be distinguished in Bosio, Rom. Sott., p. 45, than on the sarcophagus 
 itself, which has prol)ably suffered some damage during the last two hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 It is interesting to observe the comparative frequency of the different 
 scriptural subjects introduced into the sculptured sarcophagi. The fol- 
 lowing list is taken from Burgon's Letters from Rome, Letter xx., with 
 one or two corrections in the description. He counted fifty-five sarco- 
 
314 
 
 Roma Sotterranca, 
 
 every mark of having been executed during the third century, 
 
 for, though the head and arm are modern restorations, yet the 
 
 classical dignity of the figure is greatly superior to statues of 
 
 the age of Constantine ; while the Canon Fasc/talis, engraved 
 
 on one of the sides of the chair in which the saint is seated, 
 
 would hardly have been considered worthy of commemoration 
 
 Paschal many years after the martyrdom of St Hippolytus. We have 
 Canon of . . . 
 
 St Hippolytus. no mtention of taxing our readers' patience with an account 
 of the long disputes concerning the proper time for the observ- 
 ance of Easter, which occupied so much serious attention dur- 
 ing the early ages of the Church. It is well known, however, 
 that the Roman Church always strenuously opposed those who 
 followed the Jewish reckoning, and who, from their keeping 
 Easter on the 14th day of the lunar month, received the name 
 of Quartodecimans. Still, during the first and second centuries 
 the Church had, as was natural, adopted the Jewish mode of 
 determining the Paschal full moon ; but the blind fury of that 
 unhappy people against Christianity prejudiced the minds of 
 Christians against anything coming from them ; and since, at 
 the beginning of the third century, the Church possessed men 
 in no way inferior to the Jewish rabbis in scientific know- 
 
 phagi, and we have placed side by side with his numbers those which result 
 from an examination of the forty-eight sarcophagi illustrated by Bosio, 
 thirty of which were founil in the crypts of the Vatican : — 
 
 Lateran. Bosio. 
 
 History of Jonas, . . 23 11 
 
 The Smitten Rock, . . 21 16 
 
 Apprehension of St Peter, 20 14 
 
 Miracle of Loaves, . . 20 14 
 
 Giving Sight to Blind, ■ 19 n 
 
 Change of Water into Wine, 16 8 
 
 Raising of Lazarus, . . 16 14 
 
 Denial of St Peter, . . 14 8 
 
 Daniel in Lion's Den, . 14 7 
 
 Paralytic Healed, . . 12 7 
 
 Creation of Eve, . . 11 2 
 
 Sacrifice of Isaac, . . 11 Q 
 
 Adoration of Magi, . . 11 8 
 
 Mr Burgon, in his contemptuous remarks about the symbolical meaning of 
 these sculptures, seems to show himself entirely ignorant of the method of 
 interpreting Holy Scripture universal among the Fathers of the fourth aud 
 fifth centuries, to which these sarcophagi belong. 
 
 Lateran. Bosio. 
 
 Fall of Adam and Eve, . 14 10 
 
 Woman with Issue of Blo^d, 8 9 
 
 Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, 6 8 
 
 The Good Shepherd, , 6 9 
 
 Noah in Ark, ■ • • 5 6 
 
 Christ before Pilate, . 5 6 
 
 Giving of the Law, . . 4 6 
 
 Three Children in Fire, . 4 3 
 
 Moses taking off his Shoes, 2 2 
 
 Elias taken up to Heaven, 2 3 
 
 Nativity, with Ox and Ass, i 4 
 
 Crowning with Thorns, . 1 i 
 
Christian Sarcophagi. 3 1 5 
 
 ledge, it was fitting that the Christian bishops, and especially 
 the Bishop of Rome, should sanction some authoritative 
 method for determining the great Christian festival. 
 
 Hippolytus was the first to form a table, in Avhich, by 
 doubling the Greek periods of eight years, he endeavoured, 
 with the help of seven such periods, of sixteen years each, to 
 obtain a formula by which the difference between the lunar 
 and solar years should be corrected, and the true Easter 
 determined for ever. There is, in accordance with this mode 
 of calculation, engraved on the opposite side of the chair to 
 that upon which the cano7i itself is found, a table for 112 
 years. Unfortunately, St Hippolytus' method laboured under 
 the fatal defect of an error of three days in every sixteen 
 years ; and hence the praise lavished upon the first attempt to 
 form an independent Christian calendar died aw^ay, and fresh 
 calculations became necessary. We learn this from a work 
 which has been ascribed to St Cyprian, and which bears the 
 date of A.D. 243, and whose author, curiously enough, ascribes 
 St Hippolytus' error of three days to his having calculated 
 from the creation of the world instead of from the 4th day, on 
 which the moon was created ! We may therefore conclude 
 that this statue belongs to the early part of the third century, 
 while the errors of Hippolytus' canon still remained unknown, 
 and the renown of its author caused it to be considered a 
 fitting tribute to his memory. 
 
 St Hippolytus professes that his table will show Easter in 
 the past as well as in the future. He therefore gives some 
 of the more remarkable Paschal solemnities, such as the 
 Exodus, which he makes out to have taken place on April 2d, 
 or April 5th, if Daniel's computation is to be followed. The 
 Paschal solemnities in the desert, in the time of Joshue, 
 Ezekias, Josias, and Esdras are also determined. The Pasch 
 in the year when Christ was born, and also in that wherein 
 He suffered, are marked as being of the greatest interest to 
 all Christians. 
 
3i6 
 
 Roma Sotter7'anea. 
 
 The list of the works of St Hippolytus commences with the 
 titles of two works, of which only the last four letters can now 
 be deciphered. Critics have exercised their ingenuity in sup- 
 plying the remainder, but no certainty can be arrived at. The 
 Paschal Canon, and other matters inscribed on this statue, are 
 given with explanations in Migne's edition of the works of St 
 Hippolytus, to which we must refer those of our readers who 
 desire to investigate further this interesting monument of early 
 Christian art. 
 
 Fig. 38. — Glass in the Vatican Library, 
 Representing Christ between Sts. Peter and Paul ; also Christ as the Lamb, and the 
 faithful as Lambs — Jews and Gentiles coming from Jerusalem and Bethlehem 
 {Becle) to Mount Sion, whence flow the four Evangelical Streams, united in the 
 Mystical Jordan. 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS TO THEIR CHRISTIAN 
 ORIGIN. 
 
 IN the preceding chapters our information has been princi- Scope of this 
 pally drawn from the historical records which have come wo'rk?" ° 
 down to us from antiquity, and of which an account has been 
 given in the second part of the Introduction."" We have also 
 taken our readers into the subterranean cemeteries, and con- 
 firmed our historical conclusions by the inscriptions and other 
 monuments still remaining there. An important branch of 
 our subject, however, still remains comparatively untouched, 
 and this is what we may call the Testimony of the Catacombs 
 themselves, — understanding by this expression, not the evi- 
 dence to be drawn from the dates and names inscribed on the 
 stones and walls, but the conclusions to be deduced from a 
 careful examination of the subterranean galleries, and the 
 method of their construction. This appears at first sight a 
 dry and uninviting subject, but the results are too important 
 to be passed over in silence, and the striking and incontro- 
 
 * Sec page 17. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 vertible confirmation which they give to many of our histori- 
 cal conclusions, will amply repay the reader for the pains it 
 will cost him to master the details. 
 
 The Cata- The first question which we would ask of these long dark 
 
 combs used by . ^ , • , , , 
 
 none but Silent subterranean streets of tombs is, whether they are able 
 
 SdaZ-places^ afford us any clue as to their own origin. The ignorant 
 assertions of Burnett and Misson do not deserve a serious refu- 
 tation. The former was foolish enough to publish his opinion 
 that all the tokens of Christianity found in the Catacombs 
 were the forgeries of a few monks in the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies, while the latter put forth the no less untenable theory 
 that they were used as marks of distinction to prevent the 
 graves of the faithful from being confounded with those of the 
 infidels." The exclusive use of the Catacombs by the Chris- 
 tians has now, however, been universally admitted, and the 
 only serious argument that was ever adduced against it, viz., 
 the presence of a few Pagan inscriptions in these Christian 
 cemeteries, has been found to tell in the opposite direction, 
 
 Pagan inscrip- for it is now ascertained that in every instance these Pagan 
 
 tions account- .... , , . , . . 
 
 edfor. inscriptions have some marks which prove that they were not 
 
 originally intended for the position in which they have been 
 
 found, but like the stone on which the copy of the inscription 
 
 to Pope Eusebius was written,"' have been appropriated by 
 
 Christians, and used for their own purposes. It is not 
 
 enough, however, to establish the exclusively Christian use of 
 
 the Catacombs as burial-places. We are able also to prove 
 
 them to have been originally excavated by the Christians for 
 
 that purpose, and this by the testimony of the Catacombs 
 
 themselves. 
 
 Padre Marchi Until within a very recent period it was the generally 
 
 dica^trthe received theory that these subterranean excavations had 
 
 Christian been made by the Pagan Romans in order to extract mate- 
 ongin of the 
 
 Catacombs rials for building ; and that the Christians, finding them con- 
 venient as places of concealment where their martyred brethren 
 * Sec page 171. 
 
Christian Origin of the Catacombs. 3 1 9 
 
 might rest undisturbed, had taken possession of them, and 
 adapted them by additional excavations to the purposes of 
 burial and worship. This theory was not, as we shall after- 
 wards see, destitute of some apparent support from ancient 
 
 documents, and was accepted by Baronius, Severano, Aringhi, agamst a 
 
 widely-re- 
 
 and Other writers upon the subject. Bosio himself is silent ceived opinion 
 upon the origin of the Catacombs, and Boldetti, with all his [J^aiy? ^^"^ 
 knowledge acquired by personal observations, only ventures 
 to claim a Christian origin for a few particular cemeteries. 
 Padre Lupi went somewhat farther, and showed that the addi- 
 tions made by the Christian fossors exceeded in extent the 
 original works of the Pagan excavators ; but Bottari, D'Agin- 
 court, and Raoul-Rochette, all maintained the heathen origin 
 of the Catacombs. Padre Marchi was the first to enunciate 
 the proposition, that the Christians themselves had originated 
 all those subterranean cemeteries which are known by this 
 name. The weight of authority was strong against him, but 
 he defended his proposition by proofs taken not so much from 
 the works of learned authors, as from the cemeteries them- 
 selves. His investigations have been continued by the 
 brothers De Rossi, and their patient labours have thrown 
 so much additional light upon the subject, that tlie Christian 
 origin of the Catacombs may be regarded as now firmly estab- 
 lished. In order to understand the proofs of this conclusion, 
 it will be necessary to give a brief notice of the geological 
 strata in which the Catacombs have been excavated, and a por- 
 tion of the carefully compiled Geological Summary in Murray's 
 " Handbook to Rome," will perhaps be more satisfactory to 
 our readers than any attempt of our own to condense the 
 more diffuse account given by Michele De Rossi. 
 
 " By far the greatest part of the surface of the Roman Volcanic strata 
 Campagna, in the environs of the capital, is formed of materials jjQu^e 
 of igneous origin. They may be classed under two heads, 
 very different in their mineralogical characters, as they are in 
 the mode in which they have been deposited, their age, c^x. 
 
320 
 
 Ro7na Sotterranea. 
 
 The more ancient, which appears to have immediately suc- 
 ceeded the Tertiary marine deposits, or even to have been 
 co-temporaneous with them, and to be the result of submarine 
 volcanic action, consists, in the more immediate vicinity of 
 Rome, and within the city itself, of a red volcanic tufa, 
 formed by an agglomeration of ashes and fragments of pumice : 
 
 Tufa litoide. it has been designated by the name of tufa liioide by the local 
 geologists : and was, and still is, much used for building pur- 
 poses. It forms the lower part of most of the Seven Hills on 
 the left bank of the Tiber, constituting the Tarpeian rock 
 beneath the Capitol, the lower portion of the Palatine, Quirinal, 
 
 Esquihne, and Aventine It is extensively quarried at 
 
 the foot of Monte Verde, outside the Porta Portese, for 
 building stone. .... No trace of the craters which produced 
 this older tufa can now be discovered. 
 
 "A certain interval appears to have occurred between tlie 
 latter deposit and the more modern volcanic rocks of the 
 Campagna, during which the land seems to have been raised, 
 and several parts of it covered with fresh-water lakes or 
 marshes. It is to this period that belong the strata of cinders, 
 ashes, &c., which form the more immediate surface, which are 
 often very regularly stratified, and certain impressions and 
 leaves of land plants, and here and there a bed of calcareous 
 gravel and marls, with land and fresh water shells, and some- 
 times of fossil bones But the greater part of these more 
 
 recent volcanic rocks have been deposited on dry land ; the 
 
 Pozz daiia. beds are in general horizontal ; the deposits of pozzolaiia or 
 volcanic rocks, so extensively used for making mortar, belong 
 
 rufa gram:- to this period of subaerial volcanoes, the red tufa grauulai^c, 
 in which the Catacombs or early Christian cemeteries are 
 hollowed out, and probably the more compact varieties of 
 tufa known under the name of peferino, quarried at Albano 
 and Marino."* 
 
 Such being the nature of the soil in the vicinity of Rome, 
 * Murray's Handbook of Rome, i86S, p. 321. 
 
Christian Orighi of the Catacombs. 321 
 
 the confidence of Padre Marchi in the old theory of the Pagan Catacombs 
 origin of the Catacombs was first shaken by his observing ^ttifa^gninidare 
 that they were excavated in the tufa gra7mlare rather than in 
 any other kind of rock. The tufa iitoide, called by the 
 ancients tapis ruber and saxum quadratum^ affords numerous 
 examples of ancient quarries, but not one instance of a Cata- 
 comb ; while the pozzolava, esteemed so highly by Vetruvius 
 as fulfilling all the conditions of the best sand for making 
 cement,* and extensively quarried for that purpose, appears 
 to have been carefully avoided by those who originated the 
 Catacombs. The tufa granular from the quantity of eanh 
 which enters into its composition, would never be used for 
 cement when the true pozzolana was procurable, while it is 
 far too soft to be of any use as stone for building. Yet it is 
 in this very stratum that have been excavated those vast 
 s)^stems of galleries which we call the Catacombs. The ex- 
 treme improbability, therefore, of the Pagan Romans having a proof of 
 constructed these galleries for no conceivable purpose is the oligin^^^^^^^'^" 
 first argument in favour of their Christian origin ; for the 
 tufa granulare^ useless for other purposes, was admirably 
 adapted for the reception of the dead. It is easily worked, 
 of sufficient consistency to admit of being hollowed out into 
 galleries and chambers without at once falling in, and its 
 porous nature causes tlie water quickly to drain off from it, 
 thus leaving the galleries dry and wholesome, an important con- 
 sideration when we think of the vast number of dead bodies 
 which once lined the walls of the subterranean cemeteries. 
 Some of the Catacombs have been constructed in a rock still 
 more unserviceable for building purposes than the tufa granu- 
 larc ; as, for instance, the Catacomb of San Ponziano on 
 Monte Verde, and that of San Valentino on the Via Flaminia, 
 where the stratum is a mere marine or fluvial deposit, com- 
 
 * Vetruvius, Arch. iii. 7, " ut ea sit idonea neque habeat terram com- 
 mixtam . . . et qute maim confricata fecerit stridorem erit optima . . . 
 item si in vestimcntum candidum ea conjecta fuerit, postea excussa vcl icta 
 non inquinaverit neque ibi terra sub.siderit, erit idonea." 
 
322 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 posed of earth, sand, shells, and pebbles, vegetable and 
 
 animal fossils, &c., requiring solid substructions of masonry to 
 
 resist its tendency to fall in. Such excavations could only 
 
 have been made for the purpose of sepulture, and since the 
 
 Christians alone used them for that purpose, we conclude that 
 
 none but the Christians had any part in originating them. 
 
 Their general The manner in which the Catacombs are constructed affords 
 
 ed^witMha^ of Other proof of their exclusively Christian origin ; especially 
 
 the sancl-pits when we contrast them either with the arenifodincE ox sand-pits, 
 another proof, 
 
 which have been excavated both in ancient and modern times 
 for the purpose of obtaining pozzolana^ or with the lapidicince^ 
 as the ancient stone-quarries were called. In both these cases 
 the object has been to extract the largest possible quantity of 
 material with the least possible difficulty. Hence the passages 
 are made as wide as possible, the arch of the roof springing 
 from the floor, thus affording space for carts to be introduced 
 to carry away the sand or stone. The same reason causes 
 the excavators to avoid sharp angles, and to make the passages 
 run in curved lines. Entirely different is the construction of 
 the Catacombs. In them the walls are vertical and the roof is 
 very slightly arched and often quite flat; the passages are nar- 
 row, so as rarely to admit of two persons walking abreast ; they 
 run generally in straight lines, and they cross each other often 
 at very sharp angles. Only the narrowest kind of hand-carts 
 can be used by those who are noAv occupied in clearing them 
 out, and hence the slowness and expense of the work. The 
 latter consideration, indeed, might not have weighed with the 
 Pagan Romans, who had an almost unlimited supply of slave- 
 labour ; but the comparison of a Catacomb with an undoubted 
 ancient are?iifodina^ such as may easily be made at Santa 
 Agnese, of a portion of which a plan has already been given,'^ 
 will be more convincing than any description of the great 
 difference between the two kinds of excavation. 
 
 There are not, however, wanting instances in which arenaric^ 
 * See Fig. 2 at page 29. 
 
CJmstian Origin of the Catacombs. 323 
 
 have actually been converted into Christian cemeteries, and which is only 
 
 strengthened 
 
 these excejDtions, which prove the rule, afford us the most by apparent 
 
 convincing proof of the Christian origin of all the other Cata- J^he^'u/^."^ 
 
 combs. We have one remarkable instance in a portion of 
 
 the first floor of the cemetery of St Hermes, in which the •''"ch as the 
 
 Cemetery of 
 
 form and proportions of the galleries and of the loculi do not st Hermes, 
 
 Fk;. 39. — Pai-t 0/ Wall of Gallery of St Hermes 
 
 in appearance differ greatly from the general type ; but a 
 closer examination shows that their walls, instead of being cut 
 in the rock, are constructed of masonry. The roof is of tufa, 
 slightly arched, and often sustained by brick-work ; the niches 
 of the tocidi are regularly formed in the two walls, and closed 
 in the usual manner, with the exception of the uppermost 
 range, the slabs at the mouth of which are laid obliquely, as 
 
 Fk;. 40. — Section of Gallery i/i St llentics. 
 
 in the section above (Fig. 40). The gallery is of the usual 
 height, but when the brick-work is cleared away its breadth is 
 
324 
 
 Roma Sotte7'ra7iea, 
 
 on an average two or three times that of an ordinary Cata- 
 comb ; the section of the walls and roof forms a tolerably 
 regular semi-ellipse. At the crossing of the galleries the span 
 of the arch becomes greater, and the walls more inclined, and 
 sometimes the roof is supported in the middle by a thick 
 wall containing locidi, while the walls are strengthened at 
 the base by brick-work, but contain no tombs. This instance 
 
 whicli show 
 the difficulty of 
 converting an 
 arenaria into 
 a Catacomb. 
 
 How the 
 theory of their 
 Pagan origin 
 came to be 
 accepted. 
 
 Fig. 41. — Sec Hon of Gallery suppoj-ted by Brickwork. 
 
 is sufficient to show the alterations necessary in order to 
 convert an arenaria into a Christian cemetery ; whereas if 
 the theory of Raoul-Rochette were true, we ought to find in 
 the Roman Campagna numbers of subterranean excavations 
 destitute of tombs, with the narrow, straight galleries of the 
 Catacombs. None such have been discovered, and we there- 
 fore conclude that the marked contrast between the Cata- 
 combs and the ai^enarice proves that they had a different 
 origin ; for, although a Catacomb might easily be so amplified 
 as to resemble an arenaria^ nothing could convert an aj'enaria 
 into a Catacomb except a process which whould tell its own 
 story as plainly as in the instance just described. 
 
 It may, however, not unreasonably be asked, if the Cata- 
 combs themselves bear so conclusive a testimony to their 
 Christian origin, how came the theory of their having been 
 originally excavated by Pagans to be so generally received by 
 learned men ? This question must be satisfactorily answered 
 before our readers can feel confidence in the arguments by 
 
Christian Origin of the Catacomds. 325 
 
 which we have proved our case. The fact is, that, as we have 
 
 already hinted, learned men formed their theory of the origin 
 
 of the Catacombs rather from a supposed historical tradition 
 
 than from the examination of the cemeteries themselves. 
 
 This tradition rested on the words in ancient documents which 
 
 describe the burial-places of certain martyrs and others as in 
 
 arenarioy or jiixta arenarium, or in cryptis arenariis. Thus, it 
 
 is stated in some copies of the Liber Pontificalis that Lucina Passages in 
 
 . . , , ancient records 
 
 buried Pope Cornelms in her own property i7i crypta juxta which seem to 
 
 coemeterium Callisti in arenario ; the Acts of Saints Hippolytus, ij^e^tify the 
 
 ^ i- r J 1 bunal-places 
 
 Eusebius, Marcellus, and their companions relate that " St of Christian 
 
 Stephen, the bishop, collected their remains, and buried them ^^^"^^^"^^ 
 
 on the Via Appia, at the first mile from the city of Rome, in 
 
 the \txy arenariuvi in which they were wont to assemble;'^* 
 
 the Acts of Saints Nereus and Achilles tell how " Auspicius 
 
 carried off their bodies, and buried them in the property of 
 
 Domitilla in crypta arenaria^ on the Via Ardeatina;"+ the 
 
 Acts of Saints Marcus and Marcellianus likewise mention 
 
 those martyrs having been buried " two miles from the city 
 
 in the place which is called Ad arenas, because there were 
 
 the sand-pits {cryptce arenariuji), from which the walls of the 
 
 city were built;" J the Acts of St Susanna represent her as 
 
 buried /;/ cxmeterio Alexandria ifi arenario in crypta juxta S. 
 
 Alexandriim. Other copies have : juxta corpora SS. Chrysanti 
 
 et Darioi via Salaria in arenario ;\ on the same Via Salaria 
 
 Nova, St Crescentianus, martyr, was buried in cosmeterio Priscilla 
 
 in arenario;\\ on the Via Labicana, about three milesfrom Ronie^ 
 
 the bodies of the Quatuor Coronati were buried with other 
 
 saints in arenario ;^ and lastly St Tertullinus " was led out to 
 
 martyrdom to the second milestone on the Via Latina, and 
 
 St Stephen buried his body at the same place, in crypta aren- 
 
 aria^'^"' These passages from ancient documents certainly 
 
 * See Bosio, Rom. Solt. p. 193. t lb. p. 192. X 11). p. 186. 
 
 § lb. p. 481 ; and Bolland. Acta SS. August, ii. p. 625. 
 
 II Aringhi, Rom. Sott. tom. ii. p. 219. 
 
 H Bosio, p. 319. ** lb. p. 300. 
 
326 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 establish a connexion between the are?iarice and some at least 
 
 of the Catacombs ; and when we recall the passage where 
 
 Cicero describes the murder of the young Asinius, in arenarias 
 
 with Pagan quasda?n^ outside the Esquiline gate,""' or the still more famous 
 sand-pits. . , 
 
 saymg of Nero, when m his last extremity he was urged to 
 
 conceal himself for a time in these subterranean caverns 
 (/// speatm egestce areiice), and he refused to be buried before he 
 was dead {iiegavit se viviim sub terrain ituriini) \'\ we cease 
 to be surprised at the theory of the Pagan origin of the Cata- 
 combs, which appear to be so identified with the ancient 
 sand-pits. 
 
 Examination A careful examination, however, of the ancient documents 
 saces^^ofwh^ch P^o^es that the eight passages quoted above are the only 
 
 there are at instances to be found in which Christian burials are said to 
 most nnie m 
 
 number. have taken place in arenaricE. It is true that if we include 
 the accounts of martyrs buried at Nomentum and other places 
 beyond the circle of the Roman Catacombs, a few more 
 examples may be collected. But, confining ourselves within 
 a range of five or six miles from Rome, we find that there 
 is no mention of arenarice in connection with any of the 
 cemeteries on the Via Ostiensis, Portuensis, Aurelia, Cornelia, 
 Triumphalis, Flaminia, Salaria Vetus, Nomentana, or Prae- 
 nestina. On the Via Tiburtina, indeed, Constantine is said 
 to have built a basilica, Agi'o Verano super arenariam 
 cryptain; and Bosio sees reason to think that the saints buried 
 there were Saints Narcissus and Crescentius, companions in 
 The term martyrdom with St Lawrence. Thus we have, at the most, 
 nine different sepulchres of martyrs in arenaricB or crypfce 
 
 cryptcv aren- 
 aruc does not 
 
 imply pozzo- arcnarice. The latter expression occurs three times, viz., as 
 lana-pits. 
 
 the locality of the sepulchre of Neretis and Achilles, on the 
 Via Ardeatina; of St Lawrence, on the Via Tibartina; and of 
 Tertullinus, on the Via Latina. During the recent restoration 
 of the basilica of San Lorenzo fiiori le 7nura, there were un- 
 usual facilities for examining the rock in the neighbourhood 
 * Pro Clucntio, 14. t Sueton. Ncron. 48. 
 
Christian Origin of the Catacombs. 327 
 
 of that basilica. Every one might convince himself that it 
 is composed of a material quite different from pozzolana. 
 It is, in fact, what is vulgarly called in Rome capellacciOy and 
 is utterly useless for building purposes. And yet in this rock 
 lies the whole Catacomb of St Cyriaca. The same must be 
 said of the rock in which is formed the Cemetery of Domitilla. 
 The sepulchre of TertuUinus is not yet identified, and there- 
 fore cannot be examined, but the other two examples are 
 sufficient to prove that the expression ajpta areiiaria merely 
 denotes an excavation made in a sandy kind of rock, and 
 does not necessarily imply the existence of an arenarium or 
 sand-pit proper. As to the sepulchre of Saints Marcus a,nd 
 Marcellinus, Padre Marchi justly observes that it is not said 
 that those martyrs were buried in cryptis arenamjn, but ifi 
 toco qui dicitur Ad arenas and, therefore, merely in the neigh- 
 bourhood of " the pits from which the walls of the city were 
 built." 
 
 There remain then five passages in ancient documents which Five remaining 
 mention martyrs being buried in arenario, a term certainly i^^pjpe 
 denoting a pozzolana-pit. The first of these, relating to Cornelius ; 
 Pope Cornelius, is not found in all the MSS. of the Liber 
 Fofitijicalis, but as there really is a stratum of pozzolana in 
 that Catacomb at a lower level than the stratum in which his 
 crypt was made,t some excavations there may have led later 
 copyists to add the expression in arenario^ in order, as they 
 probably thought, the more distinctly to identify the spot. Of 
 the four remaining passages, three describe locahties which 
 can be identified, and which correspond exactly with the 
 description, for there is in each of them excellent pozzolana 
 precisely at the same level with the galleries of the Catacomb. 
 De Rossi has not yet succeeded in finding any good pozzo- 2. Qtmttro 
 lana in the cemetery of Marcellinus and Peter, which is 
 supposed by Bosio to be the locality indicated by the fourth 
 
 * Compare Ad Catacumbas, and similar appellations of places, 
 t See Map accompanying this volume, E//, Yh. 
 
328 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 passage, which describes the burial of the Quatuor Coronati ; 
 but the artists employed to draw the plan of that Catacomb 
 for Bosio's work seem to have penetrated into a portion of the 
 ancient arenarium, for their drawing represents some passages 
 resembling those of pozzolana rather than the galleries of 
 Catacombs, and in their description they speak of "a large 
 grotto without tombs, like a stone quarry;" and again, " a wide 
 place where the tombs have been destroyed to get out the 
 pozzolana."* It will be more satisfactory to our readers if we 
 examine carefully the three passages mentioned above, in 
 order that we may thoroughly satisfy ourselves whether they 
 do in truth prove or disprove the theory to which they 
 apparently gave rise. 
 
 First, there is the arenarium in which were buried the 
 martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria, on the Via Salaria Nova. 
 The Liber Pontificalis states that Pope Adrian I. " restored 
 the basilica of S. Saturninus, on the Via Salaria, together with 
 the cemetery of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria." Now these 
 saints were not only buried i7i arenario, but the Emperor 
 Numerian " ordered them to be led out on the Via Salaria, 
 and put down /// are?iario, .... and there to be both of them 
 blocked up alive with earth and stones." This arejiarium was 
 identified and described by Bosio and Marangoni ; and it 
 may still be observed that, in one part of the Catacomb, the 
 galleries widen out into the form of an arenarium, and the 
 loculi are diminished in number, so that there are only two 
 tiers of them, one above the other. This has evidently been 
 done in order to avoid weakening the walls, which are sloping 
 and of good pozzolana. In fact, as we pass from the Cata- 
 comb into the arenarium proper, we find even these attempts 
 to convert the latter into a cemetery disappear, and there are 
 evident traces of the Christians having blocked up the 
 passages in order to prevent access to a region unfitted 
 for sepulture ; while in the immediate vicinity of one of 
 * Bosio, p. 591, I). 
 
330 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 the galleries thus blocked up, a flight of steps leads down to 
 a lower level, where we find a Christian Catacomb of the 
 ordinary type. We have, therefore, here another instance of 
 the Christians having made an attempt, as at St Hermes, 
 to utilise the arenariuni, but it appears that they found it 
 more convenient to abandon that attempt, and to construct 
 entirely new galleries, even at the cost of descending to a 
 greater depth into the bowels of the earth. 
 
 The second passage to be examined is that which relates 
 how the martyr Crescentianus was buried in ccemeterio Friscillce 
 in arenario on the same Via Salaria Nova. Every one who 
 has visited the central and more ancient part of that Cata- 
 comb has remarked how greatly it differs from the usual type. 
 Numerous pillars, of various sizes ; long walls of solid masonry, 
 sometimes straight, sometimes broken into angles, both con- 
 ceahng and sustaining the tufa and the tombs in the galleries ; 
 the graves often interrupted by pillars of brickwork ; — all 
 these peculiarities show the immense labour that was required 
 to convert the original excavation into its present form. The 
 plan on the preceding page will render this more unmistakably 
 evident, for the masonry is represented by light shading, the tufa 
 rock being shaded darkly, so that the original excavation is at 
 once distinguished from the form into which it was afterwards 
 converted. The wide passages of the arenaiHiim are to be traced 
 in the portions marked A, while the Catacomb galleries are 
 marked C. The shaft B was originally a pit for extracting 
 pozzolana from the arenariiun^ but was afterwards modified so 
 as to form a large luminare. Here, then, is actually a Cata- 
 tomb having its origin in an ai'enai'iiim, but the examination 
 of its plan is sufticient to prove the impossibility of many of 
 the Christian cemeteries having been so constructed. 
 
 Lastly, we must examine the passage of the Acts of Saints 
 Hippolytus, Eusebius, Marcellus, and their companions, which 
 relates their burial by Pope St Stephen " on the Via Appia, at 
 the first mile from the city of Rome, in the very arenariuni in 
 
Christian Origin of the Catacombs. 331 
 
 which they were wont to assemble."* De Rossi will not un- 
 dertake to say that he has identified this arenai'ium wath the 
 same certainty as the two just described ; but it is a signifi- 
 cant fact that one of the largest staircases in the cemetery of 
 St Callixtus leads directly from the surface of the soil to the 
 third piano of the Catacomb, which is on the same level with 
 pozzolana pits, and close to the spot where passages con- 
 nect them with the cemetery. Later excavations have also 
 revealed the existence of a very narrow secret passage leading 
 directly to the sand-pits themselves from the surface of the 
 ground. This staircase stops suddenly short at the roof of the 
 aroiarium^ so that a person descending by it would require a 
 movable ladder, or some other assistance supplied by those 
 below, to enable him to reach the floor.t These facts prove a 
 connexion between the Catacomb and the areiiariwn^ which 
 will be more fully examined in our next chapter; and, if De 
 Rossi is right in supposing this arenariiim to be the one in 
 which Christians were wont to assemble for worship during a 
 time of persecution, its connexion with the Catacomb is suffi- 
 cient to account for St Stephen being said to have buried the 
 martyrs in are?iario^ when in fact he buried them in the ceme- 
 tery adjoining. 
 
 The examination of these instances, so far from leading us to Tliese appa- 
 suppose that an arcuariiiin was the ordinary matrix of a Cata- [ions^^Uutr' 
 comb, suggests the very opposite conclusion, since the difference P'^^'^ tl^e rule, 
 between the one and the other is so marked as to strike the 
 
 * The ancient Acts quoted by Bosio relate the baptism of Adria, 
 Taulina, Neo, and Maria, and how afterwards these holy women took 
 up their abode with the jM-iest Eusebius, and the deacon Marcellus, and 
 ethers, in the same crypt where Pope Stephen v/as concealed, and every 
 day and night they used to persevere in prayer, and fastings, and the voice 
 of psalmody. When St Paulina suffered martyrdom, Hippolytus, a monk, 
 by command of St Stephen, buried her body in the arenariiim where 
 they used frequently to meet together, and afterwards, Hippolytus and the 
 rest being martyred, their bodies were also buried in the same arenarium. 
 — Bosio ^ p. 193. 
 
 t A section of this staircase is given in our next chapter. It is marked 
 X'* in the plans which illustrate that cha])ter. 
 
332 
 
 Roma Sotlerranea. 
 
 most ordinary observer, and yet these and two others are all the 
 examples of their connexion which have been noticed by the ex- 
 plorers of the last three hundred years. * We argue, therefore, 
 thus : — The ancient documents in four or five passages seem to 
 speak as though the martyrs had been buried in sand-pits. In five 
 cemeteries out of twenty-five or thirty, an arenarium is found 
 more or less closely connected with the cemetery, and of these, 
 three are discovered to be identical with three of those men- 
 tioned in the ancient records. We consequently conclude that 
 what is mentioned so seldom by ancient writers, and found so 
 seldom by modern explorers, could not have been the normal 
 condition of things, but, on the contrary, that these instances 
 were deemed worthy of special mention as being exceptions to 
 the general rule, and thus these examples form one of the most 
 convincing proofs of the Christian origin of the Catacombs 
 generally. 
 
 * In fact, Avhat Bosio calls the singtilarity " of the portion of the ceme- 
 tery of St Priscilla, and of that near St Saturniniis described above, has 
 been commented upon by nearly every writer on the subject, from Bosio's 
 time to the present day. 
 
 Fig. —Gilded Glass in the Louvre Collection representing St Calli.xius. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MODE OF THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 JY. have seen how the Catacombs bear witness to their Scope of this 
 
 V V Christian origin, and furnish a reply to the difficulties 
 that have been urged against this now established fact. It 
 remains for us to examine them still more carefully, and to 
 extract from them, if possible, an account of the mode of their 
 construction, the successive additions and modifications which 
 they received from time to time, the traces to be found in them 
 of the relations in which these Christian cemeteries stood at 
 various periods to the Roman laws, and of the condition of the 
 Roman Church in times of persecution and of peace. We 
 have already traced these various relations in our historical 
 chapters, and if we find those observations borne out by the 
 testimony of the Catacombs themselves, we shall be repaid for 
 having mastered the somewhat dry and uninviting portion of 
 our subject which now lies before us, for we shall have exam- 
 ined an independent and perfectly unexceptionable witness to 
 the truth. 
 
 We have already noticed some of the circumstances which Locality of 
 determined the locality of the early Christian cemeteries. ^.emeteries. 
 The laws obliged them to be outside the walls, and conven- 
 ience required that they should not be too far away from the 
 city. The ancient documents give us a radius of from one to Distance from 
 three miles from the wall of Servius Tullius as tlie zone within ^^^^ ^^^^* 
 which most of the cemeteries were situated, and it is precisely 
 
 See page 56. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 within this zone that we see, in the present day the entrances 
 to all the principal Catacombs. Between the third and fifth 
 mile from the walls, no Christian sepulchre has been found ; 
 at the sixth only one, that of St Alexander ; while beyond the 
 seventh mile from the city, tombs are again met with, but 
 these belong rather to the towns and villages of the Campagna 
 than to Rome itself 
 On high A further cause which determined the situation of the Chris- 
 
 ground. ^-^^ cemeteries was the geological condition of the soil within 
 
 the limits stated above. Had they been excavated in deep 
 valleys, they would have been constantly exposed to the 
 danger of being flooded by the neighbouring streams, or at 
 any rate by the filtration of water, which, besides impeding 
 access to the cemeteries, would have greatly accelerated the 
 putrefaction of the bodies, and corrupted the air, in spite of 
 the careful closing of the loculi. The cemetery of Castulo, on 
 the Via Labicana, is an instance of this. Being in a somewhat 
 low situation, it is now quite inaccessible, from the water and 
 the clay with which the galleries are filled, and it bears signs 
 of having been from the first an exceptional excavation. The 
 pains taken by St Damasus to prevent the water damaging the 
 tomb of St Peter on the Vatican are commemorated in his 
 usual manner : — 
 
 " Cingebant latices Montem, teneroque meatu 
 Corpora multorum cineres atque ossa rigabant. 
 Non tulit hoc Damasus, communi lege sepultos 
 Post requiem tristes iterum persolvere poenas. 
 Protinus aggressus magnum superare laborem, 
 Aggeris immensi dejecit culmina Montis. 
 Intima sollicite scrutatus viscera terrae, 
 vSiccavit totum quidquid madefecerat humor, 
 Invenit Fontem, prsebet qui dona salutis. 
 Hsec curavit Mercurius Levita Fidelis." 
 
 "The waters used to surround the hill, and with their gentle flowing 
 used to drench the bodies, ashes, and bones of many [saints]. Damasus 
 did not suffer this [to go on], — that those buried after the law common to 
 all should be disturbed in their rest, and again suffer sad punishment. So 
 at once he set himself to conquer the formidable difficulty, and cut away 
 the ridge of an immense bank of the hill. He diligently dived into the 
 
Mode of Constr7ictio7i and Development. 335 
 
 very bowels of the earth, and drained the whole of that which the damp 
 had moistened. He discovered the spring, which [now in the baptismal 
 font] conveys the gifts of salvation. Mercurius, his faithful deacon, had 
 charge of these works." • 
 
 The Christian cemeteries were thus restricted to the high Cemeteries in 
 
 tjifa g7-ami- 
 
 ground, and there in fact we find them; and this circum- /^;-^ 
 stance alone was sufficient to prevent any line of communica- 
 tion having existed, either between the various Catacombs^ or 
 between them and the churches within the city. We have 
 already remarked how the Christian cemeteries were almost 
 always excavated in the tufa gra7iidare, rather than in any other 
 stratum of rock. Another characteristic, depending to a cer- 
 tain extent upon the geological formation, is, that the different 
 levels, or piani of excavation in the same cemetery, are quite 
 distinct from each other. Hardly ever does a gallery lead the galleries 
 gradually down from a higher to a lower level ; the descent is horizont^'h^" 
 made by a flight of steps. The preservation of the horizontal 
 plane throughout each piano was a wise precaution against 
 danger to the roof or to the floor of the galleries and chambers, 
 for, if the horizontal plane had been departed from, it would 
 have been almost impossible for the fossors, unaided by scien- 
 tific instruments, to have avoided running one gallery into 
 another. An accident of this kind on the same plane would 
 cause but little damage, but the safety of a whole chamber, or 
 even of a whole gallery, would have been imperilled by the 
 excavation of another, either close above or close below it. 
 Hence the principal levels are separated by a very wide inter- 
 val, and if between them small galleries are sometimes found, 
 these are a later work of very limited extent, and resemble 
 those little rooms which are to be seen between the first and 
 second stories of large houses in Rome, and which are called 
 mezzafimi. 
 
 The section on the next page will convey a general idea of Different/zV?/// 
 the depth below the surface at which the different pia?ii are another?^^ 
 excavated. It is a section of the crypt of St Lucina, imme- 
 
33 6 Roma Sotterj^anca. 
 
 diately beneath the vast ruined monument ah-eady described. '' 
 The floor of the gallery <I> is not more than twenty feet below 
 the surface of the soil, and in some places not above ten ; so that 
 had it been continued on the same plane, it must have run out 
 into the open air, in consequence of the slope of the hill 
 This//^zw is consequently very small, and it is in fact the only 
 
 Fig. 44. — Section of the Cemctety of St. Callixtns. 
 
 specimen of a gallery being excavated so near the surface. 
 The stratum in which this gallery was formed is composed 
 of a friable tufa g?'afiulare, of a gray colour, and full of amphi- 
 gene, a kind of garnet, and here and there black augite. This 
 Geological is marked II. ; and the stratum I. above it is made up of 
 strata. earth and stones, ruins of ancient monuments, and other mate- 
 
 * See page 123. 
 
Mode of Construction and Development. 337 
 
 rials. Stratum III. is composed of a less solid kind of tufa 
 without those crystals, and this was the favourite stratum of 
 the Christian fossois, in which we find the most ancient and 
 most important piano of galleries. The section shows how 
 P, X, and U were excavated, with the roof of those galleries 
 coinciding with the junction of this with the stratum above. 
 By this means the fossors secured a more solid kind of rock for 
 the ceiling, and the difference of colour, and the sparkling of 
 the crystals in the rock which forms the roof, when compared 
 with that in which the locidi are cut, frequently arrests the 
 attention of those who visit this Catacomb. About the point 
 ^, this stratum insensibly merges into the pozzolana proper, 
 although between them there is sometimes a thin stratum of 
 stones and cinders in fine volcanic sand, with crystals and bits 
 of mica. This occasionally has become solidified by the 
 action of water into Uifa litoide. Stratum V. is pozzolana 
 proper, and here a low and narrow gallery has been exca- 
 vated, marked g in the section, which would terminate here 
 if it were simply a vertical section of the galleries beneath this 
 ruined monument. De Rossi, from whose work this (Fig. 44) 
 is copied, has, however, added below the line which crosses 
 stratum V., a section of another portion of the Catacomb of St 
 Callixtus, the principal piano of which is very nearly of the 
 same level with U and X the principal pia7io here, but whose 
 position may be found on De Rossi's map by the reference L 
 r, 1,2, and I i.* By this means we have a comparative view 
 of another \o\\^x piano in the pozzolana, marked r r r ; and in 
 stratum VI., which is composed of tufa granidare again, we have 
 a still lower gallery, n n n, so deep that the air becomes less 
 easy to breathe, and a limit is put to the excavation by the 
 water which almost always inundates the gallery at this level. 
 The rock VII. beneath this is impervious to water, and has not 
 been examined. The levels of the Tiber, and of a litde stream 
 
 * These are situated too far to the north to be inchided in the map 
 accompanying this volume. 
 
 Y 
 
Roma Sotterranca. 
 
 which crosses the Via Appia, called the Almone, are given 
 from Father Secchi's measurements of the trigonometrical base 
 on the Via Appia. 
 
 Formation of Having obtained a general idea of the mode in which the 
 the Catacomb . , 
 
 of StCallixtus. various piani oi galleries were constructed, we may proceed to 
 
 inquire into the manner in which the galleries and chambers 
 on the same piano were formed ; and as the necropolis of St 
 Callixtus is the only Catacomb of which a full and scienti- 
 fically accurate plan has yet been published, we will confine 
 our observations to this great cemetery. The first impression 
 conveyed by a glance at the map accompanying this volume, 
 is that of an inextricable confusion ; but, as we have already 
 remarked, a more careful examination, aided by the various 
 colours which distinguish different parts of the map, enables 
 us to recognise a certain order in the disposition of the gal- 
 leries within each of these divisions, so that we are prepared to 
 acquiesce in Michele De Rossi's assurance that each of these 
 Distinct arete, portions originally formed a separate cemetery, the area of 
 which was defined and protected by the Roman law. The 
 measurements of these arece, reduced to Roman feet, singu- 
 larly confirm this observation, since it can hardly be an acci- 
 dent that they should form such round numbers as loo, 125, 
 150, 180, and 250 feet. But the fact is put beyond all reason- 
 able doubt by a minute examination of the galleries them-^ 
 selves, and of the points at which those of one area now com- 
 municate with those of another. It would be impossible for 
 us, in a work of this size, to follow De Rossi through his care- 
 ful analysis of each gallery and chamber, and almost of every 
 tomb, by which he demonstrates the truth of his conclusion ; 
 and we shall therefore content ourselves with the results of De 
 
 Area of St Rossi's examination of a single area, for the minute analysis of 
 
 Cecilia and , 
 
 the Popes, which we must refer our readers to a separate chapter. We 
 
 shall select the area which includes the tombs of the Popes 
 
 and of St Cecilia, which have been already described, and 
 
 which history teaches us to regard as the most important of 
 
Mode of Construction and Development. 339 
 
 all the ancient cemeteries, being in fact the coimcierium 
 administered by the Pope's archdeacon. It would, of course, 
 be unfair to conclude that the architectural characteristics of 
 this area^ and its successive developments, formed a type 
 which was universally followed m the construction of other 
 cemeteries. The circumstances of the soil, the wealth of the 
 proprietor, or the architectural notions of the persons who 
 superintended the excavation, doubtless varied in the differ- 
 ent Catacombs. Nevertheless, since the laws affected all 
 Christian cemeteries alike, and the necessities for increased 
 accommodation or for concealment came at the same periods 
 upon the whole Christian population, the account which we 
 are about to give of this great and important cemetery, will 
 enable us to trace the leading features of the changes and suc- 
 cessive developments of other Catacombs. 
 
 The great necropolis, which forms what is called the Cata- Public and 
 comb of St Callixtus, is bounded by the Via Appia and the P^'^^^^^^^ ^- 
 Via Ardeatina, and the tract of ground between these two 
 public ways was anciently traversed by two small cross roads 
 which connected them, and which we will call Via Appio- 
 Ardeatina. It will be seen by the map that most of the stair- 
 cases which led into the hypogaea were either parallel or at 
 right angles to one or other of these roads, and that the differ- 
 ent arece into which the necropolis is divided, each with its 
 own staircase, have a clearly-defined frontage along them. 
 Confining our attention to the area of St Cecilia (marked III. 
 in the map), we will proceed to trace its architectural develop- 
 ment from its first construction to its latest transformation. 
 
 A plot of ground, measuring 250 Roman feet along the First period of 
 small cross-road, and extending back 100 feet hi ag?'o, was 
 secured by its Christian proprietor as a burial-place with the 
 usual legal formalities. The plan of the excavation was then 
 determined, and, as occasion rec^uired, was carried out in 
 the manner indicated in Fig. 45, which is drawn on a scale 
 of .A.. 
 
340 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 The two parallel galleries, A and B, each with its staircase 
 communicating with the surface, appear to have been excavated 
 about the same time, and extended the full length of the aj-ea. 
 The gallery C connecting them appears from the marks of the 
 pickaxe in its walls to have been commenced from the corner 
 AC. The ambulacra, A and B, were also united by the two 
 
 PEDES -CCL- IN FRONTE 
 
 Scale of English Feet. 
 Fig. j^^.— First Period of Excavntio7t. 
 
 Other galleries D and I ; and the original design appears like- 
 wise to have provided for the passages F, G, H, which, how- 
 ever, were not, during this first period, completed to their full 
 extent. The gallery L, with the papal crypt L^, and the 
 chamber L^, belong to this period, as also do the cubicida 
 A^, A^, A^, whose painted walls have been described in a for- 
 mer chapter.* 
 
 How it can be Our readers will here fairly ask, upon what grounds do we 
 distinguished. positively assert that such and such a gallery belongs to 
 this or that period of excavation, and pretend to give the 
 exact dimensions of the area as gravely as though we were in 
 possession of the original legal documents which defined them. 
 To the latter question we reply, that this area is at once 
 marked off from the adjacent arecE of the Catacomb by its 
 floor being about five feet lower in level than theirs. With 
 respect to the period in which the different galleries were 
 * Chapter VI. of Book IV. 
 
Mode of Constr2ictio7i and Development. 341 
 
 formed, it may certainly be taken as an axiom, that when the 
 loculi in the walls of an ambitlacrum are broken through in 
 order to afford an entrance into a gallery, this portion of the 
 gallery at least is of a later date than the ambulacrum into 
 which it enters, and did not form part of its original plan. 
 Thus, in Fig. 46, which represents the outside wall of the 
 gallery C, the entrances to and have been broken 
 through three or four lociili, which have been strengthened 
 afterwards by masonry. It is therefore evident that the 
 
 Fic; 46. — Outer Wail of Ambiilacruin C. 
 
 galleries and C- were not contemplated in the original plan 
 of the gallery C, and were constructed at a much later date. 
 This observation, however, only affects the outside walls of 
 B and C, and enables us to exclude from the original plan all 
 those passages which now branch out from them ; but it does 
 not account for our representing F and H as stopping short of 
 B, and G, in the same manner, as not having originally 
 extended so far as to fall into A. Our grounds for so repre- 
 senting these galleries will appear from an examination of the 
 woodcut on the next page, which gives the elevation of the 
 whole of the inner or left-hand wall of the ambulacrum A, 
 as it exists at the present day, and shows the relative sizes and 
 positions of the entrances into the cross galleries D, E, F, 
 G, H, I, and L. Now it is obvious that the entrance D could 
 
now reaches, and it can be proved that tlie original level of 
 the floor of the anibulairuiii must ha\ e been tliat indicated by 
 
Mode of Coiistructio7i and Development, 343 
 
 the dotted line c d. This level would give the entrance to D 
 a height of about 7 feet, that to Y a somewhat lower elevation, 
 but still sufficient for practical purposes ; while the entrance 
 to G, being yet lower, was in all probability not excavated 
 until the floor of the a7nbulacrum A had been lowered, and the 
 gallery E could not possibly have been constructed until after 
 that had been done. A similar examination of B would prove 
 in like manner that F and H did not fall into that ajnbulacnun 
 until after its floor had been lowered ] but we have said enough 
 to show that our plan has not been arbitrarily drawn, and for 
 further details we must refer our readers to the descriptive 
 analysis. 
 
 The lowering of the floor of the galleries marks what we Second period 
 may call the second period of excavation. The necessity of j^^^j.^^^j-'j^^''^^ 
 providing more space for graves, and the confidence in the gallflies, 
 consistency of the rock which practice had given the fossors, 
 led them to adopt this method of enlarging the cemetery. 
 They appear to have commenced with the ambulacnwi B, and 
 to have continued the work along C until they reached A. In 
 this latter gallery, however, the change of level was by no 
 means uniform, and was never carried out to the extent con- 
 templated when the chambers A^, A^, A'^', were constructed. 
 
 Fig. 
 
 -Second Period of Excnvntion. 
 
 These cuhicula were evidently excavated in anticipation of a 
 much greater depression of the floor of the ambiilacntm, for we 
 now enter them by descending some steps, whereas we have 
 
344 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 to ascend in order to reach \^ and from the gallery which 
 is there at its original level. A reasonable explanation of this 
 variation is, that the /ossors had presumed too much upon the 
 strength of the rock, and finding themselves obliged to sup- 
 port the wall by the mass of brickwork which now forms the 
 corner 27 C,"' they deemed it more prudent to abandon the 
 design of reducing the whole gallery to the same level with 
 B and C. This work, together with the completion of the 
 galleries F, G, and H, and the construction of a new one E, 
 marks the termination of the second period of excavation, when 
 the plan of the cemetery must have been such as it is repre- 
 sented in Fig. 48. 
 
 Tliircl period. We now come to a third period in the construction of this 
 
 cemetery. The further enlargement of the ambulacra having 
 
 proved dangerous, the fossors were compelled to attempt the 
 
 construction of another system of galleries at a lower level. 
 
 In order not to endanger the existing hypogeum it was neces- 
 
 Attempt to sary to go to a considerable depth, and we find a staircase 
 make a lower . . . , . . 
 
 piano leadmg from the cross gallery H, and consistmg of thirty-four 
 
 steps. They had hardly, however, penetrated below the 
 former level, when they found that they had passed through 
 the tufa granulare, and were in a stratum of very friable 
 pozzolana. The very walls of the staircase had to be pro- 
 tected with brickwork ; and, at length, finding it impossible to 
 get out of this stratum, they pushed a narrow passage in a 
 horizontal direction, which is represented in Fig. 49 as H- ; 
 but, not meeting with any kind of rock adapted for their pur- 
 pose, they abandoned the design, and the few /c7(r?/r// constructed 
 here are formed entirely of brickwork. We have already 
 remarked how this and other similarly fruitless attempts to 
 excavate sepulchral galleries in the pozzolana go to prove the 
 exclusively Christian origin of the Catacombs. The tiles used 
 in this staircase, and the galleries immediately adjacent, all 
 bear the stamp of the imperial brick-kilns of Marcus Aurelius, 
 * See Fin;. 47. 
 
Mode of Construction and Development. 345 
 
 and must, therefore, have been made between a.d. 161 and ^^bout a.d. 
 
 1 70. 
 
 180. It is true that we cannot from this circumstance alone 
 determine positively the date of the work ; but it is unlikely 
 that all the bricks of a building should bear the same date, if 
 the building itself had been constructed at a period far 
 removed from the time of their manufacture. If this be 
 admitted, we have a proof of this cemetery having been in use 
 
 Fi<;. 49. — riiird Prn'od. Connexion ivitit Arenariniii. 
 
 for a considerable time before a.d. 197, when it was committed 
 
 by Pope Zephyrinus to his deacon Callixtus. 
 
 It was during this period tliat an alteration was made at tlie Construction 
 ^ , , T • 1 . r crvpt of S1 
 
 farther end of the papal crypt Li, in order to form a passage Cccil'ia. 
 
 into O, tlic crypt where St Cec ilia was buried near to the 
 
346 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 tombs of the Popes. This crypt bears evident marks of 
 having been originally of much smaller dimensions than at 
 present, and was probably of the form represented in the plan, 
 in which we also see a gallery Q, and two cuhicula Qi, and Q2, 
 the entrance to which was originally through the crypt of 
 St Cecilia. All the chambers and galleries, whose architec- 
 tural history we have hitherto been tracing, are distinguished 
 by the fineness and whiteness of the plaster on their walls, 
 especially in the more ancient portions, and also by the 
 absence of The graves are simple loculi ; or when, 
 
 as in the instances distinguished on the plan by a small oblong, 
 they are table-tombs,* they are always loculi a metisa and not 
 arcosolia. 
 
 Necessity for Our readers will not have forgotten that, towards the middle 
 concealment. ^ , , • , i • • i i t i i • 
 
 of the thu'd century, the Christians began to be disturbed m 
 
 the hitherto peaceful possession of their cemeteries.t It was 
 
 no longer possible for them to claim the protection of the law, 
 
 and hence it became necessary to provide for the preservation 
 
 of the tombs of the saints by concealing their entrance from 
 
 l)ublic view. Accordingly, they blocked up and partially 
 
 destroyed the staircases A and B. The evidences of this 
 
 remain in both cases, and may be recognised in the section 
 
 of A, Fig. 47, where, at the point numbered 11, we see the 
 
 ancient staircase stop short about six feet from the floor, while 
 
 the tombs, 7, 9, 10, could only have been excavated after 
 
 Cemetery con- the demolition of the staircase. The entrance B was still 
 nected with , , -i i i -t^q i 
 
 arena rill m. more completely destroyed, and a passage, B^, was opened 
 
 and supported by masonry in the outside wall of the ainbula- 
 
 cruin, in order to enable the Christians to enter their cemetery 
 
 through an areiiariuin^ Xi X2 X3, which was situated in 
 
 convenient proximity. We see from the plan that there were 
 
 several entrances from the arenariuni^ some of which have 
 
 l)een closed with masonry. These various passages provided 
 
 means of escape even when their enemies had tracked the 
 
 * See Figs. 4 and 5, page 30. See pp. 54-88. 
 
Mode of Constritction and Development. 347 
 
 Christians into the Catacomb itself; and, while the satellites 
 
 of the tyrant, led perhaps by some traitor, were penetrating 
 
 into the cemetery by one passage, the faithful, only se])arated 
 
 from them by a few feet of rock, might be silently passing out 
 
 at another. Even when the Pagans had set guards at all the 
 
 entrances into the arenarium, the Christians had still a way of 
 
 escape through an exceedingly narrow and steep staircase, Secret stah- 
 
 which leads directly from the areuariuvi to the open air. 
 
 This staircase, marked X4 in Fig. 49, to which allusion has 
 
 already been made,'" and of which a section is given in Fig. 
 
 50, was clearly never intended to reach farther than the roof 
 
 Fk;. 50. — Secret Staircase into Areuari mii . 
 
 of the arcnarium^ and must have been useless either for ingress 
 or egress, except to those who had friends below to assist 
 them with a movable ladder, or some other means of con- 
 necting the lowest step with the ground. In none of the 
 galleries uniting the cemetery with the araiariiim do we meet 
 with arcoso/ia, the introduction of which we have already 
 noticed as a sign of a later period than we have as yet reached. 
 * S/i/ra, p. 331, It is marked Ac" on tlic large map. 
 
348 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 A second area We have seen how the original hmits of the area w^ere trans- 
 
 nal cemetery, ^j^g arenariniH. Indeed, the legal protection being removed, 
 there was no longer any reason for observing the legal limits ; 
 and, since the adjacent arecE on either side of the little cross- 
 road appear to have been in the possession of Christians, this 
 cemetery, which was, as we have seen in other parts of this 
 work, the most important of all that belonged to the Roman 
 Church, was enlarged by the addition of other area^ which 
 were so connected with it as to form one necropolis. The 
 first area thus added was that on the opposite side of the Via 
 Appio-Ardeatina, marked V on the large map. The plan 
 opposite, which is drawn on a scale of ^-J^, being double the 
 Characteristics size of those previously given, represents this area in its pre- 
 
 sent condition, with its dimensions determined partly by the 
 gallery S\ viz., 150 by 125 Roman feet. At first it was con- 
 nected with our cemetery by the gallery S, but when the steps, 
 of which traces still remain, leading from Q into the latter 
 gallery were destroyed by subsequent works, a new entrance 
 was effected through the chamber A^ into which had been 
 the main ambulacrum of this second area. The most striking 
 peculiarity of the latter is the group of large chambers, (2^, a^, 
 rt!*, rt:^, <2^, and situated opposite to each other on either 
 side of the ambtilac7'7im. These evidently formed the earliest 
 and most important part of this hypogeum ; and, since the 
 arcosolia which tliey now contain are coated with a plaster of 
 an inferior kind to that which covers their walls, w^e may safely 
 adopt De Rossi's opinion that these ctibiciila were not origin- 
 ally intended for sepulchral crypts at all, but for wine-stores. 
 In times of danger, the Christian proprietor of the vineyard 
 above put them at the disposal of the Church for places of 
 assembly, the original entrance being turned into a luminare, and 
 they were then fitted with marble benches, w^hich still remain, 
 and lighted by wade liimijiaria.''' When once connected with 
 See the illustration, I'^i". 6, p. 31, which represents a similar arrangement. 
 
 of this second 
 
Mode of Co7istriiction and Development. 349 
 
 0 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 
 
 1 ' i 1 1 ' ' ' '■ I - 1^ 
 
 Fig. 51. — Fourth Period. Union with a Second Area. 
 N.B. — The shaded parts represent masonry below ground. The black parts represent 
 two buildings on the Via Appio-Ardeatina, and Inininaria. The cnhictduin con- 
 tains the sarcophagus of St Melchiades. For description, see Note (1 on Atlas. 
 
350 Roma Sotierranca. 
 
 the cemetery by the galleries S and the area gradually be- 
 came intersected by galleries, and filled with lociili, and the 
 frequent occurrence of arcosolia in both galleries and chambers 
 oblige us to refer the construction of these to a later date than 
 the third period of excavation. De Rossi sees sufficient 
 grounds for supposing that the three-apsed building, situated 
 nearly in the middle of the frontage of the area, is one of the 
 fabriccE constructed by St Fabian.* 
 Fourth period. The fourth period in the architectural history of this ceme- 
 tery is marked by the appearance of arcosolia, which are some- 
 times found adorned with slabs of marble. The chambers, 
 H\ P\ and Q^t, are thus identified with this period, and 
 the formation of Q'*, with its arcosolia and himinare, necessi- 
 tated the demolition of the steps which led from Q up into the 
 gallery S. From what has been already said of the second 
 area, it is evident that many of the passages and chambers in 
 it belong to this period, for they abound in arcosolia, and 
 many of the ciibicnla are adorned both with paintings and 
 marble, which are never found together in earlier construc- 
 tions. 
 
 fifth period. We now approach an epoch which has left its traces in 
 whh^eartl?^^^^ almost every portion of Roma Sotterranea. History has in- 
 formed us that in the last terrible persecution which the 
 Church endured under Diocletian, not only were the faithful 
 forbidden to enter the cemeteries, and hunted out when they 
 evaded the tyrannical edict, but the cemeteries themselves 
 were confiscated, and handed over to the possession of 
 heathen. J In order to prevent the profanation of the sacred 
 sepulchres, the Christians had recourse to an expedient, the 
 labour and expense of which proves its extreme necessity. 
 They filled up with earth all the principal galleries, and thus 
 rendered the cemeteries inaccessible either to friend or foe. 
 
 Evidence of The evidence of this extraordinary fact is deduced, not only 
 this. 
 
 * See p. 86. f See Fig. 52, whicli illustrates the fifth period. 
 
 % See above, p, 90. 
 
Mode of Construction and Development. 3 5 r 
 
 G. 52. Fifth Period. Galleries made ivhen the nnciefit ones 7vere filled with earlh. 
 i?. -These galleries are distinguished by the light shading. Brickwork is denoted by 
 darker shading. Luminaria by black sqnares. Pl is a well which still contains 
 
352 
 
 Roma Sottei^raiiea. 
 
 from the condition in which most of the Catacombs are 
 found at the present day," but, still more convincingly, from 
 the discovery of a series of galleries, the floor of which in 
 many parts must have been the surface of the earth with 
 which the older galleries had been thus filled. Fig. 52 is a 
 plan of part of the cemetery whose history we are tracing, 
 and in it these galleries are represented with a hght shading to 
 distinguish them from those whose direction they sometimes 
 follow. Thus, along A runs the narrow gallery P, one branch 
 from which crosses H and I in an irregular curve, while the 
 other terminates in a shaft immediately above A^'. Along B 
 runs a similar gallery, B*, which opens into Y, and the 
 cubicula, Y^, Y^, and Y-'^ B^ and Z are excavated at a 
 higher level, and have no connexion with the more ancient 
 ambulac7'a. We shall confine our remarks to the little gallery 
 P, and we must refer the reader back to the elevation, in Fig. 
 47, of the wall of A. The dotted line, a b, was stated to have 
 been the original line of the roof of the ambulacrum, and it is 
 evident that the loculi above that line could never have been 
 constructed while the floor of A was at its present level, or 
 even at its more ancient level marked by the dotted line c d. 
 Moreover, the doorway which may be noticed above the en- 
 trance to H, shows that a b was the level of the floor of the gal- 
 lery in whose wall that doorway was opened. This will be more 
 clear from the opposite Fig. 53, which is a transverse section 
 of A at the point wdiere H falls into it. Here we can observe 
 the difference in width between the original ambulac7'um and 
 the gallery I^, cut through its roof, and now destitute of any 
 floor. The latter gallery could only have been made at a 
 time when A was filled up with earth, and it was only by 
 means of this artificial floor that Pomponio Leto and his 
 companions were able to write their names on the ceiling of 
 
 * The great work of the Commission of Sacred Archaeology is the 
 removal of this earth, which, except in the important crypts cleared by St 
 Damasus, conceals the galleries now as effectually as in the year a.d. 303. 
 
Mode of Construe tion anei Development. 353 
 
 this narrow gallery, where they now appear twenty feet from 
 the ground. Fig. 53 also gives us a longitudinal section of 
 the branches of P, which crossed that gallery a little above 
 the roof of H. A bridge of brickwork has recently been 
 
 Fig. -^t,.— Section of Gnllcries A and H, niid ofV. 
 
 thrown across the ainhulacruin to supply the place of the 
 earth which has been removed, but it is worthy of notice that 
 P does not break through the roof of H, nor into the chamber 
 A^, which it could hardly have failed to do, unless those exca- 
 vations had been filled with earth when V was in use.* 
 
 This earthing-uj) of the galleries marks a fifth period in the 
 history of our cemetery, to which we may, without hesitation, 
 assign the date of the Diocletian persecution, a.d. 303. 
 
 A sixth period commences with the cessation of persecution, 
 
 * Fig. 53 also illustrates our remarks upon the depression of the origi- 
 nal level of A, which is now entered from H by a sharp incline. That it 
 was not lowered, however, so much as had been anticipated, appears from 
 the floor of A^ being considerably below the present level of A, from 
 which it is entered by steps. 
 
 Z 
 
354 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Sixth period. 
 Peace of the 
 Church. 
 Excavation of 
 small galleries. 
 
 when the faithful eagerly sought access to the tombs of the 
 saints. The staircase A was re opened and restored, although at 
 a somewhat higher level, shown by the dotted lines in Fig. 47, 
 and thus an entrance was effected into the crypts of the Popes 
 and of St Cecilia. The earth, however, was not removed from 
 other less remarkable portions of the cemetery, and hence it 
 became possible to excavate the little galleries just described. 
 An inscription in one of them bears the date, a.d. 321 ; the 
 shafts (as w in Fig. 53) for extracting the earth prove them 
 to have been made in a time of peace, while the inscriptions 
 and other characteristics show them to have belonged to a 
 period anterior to the age of St Damasus. 
 
 VI a\\ appiO- ardeatina 
 
 Fig. 54. — Last Period. Wo7-ks of St Dnmasns. 
 
 N.B. — The himinaria and masonry, which reaches the surface, are represented black. 
 Subterranean masonry by dark shading. Galleries of sixth period by lighter 
 shading. 
 
 Last period. The last epoch in the architectural development of the sub- 
 Works of St 
 
 Damasus. terranean cemeteries is marked by the extensive alterations of 
 the indefatigable Pope Damasus, The restored staircase A 
 proved insufficient for the crowd of pilgrims who came from 
 
Mode of Constjniction and Development. 355 
 
 all parts of the world to satisfy their devotion at the tombs of 
 the martyrs. St Damasus therefore constructed the staircase 
 by which we now descend directly to the crypts of the Popes 
 and St Cecilia. It is marked P in the accompanying plan, 
 from which it will be seen that it occupies a large portion of 
 the gallery Q. In fact, the brickwork which sustains it 
 blocked up some of the cubicula, and reduced the dimensions 
 of others. The raising of the floor and ceiling of the chamber 
 A\ and the passage through it into the second area, probably 
 belongs to this period ; and also the chamber P^, and the 
 vestibule M, with its hi7ninare, and passage R, leading to Q\ 
 of which the former entrance had been stopped up. The en- 
 largement of the crypt of St Cecilia and its Inminare, and the 
 adornment and lighting of the papal crypt, which could not be 
 enlarged without " disturbing the ashes of the saints," were 
 certainly carried out under the special direction of St Dama- 
 sus. 
 
 We have confined our attention to the successive develop- A third area. 
 ments of this one area, and therefore have not alluded to a 
 third area * intimately connected with the second a^'ea by the 
 ambulacrum which is continued throughout its entire length. 
 The dimensions of this third area are exactly the same as that 
 of the second, and its architectural characteristics prove it to 
 have been not of an earlier, and probably of a later date. The 
 arcosolium appears frequently, and the luininare, but the loculo 
 a mensa never. At the same time the disguised figure of the 
 Cross, and the double, and often triple chambers for purposes . 
 of sacred assembly, prove it to have been occupied before the 
 age of persecution had ceased. In fact, the dated inscriptions 
 of this area (among which is the celebrated one of the Deacon 
 Severus) range from the latter part of the third century to the 
 tenth year of the fourth. 
 
 A glance at the large map shows how this last area is con- Other area. 
 nected with the cemetery of St Soteris, comprising the four 
 * Marked VI. in the large map. \ See Fig. 51. 
 
Roma Sotterranea . 
 
 arece VII. VIII. IX. X., which were once, in all probability, 
 
 separate cemeteries, and the peculiarities of which have been 
 
 noticed in a previous chapter.-'' 
 
 Labyrinth We have thus traced the successive development of the 
 
 connecting the 
 
 different arccc. niost unportant group of sepulchral galleries in the Cata- 
 comb of St Callixtus, from its first commencement as a pri- 
 vate cemetery, to its final embellishment by St Damasus as 
 the centre of the vast necropolis with which, in course of 
 time, it had become united. We have also called our readers' 
 attention to the striking manner in which the most remark- 
 able facts of the history of the Catacombs, already deduced 
 from documentary sources, have been at each successive 
 period confirmed and illustrated by the testimony of the 
 Catacombs themselves, as represented by this particular ceme- 
 tery which we have examined. This testimony would be still 
 further strengthened if our space permitted us to examine with 
 equal minuteness the other aj^ea^, and especially that scarcely 
 less important and ancient one which contains the tomb of St 
 Cornelius. Our account, however, of the architectural history 
 of the Catacombs, and even of this particular cemetery, would 
 be incomplete if we were to omit all mention of that vast and 
 bewildering labyrinth of galleries which fills the ordinary visi- 
 tor with astonishment, and which it is impossible, even on an 
 accurately-drawn map, to reduce to any regular system. We 
 have already described these galleries, which are found at two 
 different depths below the surface, the horizontal plane of each 
 pia?io of which is pretty generally observed. From the charac- 
 teristics already mentioned,! we may safely conclude that both 
 piani of this labyrinth belong to an age posterior to the regu- 
 lar construction of the Jiypogeiiin within the legal limits of the 
 separate are(je. The union of these into one vast necropolis 
 was not effected without difficulty, OAving to the widely differ- 
 ent levels at which their principal galleries had been exca- 
 vated ; and the attentive observer who traverses a portion of 
 * See p. 128. t See p. 176. 
 
Mode of Construction and Development. 357 
 
 this labyrinth on his way from the tomb of St CecUia to that 
 of St Cornelius, will not fail to recognise the points of junction, 
 and will appreciate the ingenuity with which the fossors accom- 
 plished their task. 
 
 We must again repeat that we by no means venture to affirm Application to 
 that the successive architectural changes which we have traced ge^JeraHy^^ 
 in the Catacomb of St Callixtus, are to be found in all the 
 subterranean Christian cemeteries of Rome. No doubt each of 
 these had its own characteristics, and possibly its own architect; 
 but yet we are quite justified in supposing that the cemetery 
 which we have examined, placed at so early a period under the 
 immediate care of the Pope, and committed by him to the 
 Archdeacon of Rome, must have furnished a pattern, followed 
 with more or less exactness by those who had the charge of 
 less important cemeteries. We may, therefore, sum up the 
 testimony of the Catacombs as to their successive develop- 
 ment, in the following general remarks. 
 
 When the Roman Christians of the apostolic age com- Summary of 
 menced the excavation of subterranean cemeteries, the work [{j^ l^^adual 
 was comparatively new. It was carried, on in a rock the con- development 
 
 of a Catacomb 
 
 sistency of which was unknown, within the narrow limits of a from it^ 
 legal area, and for the use of a people as yet few in number. 
 Consequently, they did not think of constructing spacious 
 chambers with ceilings of perilous dimensions, neither did 
 they contemplate the construction of more than one piano, 
 nor again did the necessity of economising space lead them 
 to excavate galleries dangerously near to each other. Hence 
 the most ancient part of a Catacomb is found to consist of a 
 gallery, extending as far as the limits of the area permitted. 
 Small cuhiciila were then constructed as circumstances might 
 render necessary, with entrances from this gallery ; and when 
 this single gallery became insufficient for the wants of the com- 
 munity, other galleries and eiibicula were excavated at con- 
 siderable intervals from each other. 
 
 As time went on, certain further modifications became 
 
 is com- 
 mencement : 
 
35^ Roma Sotter^-anca. 
 
 through divers necessary. The galleries having been increased in length and 
 modifications . . 
 
 necessary to number, the necessity or great economy of space was forced 
 creased a'c- "poi^ the attention of those who had the charge of the ceme- 
 commodation ; tery, and the experience which had been gained by the fossors 
 of the consistency of the rock enabled them to practise this 
 economy in various ways. Thus we find more cubicula on 
 either side of the galleries, and these latter are made more 
 lofty by lowering the floor, so as to receive many more tiers of 
 loadi ; while, in new excavations made during this period 
 space was economised by the galleries being made narrower 
 than before. The loculi themselves were made smaller, and 
 space was saved by their being formed wide at the shoulders, 
 and narrow at the feet. The fossors also found it practicable 
 to cut galleries with a comparatively thin wall of rock between 
 them, and at the angles of their intersection, where the fria- 
 bility of the tufa would not admit of full-sized loadi being 
 cut, these portions were turned to account by being made to 
 receive the bodies of infants. Even these expedients failing 
 at length to supply sufficient space, the fossors conceived the 
 idea of excavating another piano either above or below the 
 first. The decorations of this period also show that the fossors 
 had become more accustomed to the material in which they 
 were working. The most ancient ornamentation had been 
 formed entirely of stucco and brickwork, but now we find 
 cornices, columns, pilasters, brackets, and even chairs,* cut out 
 of the solid rock. The shape of the loadi was in time diversi- 
 fied by the introduction of the arcosoliiim, and the chambers 
 themselves varied in many instances from their former rectan- 
 gular shape, and are found of an hexagonal or octagonal figure, 
 and sometimes with apses at one or more of the sides. f 
 
 or to avoid A later period shows signs of the protection of the laws hav- 
 the search of . 
 
 persecutors ; lug been removed, and the cemeteries no longer manifest the 
 same careful observance of the limits of the geometrical area. 
 The shafts communicating with the open air, constructed during 
 * Sec Fig. 7, pnge 32. t .See examples in Area X in Atlas. 
 
Mode of Construction and Development. 359 
 
 this period, are not square apertures for conveying light and 
 air into the cublciila, but are round pits, generally situated just 
 above the crossing of the galleries, and were evidently made 
 principally for the removal of earth. The fossors, no longer 
 confined within certain prescribed limits, constructed at this 
 period very large crypts and wide arcosoHa, and, at the same 
 time, to satisfy the requirements of a large Christian popula- 
 tion, we find a multitude of poor miserable galleries full of 
 locuH, but destitute of all ornament. It is also during this 
 period that we meet with studied contrivances for conceal- 
 ment from persecution. The regular staircases were demol- 
 ished, and instead of them were constructed secret passages 
 leading into caves and sandpits. As a last resource, many of 
 the galleries were filled with earth in order more effectually to 
 conceal the tombs of the saints, and preserve them from the 
 profane insults of the Pagan occupiers of the confiscated ceme- 
 teries. Finally, in this period we notice indications of the until its aban- 
 gradual abandonment of the practice of siibterranean inter- buHal-place.^ 
 ment. Many of the galleries terminate in portions which 
 contain no loadi, or in which the loculi are marked in outline 
 on the wall, but have never been excavated ; and even in 
 some of the spacious crypts we find the spaces for arcosolia 
 sketched out, but the arcosolia themselves have not been con- 
 structed. Of course, in the more celebrated historical crypts, 
 more striking characteristics are to be discerned, but the fore- 
 going remarks apply to the Catacombs as a whole. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANALYTICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PLAN OF THE MOST IMPORT- 
 ANT AREA OF THE CEMETERY OF ST CALLIXTUS. 
 
 N.B. — The reader should open the Plan while studying this Chapter, 
 a?id should refer also to the elevation iji Fig. 47, p. 342. 
 
 'TT^HE staircase which originally formed the entrance to the 
 
 JL principal gallery of this area was thoroughly and min- 
 utely examined by the brothers De Rossi in May 1865. The 
 inclination of the steps enabled them to determine with accuracy 
 the upper portion of the flight, of which nothing now remains, 
 but the original position of which is indicated by the dotted 
 lines. The first remains appear about ten feet below the sur- 
 face of the soil, and extend to a depth of about thirty-nine feet 
 underground. The plan indicates a wall of brick-work and 
 ti/fa on each side of the staircase for a short distance, but the 
 greater part of the length is excavated out of the living rock. 
 As we have before remarked, there are evidences of two flights 
 of stairs constructed at different periods. The original flight 
 had steps covered with slabs of marble, and walls coated with 
 very fine stucco, and adorned with narrow bands of a bright 
 red colour. This flight of steps, however, bears signs of having 
 been demolished and interrupted in many portions of its length; 
 and hence another flight was constructed on foundations com- 
 posed of masonry resting on such of tlie original stairs as 
 remained entire. This flight of stairs is indicated by the dotted 
 line in Fig. 47, to which we must refer our readers, as well as to 
 the plan at the end of this analysis. The numbers and letters 
 are alike in both, being those used by De Rossi. 
 Wall resting on a step of the earlier staircase. 
 Similar construction on three steps. 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Callixtiis. 361 
 
 About half-way down the stairs, on the left, we find a large Staircase 
 sepolcro a me?isa divided so as to contain three bodies. It is 
 shaped like that of St Cornelius, and lined with white stucco, 
 but the filling up of the niche above the 7nc7isa is of rough 
 masonry covered with coarse plaster, as also are the materials 
 used to stop the loadi which are on either side of the staircase. 
 These are, therefore, of later construction than the original 
 ambulacrum to which the steps lead. 
 
 Three or four loculi have been cut in the staircase itself, A 7. 
 evidently between the period of its demolition and that of the 
 construction of the later staircase upon its ruins. And near its A 9. 
 lov/er extremity, two large sepulchres have been constructed, 
 each between four and five feet in depth, and so wide as to 
 appear like small galleries passing beneath the staircase. In 
 the sides of one of these sepulchres are three loadi closed in 
 the usual manner, while the other is so divided as to contain 
 nine bodies each in a separate niche. The mouths of these A 10. 
 sepulchres are covered with tiles placed roof-wise, so as to bear 
 the weight of the staircase afterwards built over them. The 
 last few steps of the original flight, indicated by dotted lines, A 11. 
 have been entirely destroyed, evidently with the design of not 
 leaving even the least remains of them on the side walls, so that 
 any one attempting to enter the cemetery would have had to 
 make a leap of some five feet in order to reach the floor of 
 the ambulacrum. In the vertical wall thus left a sepulchre for 
 several bodies w^as afterwards found, the ruins of which still 
 remain. 
 
 The second staircase is about thirty-three inches above the A 13. 
 first, and this difl'erence in level necessitated the construction 
 of a flight of steps in order to reach the cubiculum A, on 
 the right, and likewise to enter the gallery L on tlie left. 
 
 The ambulacrum which we have now entered was cleared Ambuiaci 
 of earth at the beginning of 1856, but it had been visited by ^' 
 Boldetti and other explorers, who have left memorials of their 
 visits in the galleries leading out of it. As we pass along 
 between chambers A, and A3 we notice that the walls are A 16. 
 much ruined, almost up to the roof; but that immediately Its roof, 
 under this they are in good preservation for the space of two 
 loculi, and that here they do not spring from the same base- 
 line as do the lower portions of the wall. I'he loculi of this 
 
362 
 
 Rotiia SotterrcDiea. 
 
 higher portion are smaller than those at a lower level, and both 
 the roof and walls are plastered and ornamented with paint- 
 ings, which cannot be distinguished when we stand on the 
 ground. This upper portion, of which a section is given on 
 page 353, must therefore have been excavated when the whole 
 of the lower part of the amhdacriim was filled with earth, and 
 this earth, which formed the floor of the small gallery above, 
 enabled the companions of Pomponio Leto to write their 
 names, Pa7'thenius and Galius, on the roof of the gallery. 
 Its floor. Turning our attention from the roof of the gallery to its floor, 
 we observe that we have to ascend two steps in order to enter 
 the chamber A^, and at the door of chamber A3 a similar 
 Ambulacrum ^^cent indicates a corresponding depression of the level of the 
 
 A 17. floor. On the opposite side of the gallery the same peculiarity 
 strikes us even more forcibly, for while the roof of the gallery I 
 is horizontal throughout, the floor, for about half its length, 
 rises gradually from the point where it meets the ainbtilacrum 
 
 A 18. A. When, however, we reach the door of chamber A^, we 
 find the floor of this chamber at the same level with the 
 ambulacrum, showing that this chamber was constructed sub- 
 sequent to the depression of level. At the entrance to the 
 
 A 19. gallery H, the level of which is about two feet higher than 
 that of A, there are to be seen traces of two steps, which have 
 now become worn into an inclined plane. The difference of 
 level is shown in the section on page 353, which proves that H 
 must have been formed before the floor of A was lowered. 
 Almost opposite to H is the entrance to the chamber A^, 
 which is entered by descending two steps, as may be seen in 
 the above-mentioned section. This cubiculum, therefore, was 
 constructed after the floor of the ambulacrum had been 
 lowered, and in anticipation of a more considerable depres- 
 sion than was actually carried into eff'ect. The same section 
 shows the narrow gallery above the ambulacruin A, and the 
 traces of the original roof of that ambulacrum. It also repre- 
 sents a portion of the small gallery I„ the shaft for removing 
 the earth from which falls exactly on a line with the wall of 
 the chamber A-. The modern bridge, which now crosses the 
 ambulacrum A, had no counterpart in the ancient remains, 
 and was only constructed by the Commission of Sacred 
 Archaeology to enable the gallery 1^ to be traversed, now that 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Callixtiis. 363 
 
 the earth which formed its floor has been removed from the 
 galleries A and H, 
 
 We next descend five steps, now worn into an incUned plane Ambulacrum 
 (see page 344), and reach the entrance to the gallery G, which ^° 
 is formed at the lowered level of A, and the way into w'hich 
 would not have been practicable w^hen the floor of the latter 
 was first made. This opening, therefore, of the gallery G was 
 constructed after the level of A had been lowered. Nearly . 
 opposite to G is the entrance to the cubiculu?n A^, the floor of 
 which is very slightly below that of the a?nbidacnim, of which 
 we have reached the lowest portion, so that here we see the 
 design carried into effect, which the lower level of A. has 
 shown us had been intended also there, but not carried out. 
 The state of the walls of the ambulacrum is so ruinous in this 
 part as to have required them to be sustained by modern 
 masonry. The entrance to the gallery F was first opened at 
 the higher level, and then lowered to the new level, as appears 
 from its great height, and also from the iufa not having been 
 entirely cut away from the lower portion of its walls. Close 
 beside A^ is a large sepulchre A 23, marked in the plan, a 23. 
 resembling a sepolcro a 7nensa, except that it is too near the 
 ground, and seems to have been closed like a simple loculus. 
 The entrance to the gallery E must evidently have been con- 
 structed after the depression of the floor of A ; while D, like 
 F, bears evident signs of having been cut away to meet the 
 lower level after its original construction. As we approach 
 the corner AC, the left wall is observed to be strengthened a 26. 
 for a considerable portion of its height by constructions of 
 tufa and brick-work, while the corner itself is entirely filled 
 up with a solid pillar of the same materials, having merely a a 27. 
 narrow passage through it, along which only one person could 
 pass at a time. Along the whole length of A, numerous in- 
 scriptions have been found in fragments which have fallen 
 from the loculi^ and they are for the most part in the Greek 
 language. 
 
 Returning again to the foot of the staircase, we enter the 
 cubiculum A„ the original floor of which was thirty-three O^/vW^//^//; A 
 inches lower than it is at present, and from the line where the 
 fine white stucco, with red lines upon it, now ends, we are 
 able to determine the corresponding elevation of the roof 
 
3^4 
 
 Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 The left wall of the original chamber is entirely gone, and was 
 removed in order to enlarge the chamber, and to make room 
 for the entrance through it into the second and third arece of 
 the necropolis, which being at a higher level, required the 
 elevation of the floor of this chamber. Both the door and 
 locidi are quite in ruins. 
 CubicidumX _ is approached by two steps, and is lined with stucco, on 
 which are painted the frescoes in Plate XII. i ; XIV. 2. An 
 examination of the stucco at the lower part of the walls shows 
 that the original floor must have been lowered about eight 
 inches. Near the door on the right hand is a square pedestal 
 or seat made of tufa^ and covered with a slab of terra-cotta, 
 and to the left is a little staircase leading to a higher piano of 
 the cemetery, but evidently much more modern than the 
 chamber. 
 
 CiibicuIuiiiK_^, The chamber A3 is square like the last, and similarly deco- 
 rated. The floor is about eleven inches above the level of 
 the ambulacriun. This chamber is called by the guides the 
 Capella dei Sacramenti from the liturgical paintings on the 
 walls. See Plate VII. ; XI. i ; XIL 2, 3 ; XIV. 3. See also 
 page 263. 
 
 Cul>iaihi/jiA : The succeeding 'chamber, A^, is decorated in the same way, 
 but the stucco is of an inferior quality. The roof is so low as 
 to be hardly six feet two inches above the floor, which is of 
 coloured marbles arranged in a geometrical pattern. De 
 Rossi has, however, ascertained that the original floor is be- 
 neath this pavement, and that in consequence of the ambu- 
 lacrum A not having been lowered to the depth once contem- 
 plated, this original floor was raised so as to be on a level 
 with the amhdacnun^ thus accounting for the unusual lowness 
 of the ceiling. This, as well as A3, has a loado a mensa in the 
 wall directly opposite the door ; the side walls are also pierced 
 by two locidi^ one above the other. Above the locido a mensa 
 . two locidi for children have been irregularly cut at a later 
 period. The explorers of the fifteenth century had pene- 
 trated into this chamber, and left their names, Pai-tlmniis, 
 Gadus, Matthias, Thomas, which are now barely visible. 
 
 Cubiculum A.. The cuhiculiim A^ resembles the preceding in its form and 
 decorations, and there is reason to suppose, that the floor, 
 which is now two steps below the ambulacrum A, had been 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Callixiiis. 365 
 
 raised like that of the chamber A^, since the original ceiHng 
 has been removed, and a new one made at a sufficient elevation 
 to admit of an additional range oi locuH all round the chamber. 
 This later portion is covered with a very inferior kind of 
 plaster, and has a barrel-roof, instead of the flat or cruciform 
 vaulting found in all the preceding cubicula. See dotted lines 
 in Fig. 53. 
 
 Ag resembles the other chambers in form and decoration, Otbicuium 
 but on either side the lower tomb is a toculo a inensa, with the 
 sepulchre lined with marble and forming a bisomum, although 
 in each case they have been closed like a common loculiis. 
 The end of the chamber, however, is entirely occupied with 
 one large sepolcro a inensa divided for two bodies, each division 
 being lined with marble. The iron bars which supported the 
 mensa are still to be seen. At a later period it became neces- 
 sary to strengthen this wall with masonry, and to this period 
 must be assigned the two marble pilasters which now stand 
 on either side of the sepulchre, and the vertical slab of 
 Grecian marble which once covered the whole space between 
 these pilasters. The marble pavement still remains upon the 
 floor. Within this chamber was found the epitaph — 
 
 SERGIVS ALEXANDI 
 CAECILIE FAVSTAE 
 COIVGISVEBENE 
 MERIENTI FECIT. 
 
 The Staircase and amhulacruju B is parallel to A, and very siaircase I 
 wide and loft}', but it has suffered not only from the changes 
 made in ancient times, but from the carelessness with which 
 the possessors of this property in the last century adapted it 
 for the purposes of a wine-store. Both tombs and walls were 
 recklessly destroyed to make receptacles for the butts of wine, 
 and the gallery was entered from a modern staircase made 
 beneath the three-apsed chapel which we have noticed above 
 the second area. This staircase has now been blocked up, 
 and the point where the ancient steps must have reached 
 the surface of the soil is marked in the plan by the dotted 
 lines. 
 
 A wall closing up the staircase at about half its length. 15 29. 
 From this point the upper portion of the staircase was de- 
 
Roma Sotter7'anea. 
 
 prived of half its width in order to make a space for the 
 narrow flight of steps B^, which lead down to the galleries Z 
 and Y. Near this wall the staircase B retains traces of the 
 same fine stucco, with its ornament of thin red lines, which 
 we observed on the walls of A. Almost immediately below 
 this wall the steps have been demolished, as we observed 
 had been done in the case of the parallel flight, and evidently 
 at the same period ; the traces of them, however, remain on 
 the side walls. Here was found the remains of a small sarco- 
 phagus, ornamented with dolphins, and bearing the inscription 
 AOITAIANOC • KAT • HPOH EIAHN ADPIA; and another 
 inscription in Latin to hasellica, apparently on a step of the 
 staircase. 
 
 Staircase B32. A small opening on the left leads into a rectangular cham- 
 ber coated with coarse plaster, and almost destroyed by a 
 B B^. modern passage which passed close above it. The entrance 
 to the gallery B^, cut through so many locuU^ shows the damage 
 done to the sepulchres in B in its formation, although a point 
 was chosen with special care that the damage might be as 
 small as possible. The wall on the right is all in ruins. On 
 the left wall may be observed a line of loculi, near the roof, 
 evidently belonging to a different period to those below them, 
 from which they differ in size and arrangement. These in- 
 dicate the existence of a gallery, similar to in the ainbulacnim 
 A, excavated when B was filled with earth, and probably com- 
 municating with B^ after the staircase was blocked up, since it 
 has no other outlet apparent, and must have been on the 
 same level with that gallery. From the entrance of B^ to the 
 bottom of the flight, the steps are well preserved and covered 
 with slabs of terra-cotta. 
 
 Ambulacrum The ambulacrum itself is paved with large tiles, all of which 
 ^* bear the stamp opus doliare ex pr^diis domini n et figl 
 Novis, that is, according to Marini, from the imperial manufac- 
 tory of Marcus Aurelius. As we approach the entrance to the 
 gallery B3, communicating with the ajrjiariuui, we notice the 
 wall on either side of that entrance is sustained by masonry of 
 tufa and brick-work, and that the entrance itself has been cut 
 through some of the loculi ; an evident proof of its having been 
 made at a later period than the ambulacrum. The masonry, 
 however, does not reach the present roof, because at the time 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Callixtiis. 367 
 
 that it was built the roof had not been raised to its present 
 elevation by the excavation of the small gallery B^. 
 
 On the right hand, now at a somewhat high elevation, is 2i Ambulacrum 
 sepolcro a inensa, 37, which is important as proving the present 
 floor of tlie ambulacriDii to be at a considerably lower level 
 than when it was originally constructed. And a practised eye 
 will at once perceive that the adjacent entrance into I was b 1. 
 originally opened at a level which corresponded to that required 
 by the tomb. The entrance to H, on the contrary, is little B H. 
 more than six feet high, and could not therefore have been 
 made use of when the floor of the ambulacrum was nearly four 
 feet above its present level. From the arrangement of the 
 loculi^ however, it appears that an entrance into H was contem- 
 plated in the original design, although not carried into effect 
 until after the depression of the pavement of B. The masonry 
 on either side of H, and other signs, show that H was once 
 continued in a direct line into B, but was at a later period 
 moved about twenty inches to the left. 
 
 On the left the wall is much broken, and on the right we see 
 that the gallery G was commenced originally from this end, B Ci. 
 although it appears to have been only commenced and not 
 proceeded with until the a/zibutacrum was deepened. The 
 small gallery in the roof is very discernible at this point. The 
 entrance to F shows the same traces of having been opened B F. 
 after the level of B had been lowered, which we observed in the 
 entrance to H. The passage B^, cut through three tocu/i, and B B . 
 even now of a very moderate height, could not have been made 
 until after the deepening of the ambulacruui. Immediately 
 above this door we perceive in the roof the termination of the 
 small upper gallery. From the holes high up in the left 
 wall, it would seem tliat tlie fossors began at the high level to 
 open a way into the gallery E, but never carried out their 
 design, probably because the wall was afterwards filled with 
 locull. 
 
 The entrance into D was made at the high level, and then, B 1). 
 as at the other end, excavated so as to suit the reduced level 
 of B. The wall above this entrance is modern, and belonged 
 to the wine-stores constructed here in the last century. The 
 opening into T^ is also modern. It is worthy of notice that 
 the point where B and C meet is not a sharp angle, as is usuallv B C. 
 
Roma Sottcrranea. 
 
 the case in the meeting of catacomb galleries, but a curve. 
 This peculiarity is an additional work of antiquity, for it suggests 
 the thought that at the period when these galleries were first 
 formed, the work of the fossors had not yet settled into a system. 
 Few loculi appear to have been cut in this corner, and those 
 few at a later period, so that 
 
 Gallery B^, Which connects this area with a neiglibouring areiiarinm^ need 
 not, and did not, belong to the earlier periods of this part of the 
 cemetery, even though its entrance did not occasion the demoli- 
 tion of any loatli. After a few steps we come upon a modern 
 opening which leads into the area of St Sotere, excavated at a 
 higher level than that which we are now describing. 
 
 Gallery Appears hardly to have been formed and filled with loculi^ 
 when it was perceived that its direct leading into B endangered 
 the discovery of the whole cemetery. It was accordingly half 
 blocked up by a thick wall, and then entirely closed at the 
 point where it fell into T^. 
 
 (lallery B^ Led into the arenaria through T, and B^, and B^, into Y and 
 
 Z, the latter being entered by the steps cut through the upper 
 
 part of the original flight B. 
 
 Amhidacrinn The ainbiilacmun which unites A with B was cleared out in 
 c 
 
 ■ 1863, and is wide and very lofty. The marks of a change of 
 level are not very apparent in the gallery itself, but having 
 been proved to the very ends of A and B, the same change 
 must necessarily have been effected in C. The lociili in this 
 gallery are large, arranged in order, and with numerous niches 
 for lamps, &c. Some of the large tiles, bearing the stamp of 
 the manufactories of the emperors M. Aurelius and Commodus, 
 C 49. 50. remain still in the Iccidi. Two large loeuli are to be seen on 
 the right immediately after turning the corner out of B^, and 
 C 52. further on in the left wall is a sepolcro a vieiisa. These being 
 near the floor, are marked in Fig. 48 as having been con- 
 structed subsequently to the deepening of the gallery. Above 
 the sepolcro a nwisa is an opening in the wall near the roof 
 made by excavators of the last century, who were making their 
 way from a higher set of galleries in the area of St P^usebius, 
 and through this opening must liave fallen into ambidacriiin 
 C several fragments of inscriptions belonging to that area^ and 
 differing entirely in character from the other inscriptions found 
 here. One of these has the -J:, of which no other instance 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Callixtiis. 369 
 
 occurs in this area; and of another the remainder has been 
 found in a gallery of the area of St Eusebius. 
 
 The entrance to is cut through loculi, and therefore of Gallery Ca- 
 later date than the ambiilacruin ; the gallery is full of earth, 
 and unexplored ; but above the entrance, we see in the section 
 on page 342 another passage which must have crossed C when 
 the latter was full of earth, and which is continued almost 
 until it meets D. The passage is in direct communication 
 with the area of St Eusebius, and appears to have been 
 deepened considerably after its first construction, either by 
 modern excavators or by graves having been made in its floor. 
 See the section of it in Fig. 48. 
 
 Another doorway leads into the gallery C^, which apparently C^. 
 belongs to the same system of passages as Co, and bears marks 
 of having been formed about the same time. The fragments 
 of inscriptions found in these two galleries are of a character 
 similar to those in the ambulacrum itself. 
 
 D is a lofty gallery, excavated, as we have seen, during theD. 
 first period of the area, and afterwards deepened like the 
 ambulacra A, B, which it connects. Many inscriptions, the 
 majority of which are in Greek, have been found in this 
 gallery, which was explored in the winter of 1862-63. 
 
 E was excavated, as we have seen, subsequently to the E. 
 depression of the level of A,, and throughout its whole length 
 is never more than six feet high. Many of its loculi are closed 
 with tufa constructions. 
 
 F was opened at the high level of A, and then cut away to F. 
 correspond to the depressed level at which it enters B. The 
 little passage F^ was evidently excavated after the lowering of 
 the floor, for it carefully avoids breaking into E. 
 
 It was afterwards demolished in part, in order to make way Well F^. 
 for a well of ancient construction, but still holding water. The 
 well is furnished with foot-holes, in order to admit of a man 
 descending to clean it, as may be seen in all other ancient 
 wells connected with the Catacombs. 
 
 G, on the contrary, commenced from B at the high level, and Gallery G. 
 was continued so as to fall into A after the level had been 
 lowered. 
 
 H commenced from A at the high level, and fell into B after 11. 
 
 2 A 
 
370 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 the floor of that ambulacrii7?i had been lowered. Its floor was 
 paved with marble. The change in its direction near its con- 
 junction with B we have already noticed, and careful observa- 
 tion shows that change to have been made at the same time 
 with the sinking of the staircase H^. The pavement here is 
 composed of tiles of the date of Marcus Aurelius. The stair- 
 Staircase H^. case H2 is at first excavated in tufa with lociili in the walls, it 
 is then flanked with thick walls of titfa and brickwork, in which 
 some lociili have been scooped out. About half-way down 
 the staircase, on the left, is seen a doorway in the wall, with 
 an arch turned over it, but walled up, apparently a gallery 
 commenced, and speedily abandoned. On the right is seen 
 a half-open locuius, within which, instead of a skeleton, was 
 found a little terra-cotta sarcophagus containing the body of 
 an infant. The upper portions of the locuii in this place are 
 not flat, but somewhat arched, and the roof of the staircase 
 breaks into the gallery I, which is half blocked up by the 
 masonry sustaining it. The staircase, after all, remained use- 
 less, for it was found impossible to use, for sepulchral purposes, 
 the gallery into which it leads. The tiles are in many cases 
 stamped with the mark of the manufactory of M. Aurelius. 
 Cuhicnlum H^. The ciihicubun H^, whose entrance is immediately opposite 
 to Hg, differs from all the chambers we have hitherto described, 
 in the very inferior plaster with which it is lined, in the barrel 
 roof, and especially in the double arcosolia, which are here met 
 with for the first time in this ai'ea. These circumstances justify 
 De Rossi in assigning to it a later date than that of the stair- 
 case H2. 
 
 Gallery I. The gallery I was originally excavated at the high level of 
 A and B, as we have seen from the openings into both those 
 ambulacra. It was afterwards cut away so as to correspond 
 with the new level, and thus it is found at present, with its 
 floor sloping downwards from the middle each way towards 
 A and B, while the middle portion itself remains still at the 
 higher level. The walls are much damaged by the rude 
 attempts to convert it into a wine cellar in the last century, 
 and scarcely any inscriptions have been found in it. The 
 opening by which the majority of visitors pass into this gallery 
 from the crypt of S. Cecilia is quite modern, but a little farther 
 on, on the left hand, we may, by climbing to the top of a heap 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Cailzxtns. 371 
 
 of rubbish, penetrate into the Httle crooked gallery I„ which Small Gallery 
 here crossed this gallery when it was filled up with earth, in ^i- 
 its way from to the crypt of S. Cecilia, where it seems to 
 have terminated. It contains a number of small tocitti, all 
 open, above one of which is traced on the mortar the sign of 
 the cross thus +• There are signs of an intention of excavat- 
 ing two branches of this little gallery along I, in a similar 
 manner to those which we have noticed along A and B, but 
 the intention appears never to have been carried into effect. 
 The modern constructions along the part of the gallery I, 
 usually traversed by visitors, are the work of the Commission 
 of Sacred Archaeology, and were rendered necessary by the 
 rude staircase which had been made into the crypt at this 
 point, at the time when it was used as a cellar. 
 
 We now enter L, the first gallery which branches off from the Gallery L. 
 ambulacrum A, and which still retains some traces of the fine 
 smooth plaster with which it was originally coated. We have 
 already seen how the construction of another flight of stairs 
 into A rendered it necessary to make the steps by which we 
 now descend into L. At the bottom of these steps, we notice, 
 on the right hand, traces of the original wall having been cut 
 away in order to widen the passage ; and similar traces may 
 be observed beneath the hiiniiiare which now gives light to 
 that which originally formed the end of this gallery, proving 
 that the crypt of S. Cecilia was originally entered through the 
 Papal crypt. Slight traces also appear of the deepening which 
 this passage must have undergone when the original level of 
 A was lowered. 
 
 At the entrance to we see in the pavement and on the Papal Cry|)t 
 walls traces of the original level having been about a foot 
 higher than it is at present. The door of this crypt, which is 
 the central and most important in the Catacomb, as having 
 been the burial-place of the Popes of the third century, is five 
 feet wide, and constructed of brick-work. The plaster which 
 covers it is covered with graffiti, the majority of which are at 
 a higher level than would naturally have been chosen by those 
 who wished to write on the wall, so that these graffiti would 
 seem to have been upon the plaster at the time when the 
 pavement was lowered. Others being cut off in the middle 
 must have been written previous to the widening of the door, 
 
372 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 and consequently to the construction of the arch above it. 
 which is covered with three coats of plaster, two of them 
 decorated witli painting. Tlie crypt itself is now almost 
 entirely reconstructed with modern masonry, for the ruinous 
 condition in which it was found when cleared of earth in 
 1854 rendered this absolutely necessary for its safety. It is 
 impossible to determine whether the original chamber has 
 lociili in its walls, or what was the nature of its roof, so many 
 successive works have succeeded each other in this important 
 crypt. See the description, pp. 130-150. 
 
 The earliest modification of this chamber appears to have 
 been the slight lowering of the level of the floor, the traces of 
 which remain in the lowest range of locuU^ and especially in 
 the large sepulchre at the end of the crypt, which had its para- 
 pet made in the best style of imperial lateritial work. At the 
 same period with this parapet was formed the little passage 
 leading into the crypt of S. Cecilia, as the form of the parapet 
 itself shows, and as is proved still more convincingly by the 
 brickwork of the passage being of the same kind as that which 
 covers the parapet. This was afterwards covered, first with 
 white plaster, then again with rough mortar, in order to attach 
 to it slabs of marble, and lastly, the roof was lined with mosaic. 
 Above the large sepulchre, which must originally have been a 
 loculo a 7Jiejisa, we cannot see any traces either of other loeiili, 
 or even of plaster. In front of it are tw^o steps, the lower of 
 which has four holes, in order to receive the pillars that sup- 
 ported the mensa of the altar which here stood out, with the 
 episcopal chair behind it. A fragment of marble in the 
 corner shows the chamber to have been once lined with 
 similar slabs. 
 
 The right-hand wall, when it was first discovered, contained 
 nothing but its eight large loculi, two of which, close to the 
 floor, had space for marble sarcophagi. Among the rubbish 
 was found the vieiisa of a tomb, with a vine sculptured on its 
 edge in very low relief ; and on the edge of another was carved 
 the inscription OTPBANOCE. . . . Between the two sets of 
 loculi stood a pillar, of which the base is still in its position, 
 and a wall forming a sarcophagus jutting out into the chamber 
 in front of the h)C2ilus mokes a continuation of this base. 
 Remains of a similar arrangement on the left hand wall justify 
 
Analysis of the Cenicfery of St Callixtus. 373 
 
 the restoration of De Rossi, while in the roof above the broken 
 column, which is here in its original position, is the shaft of 
 a second lumiiiare^ now blocked up. The wall near the 
 entrance is formed of masonry, with traces of an inferior kind 
 of plaster. The base and mark in the wall of a small column 
 still remain at the left hand side as we enter, while above the 
 door is the space for the oblong tablet of a large inscription. 
 In the Avail, on the other side, is a niche for a lamp, or for 
 the vessel in which was burned the hallowed oil of which St 
 Gregory the Great speaks. A similar niche is right in front of 
 the entrance in tlie left wall of the gallery L. The papal crypt 
 had a barrel roof, greatly occupied by the large tieniuiarc. The 
 pavement was of marble, and covered tombs made beneath it, 
 the inscription upon one of which is still in its place, AH3IHTPIC 
 KAT • Tfi- ir • KAL • lOTN — Demetrius, buried on the 2ot/i of May. 
 See De Rossi's restoration of this crypt, Plate XV. 
 
 The chamber has its three principal walls entirely covered Cnbiiuln 
 with a thick wall of brickwork, which has considerably reduced 
 the size of the eubiculum. The arches in these walls have been 
 much destroyed, and the loculi of the primitive walls behind 
 them have suffered also. Still, enough remains to show that 
 they were covered with fine white smooth plaster, that the 
 roof was vaulted in the cruciform manner, and, like the walls, 
 adorned with fresco. The central figure in the roof is that of 
 Orpheus, Plate XI. 2. All the characteristics of this chamber 
 are those of the very earliest portions of the area. 
 
 The vestibule M is constructed entirely of masonry, and De ^■eslil)lll( 
 Rossi confesses himself unable to account for its peculiar form. 
 Its walls are lined with plaster covered all over with graffiti. 
 Here were found a number of polygonal paving-stones of basalt, 
 evidently having formed part of the pavement of the cross 
 road which we have called the Via Appio-Ardeatina. 
 
 The portico to the crypt of S. Cecilia is excavated in the l'"'^'"^'* ^ 
 tufa, and sustained by brick arches. The inscriptions on the 
 loculi {o\m^ here apparently belong to the period of S. Damasus. 
 At the end of N a narrow passage runs close behind the crypt 
 of S. Cecilia. That crypt itself is entered by two steps, above Crypt of 
 which are arches in brickwork. But behind the right hand ^^^'^'''^ ^ 
 wall of the entrance we see these loculi which mark the posi- 
 tion of the gallery Q, before the works of Pope Damasus had 
 
374 
 
 Ro]na Sotterranca. 
 
 completely transformed this portion of the Catacomb. Enter- 
 ing the crypt, we notice on the left, opposite to the tomb of S. 
 Cecilia, a piece of brickwork forming the segment of a circle, 
 which, when complete, was the pit in which the little gallery 
 Ii lost itself. This pit, and the end of the gallery afterwards 
 incorporated into the crypt, were distinct from it when first 
 constructed. The chamber itself, therefore, must have been 
 of the restricted dimensions represented in the plans of the 
 third and fourth periods of excavation in pages 345, 349. 
 Cidncidmn P^, The chamber Pj has its entrance almost blocked up by the 
 staircase P, which has been already described, page 355. The 
 walls of the chamber are in a very ruinous state, and the loculi 
 broken. It is not easy to determine whether the arcosoliiun at 
 the end of it was made within a pre-existing recess, or whether 
 the brickwork and marble with which it has been adorned were 
 later additions ; but it is certain that before these portions 
 were added, with the inscription to Dasumia Quirica which 
 occupies the lunette, there was a simple lociihis^ closed with a 
 slab of marble, which these constructions afterwards covered. 
 Above the door was found in 1854 the inscription of the year 
 290 : — 
 
 VIBIV • FIMVS R • VII KA SEP 
 Die • nil • ET • MAX • COS. 
 
 Vihius Fimiis died {recessit) August 26th, when Diocletian for the fourth 
 time and Maximinus were Consuls. 
 
 p The cubiculum P„ is in a most ruinous state : the left wall 
 being quite broken away, and the left only sustained by 
 masonry, the plaster has nearly all fallen. From its position 
 this chamber appears to have been constructed about the same 
 time with the staircase P. The passage leading to it is sus- 
 tained by masonry. 
 
 The gallery Q has now been occupied by the staircase P, 
 but formerly formed a communication between the gallery S 
 and the crypt of S. Cecilia. The tombs formerly excavated 
 in its floor have been destroyed by the constructions which 
 support the staircase P ; but within one of these tombs, near 
 the entrance to Qi, were found two plumbata^ or leaden balls 
 covered with a shell of bronze, and each fastened to a bronze 
 chain. It is possible that these might have been weights for 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Callixtiis. 375 
 
 scales, but history records instances of even these weights 
 being used as implements of torture, and the burial of these 
 in the Christian's tomb certainly favours the supposition that 
 they had been the instruments of his martyrdom. The Avails 
 of this gallery are strengthened by masonry in order to sustain 
 the staircase P. On the left wall, among this masonry, may 
 be seen traces of a flight of broad steps in the tufa leading up Q 7''^- 
 to S. These steps must have been demolished before the 
 entrance to Q3 could have been made, otherwise it would not 
 have been of sufficient height to have admitted any one into 
 that chamber. The entrance to S was afterwards closed with 
 a wall when the staircase P was made, although the outline 
 of a door was traced on this wall, as if it had been at one time 
 contemplated to reopen that passage. 
 
 The plaster near the entrance to Q, is covered with graffiti, Cubiculnm Q . 
 most of them in Greek, and apparently belonging to the third 
 century. The chamber itself, together with the others in this 
 gallery, was cleared out in 1855. The right hand wall of it, cut 
 in the tufa, is now in ruins, but preserves the traces of rather 
 large loculi. Part of the left wall is in ruins, another part filled 
 with ancient masonry, and the remainder with the whole lower 
 end of the chamber is faced with a solid wall of stone and brick- 
 work, with four pieces of marble jutting out like brackets about 
 seven and a half feet from the ground. This brick-work forms 
 a solid arch, which fills half the roof of the chamber. The 
 other half is taken up by the lumiiiare, which together with 
 the passage R, giving access to this chamber when the substruc- Passage R. 
 tions of P had blocked up the original doorway, show that this 
 chamber was one of the important shrines of the Catacomb. 
 The graffiti and the inscriptions confirm this evidence. 
 
 On the opposite side of the gallery is another chamber 0//'/(7///////Q,. 
 with a barrel roof, the Itmiiiare in which formerly received light 
 from that of Qj but was blocked up by the building of the stair- 
 case P. Nevertheless, a window was opened over the door, in 
 order to compensate to some extent for this loss, and at the 
 same time the chamber was coated with plaster, which is con- 
 sequently not of so fine a kind as that of which some remains 
 are to be seen in Q^. The loculi are large, and those near the 
 ground are sunk below the floor. On the left side is an arcoso- 
 liuni, but its arch is of the same construction as the masonry 
 
376 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 at the door, so that its antiquity is not greater than that of the 
 staircase P. Some remarkable sarcophagi were found in this 
 chamber, as also in Q^. They are described in page 298. 
 
 CubicuhiniCl^, We liave seen that the entrance to Q3 was formed after the 
 demolition of the stairs 78, leading to S. At the end of this 
 chamber is seen a large af^cosoliiivi once covered with marble. 
 The parapet of this tomb is so high that it would have been 
 impossible to have used the mensa as an altar, if the priest had 
 stood on the present pavement. This is a proof of the floor 
 having been lowered ; in fact, we descend a step on entering it. 
 The inconvenient height of the 7ne?isa of the arcosoliiun was 
 remedied by a little step covered with a slab of giallo afitico 
 marble which now stands in front of the tomb. A small passage 
 in the left hand corner leads into another chamber, with a little 
 gallery stretching out of it, in which is an rnxosolhim, so arranged 
 as to avoid falling into which must have been in existence 
 before these appendices to Q. were made. 
 Q4. The chamber lias two arcosolia in its right hand wall, one 
 lined with marble, and the other with fine white ]jlaster. In 
 the left wall are loculi. A massive wall for the support of the 
 staircase fills up a considerable part of the chamber on the left, 
 and the roof is pierced by a large luviinare. 
 Gallery S. It appears from the marks of the pickaxes of the fossors in 
 the walls that the gallery S was first commenced at the end 
 where it was united to the gallery Q, although it is somewhat 
 higher than the level of that gallery, and corresponds to that 
 of the adjacent area, with which it was connected by the 
 passage b. (See plan on page 349.) On the plaster of the locidi 
 are graffiti in Greek, eg, THCCTPEEIC • MNHCGH ZHCH and 
 ATTIKEIANOC. Some of the loculi have been broken through 
 in order to make an entrance to which proves that the 
 gallery S existed previous to its being made the means of con- 
 
 Cuhicida necting the two crms. ThQcnbicula S^, S3, S^, are all constucted 
 '^35 with barrel roofs, and contain arcosolia. Immediately beneath 
 
 Cuhiculwii S the cross road is the entrance to the ciibiculum S^, of similar 
 construction, in the left wall of which only one lociilus appears, 
 evidently from a fear of weakening the rock beneath the stair- 
 case A, which must, therefore, have been in use when this 
 chamber was made. Opposite the entrance to Sg is the way 
 into another gallery, S^, leading into the labyrinth, clearly of 
 
Analysis of the Cemetery of St Callixtzis. 377 
 
 much later date than the gallery from which it branches oft'. 
 The cubicuhini S. is similar to the others along this gallery, 
 but its roof is damaged by a passage from the labyrinth having 
 broken into it. In a loculus on the left is the inscription 
 MOrClKiA still in its place. 
 
 The gallery T is a continuation of B3, and connects that Gallery T ' 
 passage with the arcnariuni. Its floor slopes continually to- 
 wards tlie level of the arcnariuni^ and its roof is cut in steps, 
 sinking as much as nine and a half feet in a very short space. 
 The galleries T, and T3, and others which branch off from it, 
 are narrow and low, as is also the chamber T., which contains 
 a large loculus a nicnsa. The loculi in U are large, and con- 1'. 
 tained several fine inscriptions in Greek and Latin, e.g., EICTEP- 
 KOPI ; KAI • NATAAEfiC ; AGATEMERIS • SPIRITVM • TVVM • 
 INTER • SANCTOS. and are branches of the arcna- 
 riuni., but contain a few loculi. Some of the loculi in the 
 gallery V are still intact, but most of them are destroyed, as V. 
 also in V^. leads into the arcnariuni., which is evidently V^^ 
 more ancient than this gallery which here opens into it. 
 
 The vast gallery of the arcnariuni, with its branches X^, X,, Arcnarium 
 X3, needs no description, and the secret passage X^, leading x^. 
 into it, has already been described, page 347. 
 
 The gallery Y, with its dependencies, is low and narrow, y. 
 and at the level of the galleries excavated above the earth 
 which filled up the main ambulacra. Three cubicula Y„ Y^, 
 Y3, are of the rudest description ; while Z is merely a continua- Z. 
 tion of the hypogcuni entered through B., and a portion of it 
 breaks into the roof of the chamber Q^. 
 
 The reader who has had patience to study this analysis will 
 easily perceive how fully it justifies the account of this area 
 given in the last chapter, and will be able to estimate the 
 magnitude of De Rossi's labours in thus analysing every por- 
 tion of this vast necropolis. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A (page 15). 
 
 The discovery of the tomb and body of St Hyacinth by Father 
 Marchi deserves to be told in detail, as showing how innocently 
 a false tradition may be created about the possession of such or 
 such a relic by any particular church. 
 
 On the evening of Good Friday, March 21, 1845, of the men Discovery of 
 employed in digging in the Catacombs, came to F. Marchi, in the^^'^^^ 5*^^^^!^ 
 Roman College, with a slip of paper in his hand, on which were jj^'^'k . 
 these words,—" DP. ill. Idus Septebr Yacinthus, martyr," — 
 which he said he had just copied from a stone that was still inclos- 
 ing a grave in a chapel of the Catacomb of St Hermes (or Sta. 
 Basilla, as it is sometimes called). This excited not a little surprise 
 in the learned Father, who knew from ancient calendars, martyr- 
 ologies, and other sources, that the two brothers, St Protus and 
 St Hyacinth, had suffered martyrdom together under the Emperor 
 Valerian, and that they had been buried in this Catacomb on the 
 I ith of September ; but he imagined that their bodies had been long 
 since removed to other churches. Arringhi* states that they were 
 translated from the church of San Salvatore, in Trastevere, to that 
 of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, under Clement VI H., in the year 
 1592. However, when Father Marchi visited the spot on Monday 
 morning, in company with a painter and an architect to draw 
 illustrations of the chapel, he satisfied himself that it was indeed 
 a grave that had never been opened ; he observed also that the 
 chamber in which it was, was only one of five chambers, all con- 
 nected together, receiving light from a very large lumiiiai'e^ and 
 having a double approach by staircases from two opposite sides, 
 just as he had before noticed in the principal churches in the 
 Catacombs of St Agnes, St Helen, and St Prastextatus. In a 
 
 '* Aninghi, ii. p. 235. 
 
Roma Sottem^anea. 
 
 of 
 
 word, the place had every arrangement necessary for accommo- 
 dating a large number of the faithful, just as one would expect at 
 the tombs of such famous saints as St Protus and St Hyacinth. 
 Moreover, turning over the heaps of earth which encumbered the 
 pavement, he found a fragment of marble, with the words, Sepul- 
 CHRUM Proti M(^?r/yr/>), and this placed it beyond a doubt that 
 here had certainly been the burial-place of those two glorious 
 martyrs, and that one of them still lay in his original tomb. 
 
 But because this discovery contradicted the popular belief and 
 the claims of the Church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, F. Marchi 
 rightly judged it advisable to proceed with unusual care and cir- 
 cumspection ; he therefore left the grave exactly as it was, and 
 spent the next three weeks in a diligent investigation of every 
 record he could discover which could throw light upon the history 
 of the two brothers ; paying frequent visits to the chapel, however, 
 in the meantime, accompanied by cardinals, bishops, prelates, and 
 others, whose devotion or curiosity led them to the spot. The 
 result of his historical researches was most satisfactory. He found 
 that about a century after their martyrdom, the chapel in which 
 they had been buried was so blocked up with earth, that Pope 
 Damasus was obliged to repair it, and that, according to his usual 
 habits, he took the opportunity at the same time of putting up an 
 epitaph of verses in their honour ; also that Pope Symmachus, in 
 the beginning of the sixth century, had again restored the chapel, 
 and that the bodies of the martyrs were still there at the end of the 
 seventh century. 
 
 The next trace of them belongs to the middle of the ninth cen- 
 tury, when it is recorded that Leo IV. placed under the high altar 
 of the church of SS. Ouattro Coronati, the heads of St Protus, 
 St Sebastian, Sta. Prassede, and others, together with the bodies 
 of fifty-seven martyrs, taken either from the cemeteries or from 
 other churches. Now, we know that Paschal I. had translated the 
 body of Sta. Prassede to the church dedicated to her honour, and 
 that Gregory IV. had translated that of St Sebastian to the basilica 
 now known by his name, but before that time called after St Peter 
 and St Paul, whose bodies, as we have seen, once found a temporary 
 resting-place there ; and although we do not know who had trans- 
 lated the body of St Protus, yet we are certain that it had been 
 done at some time prior to this, for Leo would never have removed 
 the head only, and left the rest of his body in the Catacombs, since 
 the motives assigned by his predecessors for removing the martyrs 
 bodies from the Catacombs at all was, " ne rejuancreiit neglectui^^ 
 that they should not remain exposed to neglect and irreverence in 
 the midst of such a chaos of ruins. Leo's act can only be ex- 
 
A ppendix. 
 
 plained by supposing that some church was already in possession 
 of the whole body, and that he did not choose to deprive them of 
 more than a part ; and this church can have been no other than 
 that already spoken of, the church of San Salvatore in Trastevere, 
 for from hence it was undoubtedly transferred to the church of the 
 Florentines at the close of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The reader will observe that there is no mention in this account 
 of Pope Leo's proceedings, of either the whole or part of the body 
 of St Hyacinth ; yet if this had been within his reach, it is impos- 
 sible that he should have overlooked it, when he went out of his 
 way so far as even to rob other churches, in order to enrich his own 
 with all the precious relics he could find. 
 
 How then could the Florentines assert that they had the bodies St Hyacinth's 
 of both the brothers? They were told so by the church of San ^'el'cs 
 Salvatore, where an inscription in the pavement under the high JjjJ^^ ^^g^^ 
 altar expressly said, " Sub hoc lapide fcquiesciint sanctorum cor- Protus. Why? 
 pora gloriosissimorum Pi'oti et Hyaciutlii'^ But this inscription was 
 not older than the fourteenth or fifteenth centur}-, and between this 
 and the eighth or ninth century there was abundance of time to 
 confound the memory of the original translation of the relics. 
 Moreover, there was in the same church another inscription, or 
 rather half of it,* half of the epitaph written by Pope Damasus, 
 and in this Hyacinthus was named as well as Protus, and every- 
 body knew that both had suffered together, and that they had been 
 buried in the same chapel, and that the body of St Hyacinth was 
 not to be heard of anywhere else. It was but natural, therefore, 
 that they should conclude that as they certainly had the body of 
 the one brother, so also they had that of the other. 
 
 But was not the mistake discovered when the relics were re- 
 moved to San Giovanni Christopher Castelletti, who has left 
 us an account of the translation, says that they dug beneath the 
 stone until they came to a large marble case ; that they opened 
 this, and found no entire bodies, for that other churches had been 
 enriched at various times with some portions of them ; but he adds 
 that there were a great many bones. There were legs, arms, ribs, 
 one jawbone with teeth, and several loose teeth. This account 
 exactly confirmed all that F. Marchi had been able to discover 
 from an examination of the history. Here is no mention of two 
 bodies. On the contrary, there is a conjectural explanation why 
 two bodies could not be found. Nor docs there appear to have 
 
 * The other half was, and is, in the church of the Qiiattro Coroliati ; and F. Marchi 
 conjectures that the inscription had been divided at llie same time as the body. There 
 seems no other way of accounting for ha'.f of it being in San Salvatore, and the other 
 half in the Quatlro Coronati. 
 
Roma Sotter7'a7iea. 
 
 Why they 
 were not 
 removed with 
 those of St 
 Protus. 
 
 Discovery of 
 relics of St 
 Hyacinth. 
 
 been any head at all, only a single jawbone and some loose 
 teeth, which might have been accidentally left when Leo IV. 
 separated the head of St Protus from its body. 
 
 Still the question remained, why did not those who originally 
 extracted the body of St Protus, extract also the body of St 
 Hyacinth ? But this, too, was soon answered, when F. Marchi 
 came on Saturday, the 19th of April, with the Pope's Sacristan 
 (an Augustinian bishop) and other dignitaries, and with two or 
 three of the excavators, to open the grave itself. One of the 
 restorations effected by Pope Damasus, or by Pope Symmachus, 
 had been an entirely new pavement, made of tufa and Roman 
 cement, which in that damp place, under the open lumiiiare^ had 
 become as hard as any stone. St Hyacinth's grave had been ex- 
 cavated in the very lowest tier of graves in the wall. Still the 
 whole of it had been above the level of the original pavement, but 
 now it was half above, and half below, the upper and more modern 
 pavement, so that it was not until some portion of this had been 
 broken, that the excavators were able to remove the marble slab, ■ 
 and expose the interior of the grave. Moreover, the crumbling, in- 
 secure nature of the soil was such, that it was manifest the whole 
 wall on that side would inevitably give way, now that its last stay 
 had been removed. And so it happened ; not immediately, in- 
 deed, but within a few days, so that the whole chapel is again a 
 mass of ruins ; and it was through a fear of this disaster that former 
 generations had left the grave undisturbed. 
 
 We must not omit to mention the interior of this grave, because 
 it brings to light two or three interesting features in the history of 
 the Catacombs, which we have not had a convenient opportunity 
 of mentioning elsewhere. At first sight it appeared to be full of 
 mud, and the uninitiated began to fear that after all their care they 
 were only to be rewarded with disappointment. F. Marchi, however, 
 soon explained to them, that where the rain-water came pouring 
 down a hnninare, it brought much of the soil of the Campagna 
 along with it ; but that though it penetrated the lower graves, and 
 filled them with mud, yet this only destroyed the unformed bones 
 of infants, not those of a full-grown man, such as St Hyacinth was. 
 He immediately began to divide the mud, therefore, with a piece of 
 cane, and soon brought to light the bones of a man ; only, instead 
 of being in their natural condition, they were partly burnt to a 
 cinder, and all had manifestly been subjected to the action of fire. 
 We cannot account for this, since the genuine Acts of the martyr- 
 dom are lost. 
 
 Lastly, when these bones were removed into broad daylight, and 
 were being examined by a professor of anatomy in the Pope's 
 
Appendix. 
 
 Palace, F. Marchi observed several gold threads, crossing and rc- 
 crossing one another, lying amid the earth and about the bones ; 
 and when these had been collected and submitted to a professor of 
 natural philosophy, he declared it certain that the body had been 
 wrapt up in some very precious material ; whether it was what we 
 call cloth of gold, or whether it had been stuff or silk embroidered 
 with gold, he could not say, as only these threads had survived. 
 This is a valuable confirmation of what we already knew, not only 
 from the testimony of Eusebius and others in individual historical 
 cases, but also from Bosio, Boldetti, and other collator atois, who 
 had observed the same phenomena in many graves of martyrs 
 which they had opened. Boldetti especially mentions one, in 
 which all the bones of the skeleton were perfect excepting a 
 broken skull, and the fragments of the cloth of gold only covered 
 this one spot of the whole body. The relics of St Hyacinth now 
 rest under one of the altars in the newly-restored basilica of St 
 Paul fiiori le niura. 
 
 Whilst these pages are passing through the press, another histori- Discovery of 
 cal monument of early Church history has been recovered ; and ^."oj'^^'" lii^^t^^- 
 although on this occasion we are not indebted to De Rossi for the Jj^^ j8(3y 
 discovery, yet we certainly are for its identification, and the most 
 interesting commentaries by which he has illustrated it. 
 
 In the month of August 1866, a tablet of the Acts of the Fratres 
 Arvales was discovered in the vineyard of Signor Ceccarelli, about 
 five miles from Rome, on the Via Portuensis ; the same place where 
 the first large discovery of monuments of this heathen sodality had 
 been made in the sixteenth century. Further examination brought 
 to light, in the same place, about thirty more considerable frag- 
 ments ; and it was shrewdly noticed by Henzen, the learned 
 Prussian antiquarian (under whose direction the excavations were 
 being made, at the joint expense of the court and the archaeological 
 societies of his country), that these fragments were not mixed 
 together promiscuously, but that a certain chronological order 
 might be observed in their arrangement ; thereby showing clearly 
 that they must have originally belonged to some building on the 
 very spot where they were now found. The walls to which they 
 had been attached had perished ; and large portions of the tabkts 
 themselves had been carried away ; but the fragments which 
 remained had lain for centuries precisely where they had fallen. 
 Several other fragments, however, were found on the top of the 
 hill ; and these were not arranged in any kind of order. More- 
 over, there were found amongst them fragments of Christian 
 epitaphs of the fourth century. This discovery was wholly un- 
 
Romct Sotterranea. 
 
 looked-for, as there had been no previous knowledge of the exist- 
 ence of a Catacomb in this neighbourhood. As the work of exca- 
 vation proceeded, small columns, bases, and capitals, were brought 
 to light, all of which seemed to indicate the same age and style of 
 architecture as we were already familiar with in the ruins of the 
 Hospital of Pammachius at Porto, and other monuments of the 
 fourth century. At last, a piece of marble was turned up, the frag- 
 ment of an architrave, bearing only three letters complete, STI, but 
 these of unquestionably Damasine character. The presence of a 
 Christian monument was now certain ; and by and bye the entrance 
 to a Catacomb was detected, and lastly the Catacomb itself. On 
 the staircase by which we descend to it, we find monograms, of the 
 form d in Fig. 27, represented in page 230; and in the first gallery 
 there is a painting of a Good Shepherd, quite of the usual kind, 
 excepting that on the dress there is a cnix gavimata (see Fig. 
 27, page 230), such as we see on the tunic of the fossor Diogenes, 
 belonging to the age of Damasus.* On the wall of a small ciibi- 
 cuhini is a much later painting, of our Blessed Lord sitting in the 
 midst of four saints, each holding a crown in the hand, and having 
 the name written at the side, just as in the case of St Cornelius 
 Llentihcation and Cyprian (Plate V.) The first of these names it is impossible 
 of Ccemeterhun now to decipher ; of the second, we can only see SCA . . . TRIS ; 
 Generoses ad ^^^^ ^^^^ others are plain, SCS + FAVSTINIANVS, SCS + RVFININ 
 Fhilippi. {Rufinianiis). De Rossi at once conjectured that the obliterated 
 name must have been of SIMPI,ICIVS, and that he had before him 
 some memorial of Saints Simplicius and Faustinus, who were 
 drowned in the Tiber in the persecution of Diocletian, and buried 
 in the cemetery of Generosa super Filippi^ or, as it is some- 
 what difi"erently expressed m the Acts,y;/,r^z lociun qui appellatiir 
 Sextmn Fhilippi via Portiiensi, and of their martN'red sister, St 
 Beatrice, who was afterwards buried near them. 
 
 The owners of the vineyard kindly made some excavations under 
 his directions, and soon brought to light ruined walls of a small 
 Christian oratory, once adorned with mosaics, and two or three 
 more fragments of the Damasine inscription, which gave VSTINO . 
 VIATRICI. This, of course, confirmed De Rossi's confidence in the 
 truth of his conjecture ; but the subject presented many and 
 unusual difficulties, which he has only now succeeded in clearing 
 up, in the first number of the Bullettino for this year. 
 
 We will state both the difficulties and their solution as briefly as 
 we can, for they are worth attending to, as illustrating various 
 points which have been often insisted upon in this volume. First, 
 how could a Christian cemetery have been excavated under the 
 
 * Iiiscr. Christ. _i. 594. 
 
A ppcndix. 
 
 385 
 
 very temple and grove of a heathen sodality in the days of Diocle- 
 tian ? and secondly, how can the position of this cemetery, so near 
 to Rome, be reconciled with the description of the cemetery of 
 Generosa given above, juxta Sextuin Philippi ; since we have the 
 testimony of Ethicus, a Christian writer of the fifth century, that 
 the farm called Sextiim Philippi (which he tells us was also called 
 prceditwi inissale) was seven or eight miles further down the river, 
 near the island now called Isola sacra ? 
 
 As to the first difficulty, it is well known to all who have studied S^ts.Simplicius, 
 the subject of the Fratres Arvales — so important in its bearing gg^jj-"" ^u^."^ 
 upon disputed questions of Roman chronology during the Imperial j-ied under de- 
 period— that when Marini published his great work upon them, all serted grove of 
 the fragments of their tablets which had been discovered ranged ^^Jj^^p^g^^^^ 
 between the reigns of the first emperors and that of Gordian, about 
 A.D. 238. Marini expressed an earnest hope that tablets of a later 
 date would one day be discovered, but that hope has never been 
 realised. De Rossi — observing that the last writer who mentions 
 these Fratres is Minucius Felix, a cotemporary of Gordian, and 
 the last magistrate who enumerates the title cf Priest of this 
 Pagan college among his dignities, belongs to the very same age, 
 — conjectured, with his usual sagacity, that the college must have 
 been either abolished or incorporated with some other, or, at 
 least, fallen into disrepute and neglect, about that time. This he 
 announced in a paper published in the Annali delV Istituto di 
 Corrispondenza Archeologica in 1858, and the recent discovery sin- 
 gularly confirms the statement, for the latest date which has been 
 found is of the year 225. There is nothing, therefore, strange or 
 improbable in the supposition that, at a time when entrance to the 
 usual Christian cemeteries was forbidden by the Emperor Diocle- 
 tian, a new place of burial should have been provided here where 
 the bodies of the martyrs Simplicius and Faustinus had been re- 
 covered from the Tiber. This account of the origin of this ceme- 
 tery is the more certain, because, although it is singularly perfect 
 (never having been disturbed apparently at any time, excepting for 
 the translation of the relics of the Saints by Pope Leo 11.''^), yet 
 not a single Christian epitaph has been found more ancient than 
 the days of Diocletian, nor any vestige of the more primitive signs 
 and symbols. On the other hand, the use of the monogram is 
 frequent, and there are several epitaphs with consular dates of the 
 age of Damasus. Moreover, it is important to observe that this 
 Catacomb is connected with an arenarium^ like those mentioned 
 in this volume at p. 332 ; and this we have pointed out (p. 88) as 
 
 * Lib. Pontif. in lot. He traiiblatcd them to the Church of St liibiatia. 
 
 2 B 
 
386 Rojua Sotteri'anca. 
 
 one of the characteristics of those parts of the Catacombs which 
 This discovery belong to the times of persecution. The numerous openings of 
 
 confi 
 
 rms our 
 
 this arenarmm on the side of the hill would have rendered the 
 
 History of the 
 
 Catacombs, secret construction of a small cemetery here a matter of no great 
 and the Acts difficulty, even in the days of Diocletian, and there is absolutely 
 tyrs^^^*^ reason to suppose that it was used extensively at any time. On 
 
 the contrary, it is but a small Catacomb even now, and seems to 
 have had one central shrine, as it were ; the tombs of the martyrs 
 that have been named. Over these, Pope Damasus raised a little 
 oratory or basilica, so arranged that through a window in the apse 
 the worshippers could look in upon the sacred graves. A small 
 gallery was also excavated, which would lead them directly from 
 the oratory to this aibicjiliim^ w^iilst the adjacent galleries w^ere 
 blocked up, as we have seen in the neighbourhood of the tomb of 
 St Eusebius (p. 168), to prevent the pilgrims from going astray 
 and losing the object of their pious search. For these saints were 
 once held in great veneration ; their festival was kept on the 29th 
 of July ; special lessons and prayers in their honour may be seen 
 in the office-books of Gelasius and St Gregory the Great ; and 
 their names even have a place in the Litanies in the most ancient 
 MSS. both of England and France.* 
 
 The second or topographical difficulty may be dismissed more 
 summarily. The Acts of Saints Simplicius and Faustinus, and the 
 inscription on the front of the old marble sarcophagus, which may 
 still be seen in the precincts of St Mary Major's, connect their 
 place of burial with some place known as Filippi^ or Sextum 
 PJiilippi ; and a geographer of the fifth century describes this spot 
 as being several miles farther down the river. A careful examina- 
 tion, however, of all the passages in which this place — deriving its 
 name from Philip — is mentioned, had already led Bosio to suspect 
 that the name belonged to a considerable tract of country, viz., 
 all the low land which stretches out towards the sea, beyond the 
 height on which this cemetery has been excavated, and which is the 
 last spur of Monte Verde and the whole range of hills on that side 
 of the Tiber. If we accept this simple explanation of the term, 
 there is no longer any inconsistency between the locality of the 
 cemetery just discovered and the descriptions of it in ancient 
 monuments. On the contrary, there is a special fitness in the 
 word used in one of those descriptions, which speaks of the ceme- 
 tery as being super Filippi. This is a subject, however, which 
 need not further be discussed in this note. But the discovery of 
 another Catacomb, agreeing so exactly in all its phenomena with 
 
 * Mabillon, Analecta, t ii. p. 670. Martene de Div. Off., p. 630. Morini de Poenit. in 
 App., p. 65. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 387 
 
 the general theory of their history, as laid down by De Rossi and 
 explained in these pages, was too important a fact to be altogether 
 omitted. 
 
 Note B (page 22). 
 
 The " Acts of the Martyrdom of St Cecilia," published by Bosio Two versions 
 
 of the Acts of 
 
 St Cecilia 
 
 in 1600, and republished by Laderchi in 1722, were taken from a 
 late MS. in the possession of her church in Trastevere. The Greek compared, 
 version of Metaphrastes was made from an older MS., of which 
 Latin copies also are extant ; and it will be worth while to set side 
 by side a passage of the Acts as it stands in each of these two 
 versions. The additions in the later MS. which we have italicised 
 are very significant. 
 
 Almachius the Prefect orders 
 Saint Cecilia to be brought be- 
 fore him. And he asked her, 
 What is your name ? She an- 
 swered, Cecilia, atnong men ; 
 bnt, what is imich jnore dis- 
 tingnished^ I am a Christian. 
 A. said. Of what condition are 
 
 Almachius ordered Cecilia to 
 be brought before him, and he 
 asked her. What is your name ? 
 She answered, Cecilia. 
 
 A. said. Of what condition are 
 you 1 
 
 C. answered, I am free, noble, 
 and of senatorial descent {clar- 
 issima). 
 
 A. said, I ask you about your 
 religion. 
 
 C. answered, Your question- 
 ing then took a very foolish be- 
 ginning, to expect two answers 
 to be included in one enquiry. 
 
 A. said, Whence have you so 
 great presumption in answer- 
 ing? 
 
 C. said, From a good con- 
 science, and a faith unfeigned. 
 
 A. said. Do you 
 what power I have ? 
 
 not know 
 
 you 
 
 C. answered, I am a Roman 
 citizen, distinguished, {ilhistris)* 
 and noble. 
 
 A. said, I ask you about your 
 religion, for we knovj that yoii 
 are noble by birth. 
 
 Saint Cecilia said, Your ques- 
 tioning took a very foolish exor- 
 dium, to expect two answers to 
 be included in one enquiry. 
 
 The Prefect A. said, Whence 
 have you so great presumption 
 in answering ? 
 
 Saint C. said, From a good 
 conscience, and a faith un- 
 feigned. 
 
 A. said, Do you not know 
 what power I have 
 
 * The vagueness of this word marks a later date than the exact specific words used 
 n the other version. 
 
388 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 C. said, You know not what 
 power you have ; for if you 
 question me about your power, 
 I will manifest it to you by 
 most true assertions. 
 
 A. said to her, Tell me what 
 you know. 
 
 C. said to him, The power of 
 man is as when a bladder, &c. 
 
 The Blessed C. said, And do 
 you not know whose spouse I 
 am ? 
 
 A. said, Whose? 
 
 Saint C. said, Of oitr Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 A. said, I know you to be the 
 wife of Valeriafi. 
 
 Saint C. said, O Prefect, you 
 know not yourself what power 
 you have ; for if you question 
 me about your power, 1 will 
 manifest it to you by most true 
 assertions. 
 
 A. the Prefect said to her. If 
 you know anything, tell me. / 
 shall be delighted to hear a dis- 
 course from your 7nouth. 
 
 Saint C. said. In proportion 
 as you are delighted, so shall 
 yoic be judged. Nevertheless, 
 listen. The power of man is as 
 when a bladder, t&c. 
 
 It is clear from the prologue to these Acts that their compiler 
 lived at a time subsequent to the triumph of Christianity ; yet it is 
 difficult to believe that he had not access to the genuine official 
 documents of the trial, or at least faithful copies of them, when he 
 wrote this detailed account of the examination, for in its older and 
 simpler form it has all the preciseness of the legal forms of a 
 criminal process. 
 
 Note C (page 68). 
 THE CHAIR OF ST PETER. 
 
 "The Chair of The term Cathedra Petri has, in the course of ages, gathered 
 
 found it so many associations of the supreme authority in the 
 a double sense. „ , t r-i i i i • i i ■ i j 
 
 Catholic Church, that we are apt to regard it solely m its moral and, 
 
 of course, most important signification, and to forget that within 
 the bronze seat supported by the colossal figures of the four Doctors 
 of the Church there is an ancient chair which Roman tradition as- 
 serts to have been actually used by the Apostle St Peter. Among 
 the Essays of the late Cardinal Wiseman is a learned and interest- 
 
A ppendix. 
 
 389 
 
 ing paper which exposes the absurdity of Lady Morgan's amusing 
 
 blunder in confusing this venerable relic with an ancient chair at 
 
 Venice, and so pretending that on the Chair of St Peter was to 
 
 be found the Mussulman formula. The Cardinal, however, was 
 
 obliged to be content with descriptions and drawings of the true 
 
 chair, which were two hundred years old, as the relic had never 
 
 been seen by man since Alexander VII. had placed it in its present The real Chair 
 
 position. Commendatore De Rossi has been more fortunate ; for, 1^^^*"^ 
 
 cently cx- 
 
 at the eighteen hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom of the pQsed. 
 Apostles, in 1867, Pope Pius IX. commanded this venerable relic 
 to be exposed for the veneration of the faithful, and full opportuni- 
 ties were given for a close and scientific examination of it from 
 every point of view. The illustration given here is carefully copied 
 
 from a photograph taken during the exposition of the Chair, and 
 will assist our readers in following the description of it which we 
 proceed to give. 
 
 I.— DESCRIPTION OF THE CHAIR. 
 
 . It is composed 
 
 The Chair has four solid legs composed of yellow oak, united by of two kinds 
 
 horizontal bars of the same material. In these legs are fixed the of wood. 
 
390 
 
 Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 iron rings which make the whole a sella gestatoria, such as that in 
 which the Sovereign Pontiff is now carried on state occasions, and 
 such as those which the Roman senators began to use in the time 
 of Claudius. The four oak legs were evidently once square, but 
 they are much eaten away by age, and have also had pieces cut 
 from them as relics. These time-worn portions have been 
 strengthened and rendered more ornamental by pieces of dark 
 acacia wood, which form the whole interior part of the chair, and 
 which appear to have hardly suffered at all from the same causes 
 which have so altered the appearance of the oak legs. The panels 
 of the front and sides, and the row of arches with the tympanum 
 above them, which forms the back, are also composed of this wood. 
 But the most remarkable circumstance about these two different 
 kinds of material is, that all the ivory ornaments which cover the 
 front and back of the chair are attached to the acacia portions 
 alone, and never to the parts composed of oak. Thus the oak 
 framework, with its rings, appears to be of quite a distinct antiquity 
 from that of the acacia portions with their ivory decorations. 
 Ornamented These ivory ornaments themselves, again, are of two distinct 
 riso^of Uvo^' k^^^s of workmanship. Those which cover the front panel of the 
 kinds. chair are square plates of ivory, disposed in three rows, six in a 
 
 row, and have the Labours of Hercules engraved upon them, with 
 thin lamiucE of gold let into the lines of the engraving. Some of 
 them are put on upside down, and their present use is evidently 
 not that for which they were originally intended. The other 
 ivories, on the contrary, fit exactly the portions of acacia which 
 they cover, with the architecture of which they correspond, and 
 they appear to have been made on purpose, and never to have 
 been used for ornamenting any other article. They consist of 
 bands of ivory, not engraved, but sculptured in relief, and represent 
 combats of beasts, centaurs, and men, and in the middle of the 
 horizontal bar of the tympanum is a figure of a crowned emperor, 
 holding in his right hand a sceptre which is broken, and in his 
 left a globe ; he has a moustache, but no beard, and De Rossi 
 conjectures he may be intended for Charlemagne or one of his 
 successors. Two angels, one on either side, offer him crowns, and 
 two others bear palms. The style of the carving and of the ara- 
 besques corresponds to the age of Charlemagne. The Labours of 
 Hercules are of a much more ancient date, but De Rossi does not 
 think them as old as the first century. 
 The tradition Before passing on to consider the historical notices of this vener- 
 of Its antiquity relic, it may be well to observe, that althoui^h a more accurate 
 arch^ol'oiical description of the Chair of St Peter than Cardinal Wiseman was 
 difficulties. able to obtain from the works of Torrigio and Febeo prevents our 
 
A ppeiidix. 
 
 39t 
 
 adopting his hypothesis that this was the ivory curule-chair of the 
 Consul Pudens, yet the most rigid criticism has nothing to object 
 against the traditional antiquity of the oak frame-work of this chair. 
 When the inner part of acacia was added, and adorned with bands 
 of ivory, the ancient ivories which cover the front appear to have 
 been put on, and it is not at all uncommon to meet with copies of 
 the gospels, reliquaries, and other valuable works of the early 
 medieval period, which are ornamented with ivories representing 
 subjects of Pagan mythology. At that time Paganism was dead 
 in Europe, and its treasures of art were transferred to innocent 
 and often to sacred uses ; but when the struggle between the in- 
 fant Church and the dominant power of heathen idolatry was still 
 raging, the Christians, as we have seen in our Chapter on Sculp- 
 ture, were extremely cautious in their admission of scenes of Pagan 
 mythology, and would not have been likely to allow them to remain 
 undefaced on so sacred an object as the Chair of St Peter. On 
 the other hand, all that the Cardinal urges as to the introduction 
 of the use of the sella gestatoria by the senators, precisely in the 
 reign of Claudius, is most valuable, as showing what was regarded 
 in those days as a special honour, and therefore one antecedently 
 probable to have been conferred by a convert of senatorial rank 
 upon the Chief Pastor of the Church, to whom, in the words of the 
 Liber Poiitijicalis, " the chair was delivered or committed by our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." * 
 
 2. — HISTORICAL NOTICES OF ST PETER'S CHAIR. 
 
 In order to prove satisfactorily from historical sources that the Calhcdr'a Pdn 
 relic now venerated as the Chair of St Peter was so regarded from "gj^gg" ^ ^ ^'^ 
 the earliest ages of the Roman Church, it will be necessary not 
 only to trace a chain of testimonies up to apostolic or quasi-apos- 
 tolic times to the cathedi'a Petri, but also to produce good evidence 
 that the expression cathedra or sedes Petri is to be understood not 
 merely in a metaphorical and moral, but also in a literal and 
 physical sense. For instance, when we read in the pages of Bcde + 
 that Ceadwalla, king of the West Saxons, converted by St Wilfrid, 
 went to Rome to be baptized, and died there A.D. 689, and that 
 Pope Sergius I. put up in St Peter's an epitaph which stated — 
 
 "King Ceadwalla, the powerful in war, for love of God left all, that he might visit 
 and see Peter and Peter's Chair, and humbly receive from his font the cleansing waters," 
 
 we might reasonably think that as "Peter" is put metaphorically 
 for his successor Pope Sergius, so " Peter's Chair" might not im- 
 
 * " Hic [Clemens] ex prajcepto Beati Petri suscepit Ecclesiam, et Pontificatuni gnber- 
 nandum, sicut ci fuciat a Domino Jcsu Christo cathedra tradita, vel conunlssa.'' — Lib. 
 Pont., c. iv. t H. E. v. 8. 
 
392 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 probably be a metaphorical expression for Rome, the seat of his 
 jurisdiction ; and hence we could not from such passages as this 
 conclude that any certain reference was intended to a visible 
 material chair, such as that of which we have given a description, 
 by Ennodius, Our first authority, then, shall be one who leaves us in no doubt 
 A.D. 500. upon this point. Ennodius of Pavia, who flourished at the end of 
 the fifth and beginning of the sixth centuries, introduces Rome as 
 rejoicing in having become Christian, and puts into her mouth the 
 following words : Ecce nunc ad gestatoriajn sellam apostoliccp coji- 
 fessionis nda mittiint limma candidates ; et nberibus^ gaudio ex- 
 actore^fletibus coUata Dei beneficio dona geniinantiirP * " See now 
 the dripping thresholds send forth the white-robed [neophytes] to 
 the sella gestatotda of the Apostle's Confession ; and amid floods 
 of joyous tears the gifts conferred by the kindness of God are 
 doubled," in the two sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. 
 In this passage Ennodius brings vividly before us the scene pre- 
 sented by the Baptistery of the Vatican, when the newly baptized, 
 with joyful emotion, passed at once from the font to receive Con- 
 firmation from the Bishop seated in the sella gestatoria, which 
 appears to have been then a conspicuous object at St Peters 
 shrine. 
 
 Inscription in This passage is illustrated by some lines from the Codex of Ver- 
 Baptistery. ^^^^ ^ fragment of the fourth or fifth century— 
 
 " Istic inso7ttes eeriest i Jliaiiine lotas 
 
 Pastoris Sicinmi dextera signal oves. 
 Hue ttndis generate veni quo Sanct^ts ad iinmn 
 SJ>i7-itus ut capias te sua dona vocat." 
 
 " In this place the right hand of the Chief Pastor seals the sheep who have been 
 washed in the heavenly stream. O thou who hast been born again in the waters, come 
 to that one place whither the Holy Ghost calls thee to receive His gifts." 
 
 The lines preceding these in the same Codex were written at the 
 entrance of the Baptistery — 
 
 " Sumite perpetiiaDt sancto de giirgite vitain 
 
 C70'S2is hie est Jldei, mors iibi sola perit. 
 Robo7'at hie aiiiinos divino fonte lavacrtnn, 
 
 F.t dum membra madent, me7is solidatur aqids. 
 Auxit apostolicce gemi}iatn77i sedis ho7torein 
 
 Christus et ad ccelos hunc dedit esse viai7i ; 
 Na77t C7ii siderei eo77i77tisit Ii77ii7ia regfii 
 
 Hie habet in te7nplis altera chuistra poll" 
 
 " From this sacred font draw everlasting life ; for this is the stream of faith in which 
 death alone is destroyed. Here the washing of the font of God gives strength to 
 souls, and while the limbs are moistened, the mind is made strong in the waters. Christ 
 has added double honour to the Chair of the Apostle, and given him to be the way to 
 heaven ; for he to whom He committed the portals of the kingdom above, has here in 
 the churches another gate of heaven." 
 
 * Apolog. pro Synodo, .t/?/^/ Sismond. 0pp. tom. i. p. 1647. 
 
A ppendix. 
 
 393 
 
 From these lines we gather that the Baptistery of the Vatican in 
 which they were inscribed, was " an honour doubled by Christ to 
 Peter, and to the Chair of the Apostle," and that there was in that 
 Baptistery a distinct place where the neophytes were sealed and 
 enriched with the gifts of the Holy Ghost by the hand of the 
 Supreme Pastor. Now, comparing this with the passage of En- 
 nodius, we perceive that the sedes apostolica is not mentioned only 
 in its moral, but also in its literal and material sense ; and that in 
 the fifth century at least there was solemnly preserved in the Bap- 
 tistery of the Vatican a sella gestatoria, upon which, or in front of 
 which, the Pope used to sit when he conferred the Sacrament of 
 Confirmation. 
 
 A remarkable testimony to the same fact is the evident allusion By St Dama- 
 to it in the inscription which St Damasus put up in this Baptis- fourth 
 tery which he had built — centmy, 
 
 " Una Petri sedes unum verumque lavacrum." 
 
 Again, in the inscription on the tomb of the immediate successor 
 of Damasus, we read that Pope Siricius — 
 
 " FONTE SACRO MAGNUS MERUIT SEDERE SACERDOS." * 
 
 Now, the usual place for the Bishop's throne was in the apse of 
 the basihca, and therefore if it is recorded that Siricius "was 
 counted worthy to sit as High Priest at the Sacred Font," it is 
 clear that " in the Sacred Font," i.e., in the Baptistery, was placed 
 the chair to which the Bishop of Rome owed his pre-eminent rank 
 as the Sacerdos Magnus, and, in fact, the magnificent Baptistery of 
 St Damasus is described by Prudentius as " the Apostolic Chair." 
 
 With these authorities to guide us, we read the epitaph of Cead- 
 walla in an entirely new light, and we cannot doubt that the 
 " Chair of Peter " which he is described as leaving home to see, 
 was none other than the famous sella gestatoria which the Saxon 
 king could not fail to visit when he received the sacrament of re- 
 generation in " Peter's Font." 
 
 Our next authority shall be St Optatus of Milevis, who published ^md St Op- 
 the first edition of his work against the Donatists during the ponti- 
 ficate of St Damasus, and the second during that of St Siricius. 
 The Donatists boasted of having in Rome a bishop of their sect. 
 Optatus opposed to them the line of Roman pontiffs from Peter to 
 Damasus, and to Siricius, "all occupiers," as he pointed out, " of 
 the same Chair ; " and proceeded — " In fact, if Macrobius " (the Don- 
 atist bishop) " be asked where he sits in Rome, can he say, In the 
 Chair of Peter?" (/// cathedi'a Petri) " which I am not aware that he 
 
 ~ Gruter Inscr. pp. 1163, 10, and 1171,- 16. 
 
394 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 has ever seen with his eyes, and to whose shrine he, as a schismatic, 
 has not approached." * The Chair, therefore, on which Damasus, 
 and afterwards Siricius, sat as pontiffs, was in the time of St 
 Optatus regarded not only morally, but materially, as the Chair 
 of St Peter, and was seen by the eyes of those who approached 
 ad Pet}' i vieiiioriani^ i.e., to his basilica on the Vatican. 
 
 Now, it is impossible that this Chair could have been so generally 
 regarded in the fourth century as having belonged to the Apostle 
 St Peter and his successors, unless there had been at the time an 
 ancient tradition to that effect. Before St Damasus placed it in the 
 Baptistery of the Vatican, it must have been preserved elsewhere, 
 perhaps in the very crypt of St Peter's Tomb, or in the Basilica 
 of Constantine. At any rate, before the Diocletian persecution, 
 and in the course of the third century, Catholics professed, in the 
 presence of heretics who did not attempt to deny it, the same tra- 
 dition which St Optatus opposed to the Donatists concerning the 
 Chair in which the successors of St Peter presided over the Church. 
 This comes out with striking clearness in the Poem against Marcion, 
 usually appended to the works of Tertullian, and which from in- 
 ternal evidence clearly belongs to the third century. Towards the 
 end of Book iii., this ancient author enumerates the Bishops of 
 Rome, and commences the list with these lines : — 
 
 " Hac cathedra, Petriis qiia sederat ipse., locatitm 
 Maxima Roma Liiiian prinucm cousiderc Jtissii." 
 
 " In this Chair In which Peter himself had sat, he ordained Linus first to sit with him 
 [as bishop] estabHshed in Great Rome." 
 
 These words certainly suggest the idea of a material chair, and 
 this literal sense becomes still more certain when we recall the 
 language of St Optatus and Ennodius. In fact, with the light 
 thrown upon the expression Cathedra Petri by the passages of 
 those authors, it is impossible to avoid observing, that in many of 
 the works of the early Fathers in which that expression occurs, its 
 force is immensely increased if we suppose them to have used it 
 with a full knowledge that the very chair of the Apostle was pre- 
 served in Rome as the visible witness to, and symbol of, the 
 St Cyprian. apostolic foundation of her line of Pontiffs. Thus, when St Cyprian 
 wrote of the Roman See being vacant by the martyrdom of St 
 Fabian, " ciun locus Fabiani, id est locus Pet?-i et gradits cathedrce 
 sacerdotalis vacaret,'^ t the force of the expression is greatly increased 
 if we understand him to have had in view the venerable chair, " in 
 which Peter himself had sat," and on which his successors, down 
 to St Fabian, were enthroned. 
 
 ^ St Optat. ad Parmeii. ii. 4. 
 
 t Epist. 59. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 395 
 
 The celebrated passage of Tertullian, De PrcBscript. c. 36, loses Tcrtullian. 
 all its significance if we regard him as ignorant of the existence of 
 this venerable relic. He invites all heretics to test their doctrines 
 by the living tradition of the Apostolic Churches : " Percurre eccle- 
 sias apostolicas, apiui qtias ipscs adhiic cathedrcE apostolo^'-iim suis 
 locis prcEside7it. . . . Si Italice adjaces^habes RouiainP "Go through 
 the Apostolic Churches, where the very chairs of the Apostles still 
 preside in their places. ... If you are near Italy, you have Rome." 
 The Church of Jerusalem preserved the ipsa cathedra of St James 
 Alexandria venerated the ipsa cathedra of St Mark ; f and Tertullian's 
 long residence in Rome must have familiarised him with the ipsa 
 cathedra " in which Peter himself had sat." 
 
 Another passage of the same work of Tertullian states : " Roman- 
 
 oruin [ecc/esia] Cleineiitem a Petro ordinatiim edit'' " The Church of 
 
 the Romans proclaims Clement to have been ordained by Peter." J 
 
 Yet the ancient catalogues place both Linus and Cletus before 
 
 Clement. At any rate, this passage of Tertullian shows the 
 
 antiquity of the account afterwards inserted in the Liber Poiiti- 
 
 ficalis, that Linus and Cletus had governed the Roman Church 
 
 while the Apostles were living, and that Clement had been ordained St Clement 
 
 by Peter himself as his successor, and had been enthroned by him oi"tlained by 
 
 St Peter. 
 
 in his own Chair. This tradition forms the subject of one of the 
 frescoes recently brought to light by Father Mullooly in the sub- 
 terranean Church of San Clemente. It is true that a full account 
 of it is found in the apocryphal Clementines, but it does not there- 
 fore follow that the whole story is fabulous, for these pages abound 
 in examples of valuable historical truths, having been buried under 
 a mass of doubtful and sometimes fictitious stories. 
 
 We have now traced up the testimonies to this celebrated relic, Summary of 
 from the fifth century to the age when men were living who had evidenee to the 
 conversed with the contemporaries of the Apostles themselves. Jji^'"j\^^^ 
 All this time it was regarded by Christians in various parts of the 
 world as the very pledge and symbol of apostolic succession and of 
 true dogmatic teaching. It was the object of a festival, celebrated 
 alike by St Ambrose at Milan and St Augustine in Africa ; and 
 the relic itself was deposited by St Damasus in the Basilica of the 
 Vatican, where it remained throughout the fifth and at the begin- 
 ing of the sixth century : and there is every probability that it is 
 directly alluded to in the epitaph of Ceadwalla at the close of the 
 seventh century. During the middle ages the mention of it becomes 
 merely incidental, principally in accounts of the enthronizations of 
 the Pope, and in liturgical books ; so that instead of this Chair of 
 St Peter havmg been an invention of the credulity of the barbarous 
 
 * Eiiseb. H. E. vii. 19, 32. t V^ales. in ibid. % c. 32. 
 
396 
 
 Roma Soiter7^anea. 
 
 ages, it barely maintained during those ages the veneration paid to 
 it from apostohc times, and was never adduced, as in eariier days, 
 as an important weapon for the confusion of heretics. We learn 
 from incidental notices, that every year, on the 22d of February, it 
 used to be solemnly carried to the High Altar of St Peter's, and 
 that the Pope was then seated in it. The historians of the Vatican 
 relate, that it was translated from one chapel of the Basilica to 
 another, until Alexander VII., two centuries ago, enclosed it in 
 the bronze monument, where it remained concealed from the eyes 
 of all until the summer of 1867. It is impossible, or, to say the 
 least, in the highest degree improbable, that a new chair could have 
 been surreptitiously substituted for that mentioned by Ennodius, 
 and placed by St Damasus in the Vatican Baptistery. The sella 
 gestatoria exposed for veneration in 1867 corresponds exactly with 
 Ennodius' description, for the rings which render it gestatoria are 
 fixed in a portion clearly distinguishable from the more modern 
 additions to the Chair; wherefore we conclude that from a historical 
 and archaeological point of view, we are justified in regarding as 
 true the venerable title which a living tradition has never failed to 
 give to the Chair of St Peter. 
 
 3, — ANOTHER CHAIR OF ST PETER IN THE CEMETERY 
 OF OSTRIANUS. 
 
 Where was the It is by no means clear that "the oil from the chair in which 
 Chair of St Peter the Apostle was first enthroned" was taken by the Abbot 
 came the^j/m J^^^^ irovcv the Vatican, where undoubtedly the venerable relic 
 at Monza. which we have described was to be seen in the days of St Gregory 
 the Great. On the contrary, it appears among olea taken from 
 various shrines on the Via Salaria Nova, and the care with which 
 the index of the oils at Monza is grouped on the papyrus MS. 
 makes us hesitate long before admitting that a mistake has been 
 made in this instance. Between the Via Salaria Nova and the 
 Via Nomentana there was a lane, beside which v\^as situated a 
 crypt, where, according to Bede, the bodies of the martyrs Papias 
 and Maurus, who had been baptized in prison by Pope Marcellus, 
 were buried, and the place was called " Ad Nymphas B. Petri^ ubi 
 baptizabat^^ or, as we read in the Mbmbilia Urbis RomcE, "the 
 cemetery of the Font of Peter." Now, since all the other olea of 
 the Abbot John are noted down in the precise order in which he 
 must have collected them as he passed from one shrine to another, 
 we cannot avoid the conclusion that when he stopped to collect the 
 olea at "the Font of Peter" on his way from the Via Salaria to the 
 Via Nomentana, there must have been at that cemetery a Chair which 
 was venerated as the ^''sedes ubiprius sedit Petriis ApostolusP The 
 
Appendix. 
 
 397 
 
 HieronymianMartyrology marks January i8 as Dedicatio cathedrce 
 S. Petri apostoli^ qua primtun Romce seditP This same day is 
 marked as the Feast of St Peter's Chair at Rome in the martyrolo- 
 gies of Ado and Bede, and in other ancient records, and it is never 
 said ubi primus or prior ^ but always the adverb pritis or priiniun^ 
 so that the reference is evidently not to the line of Roman Pontiffs 
 of whom he was the first, but to some other chair in which he after- 
 wards sat. All ancient authors record two journeys of the Apostle 
 to Rome, one in the time of Claudius, and another in the reign of 
 Nero; and these two journeys afford an easy explanation of his 
 having had two well-remembered places of abode, and two chairs 
 treasured up with affection and veneration by his children in the 
 gospel. The antiquity of the cemetery of Ostrianus has been 
 shown already,* and the description of one of its crypts by Bosio 
 reads, as De Rossi observes, extremely like an account of the very 
 spot in which this chair was venerated. But all trace of the chair 
 itself has disappeared, and no legend, or even fable, is left to per- 
 petuate its memory. The supposition of its existence is only 
 offered as the simplest way of accounting for many strange associa- 
 tions which seem to have hung about this crypt, which, though 
 insignificant in size, was yet styled coemeterium majus ; and of 
 unravelling the otherwise inextricable confusion in which the 
 history of the two Feasts of St Peter's Chair is involved. 
 
 4.— THE TWO FEASTS OF ST PETER'S CHAIR. 
 
 The establishment of the Roman Church by St Peter as the Feast of 
 perpetual seat of his divinely-received primacy was never disputed January i 
 until the sixteenth century; when the straits to which the clear 
 teaching of Holy Scripture and the Fathers reduced Protestant 
 controversialists, impelled some of the more unscrupulous of them 
 boldly to assert that St Peter was never at Rome at all, that he 
 never made it the seat of his apostolic jurisdiction, and never 
 watered with his blood the foundations of that long line of Pontiffs 
 whose history is the history of Christianity. " It was," says the 
 Abbe Gueranger, " in order to nullify, by the authority of the 
 Liturgy, this strange pretension of Protestants, that Pope Paul IV., 
 in 1558, restored the ancient Feast of St Peter's Chair at Rome, and 
 hxed it on the i8th of January. For many centuries the Church Feast of 
 had not solemnised the mystery of the pontificate of the Prince of February 
 the Apostles on any distinct feast, but had made the single feast of 
 February 22 serve for both the Chair at Antioch and the Chair at 
 Rome. From that time forward the 22d of February has been kept 
 for the Chair at Antioch^ which was the first occupied by the 
 
 Pp. 67, 68. 
 
Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 Apostle." * And in fact all the martyrologies from the eighth 
 century downwards mark that day as " cathedra Petri in Antiochia^'' 
 or ''''apiid Aiitiochiam^' or qua sedit apiid A7itiochiamr De Rossi, 
 however, observes that ancient documents anterior to the eighth 
 century make no allusion to Antioch in connexion with the feast of 
 February 22. Thus the Gregorian Liturgy simply marks that 
 day as " cathedra S. Petri^'' f and in one MS. of that book it is ex- 
 pressly added in Roma. In the times of St Leo the Great this day 
 was celebrated in the Vatican Basilica with a large concourse of 
 bishops, and was called '''' dies Apostoli while in the Bucherian 
 Calendar, which marks the greater feasts of the Roman Church 
 restored after the Diocletian persecution, we find it noted as " natale 
 Petri de cathedra.^'' The sermon attributed to St Augustine on this 
 festival makes no mention of Antioch, but states : " The institution 
 of to-day's solemnity received from our forefathers the name of the 
 Chair {cathedra:), because Peter, the first of the Apostles, is said to 
 have received on this day the chair of the episcopate. Rightly, 
 therefore, do the Churches venerate the feast of that see (sedis) 
 which the apostle undertook for the salvation of the Churches." + 
 St Ambrose in his sermon for this feast merely expounds the 
 gospel, without any allusion to the special object of the festival. 
 Ptolemceus Silvius in the fifth century registers the Feast of St 
 Peter as on the 22d of February ; and the Gothic-Gallican sacra- 
 mentary assigns to the same day a Mass, the collect of which 
 begins : " O God, who on this day didst give blessed Peter to be 
 after Thyself the head of the Church," &c. § The same Mass 
 however, in the later edition of this sacramentary, reformed in the 
 eighth century, was transferred to the i8th of January. || 
 February 22, We gather from these authorities that an ancient tradition ex- 
 
 St Peters isted in the Church that the famous words, " Thou art Peter, and 
 1 rimacv. 
 
 upon this rock," &c., were addressed by our Lord to his chief 
 Apostle in the month of February, and that the 22d of that month 
 was especially dedicated to the celebration of the institution of the 
 primacy of St Peter, and that in Rome this festival was made still 
 more marked by the solemn enthronisation of the supreme Pontiff 
 in the very Chair which the Apostle himself had once used. This 
 is confirmed by the words of the Gothic Liturgy, which declare : 
 " God committed the keys of heaven to a man compacted of the 
 earth . . . and set on high the throne of the supreme See. The 
 
 * Littcrgical Year. Christmas, vol ii- p. 331. Jan. 18. Duffy, 1868. 
 I S. Greg. Magn. Opp. iii. p. 312, ed. Maur. 
 X S. Aug., Serm. 15, De Sanctis. 
 
 § Mabillon, Liticrgia Gallicaiia, p. 226. '' Deus qui hodierna die beatum Petrum 
 post te dedisti caput ecclesiae, cum te ille vere confessus sit et a te digne praelatus 
 sit," &c. II Ibid., p. 121. 
 
Appendix. 
 
 399 
 
 episcopal Chair of blessed Peter, this da}^ exposed, [for veneration] 
 is the witness." * It is equally clear that there is no mention of 
 Antioch, as connected with this feast, until the eighth century. ^ Two 
 difficulties, however, remain to be cleared up, viz., How did the 
 dea of Antioch become connected with the feast of February 22 ? 
 and also, How did the Feast of St Peter's Chair in Rome, on the 
 18th of January, find its way into the martyrologies of the eighth 
 and ninth centuries 1 
 
 The latter question appears to be satisfactorily answered by the January 18, his 
 supposition of the Chair, which, we have shown, w^as venerated at ^omingto 
 the cemetery of Ostrianus. This Chair did not, indeed, like that 
 in the Vatican, symbolise St Peter's primacy, but it did symbolise 
 his first coming to Rome, whatever may have determined the 
 particular day on which that chair was venerated. The other 
 C|uestion it is impossible to determine with any certainty, but the 
 suggestion of De Rossi commends itself as probable, viz., that the 
 copyists of the ancient Roman Calendar, finding the i8th of January 
 marked as cathedra S. Petri qua prinmm Romcn sedit^'' and not 
 understanding why another Feast of St Peter s Chair at Rome 
 should be kept on February 22, inserted the words " apiid A ntiochiam " 
 in order to explain the anomaly. The Feast of St Tecla, with the 
 title (di discipula Pauli Apostoli, who went to Antioch in Pisidia to 
 hear St Paul, and a certain St Gallus, a martyr of Antioch, being 
 celebrated on the same day, may have led to the insertion of the 
 word which has perplexed so many antiquarians, and which re- 
 ceives no explanation from any records of the Church of Antioch 
 which have come down to us.t 
 
 Note D (page 102), 
 
 The treatise of St Augustine, De Curd p?'o Martins Gerciidd^\\7\.s St Augustine 
 written about a.d. 421. St Paulinus of Nola had written to him, henefit^ 
 saying that a certain widow had pressed him to allow her son ^^^^^ ^jj^ ^ 
 Cynegius to be buried in the Church of St Felix ; and that he had Saints, 
 consented to her petition, thinking that these desires of pious souls 
 could not be altogether foolish {iion esse inaiies motus animoriivi 
 7'eligiosoriini et Jideliuiii pro s?/is ista ctirantiiivi) ; that it was, in 
 fact, one mode of asking for the help of the saints, 6l:c. He asks, 
 
 * Mabillon, 1. c, p. 298. 
 
 t Mr Wright has lately published a valuable Syriac martyrology of the fourth century, 
 from a MS. of the year 412, in which the martyrdom "in the city of Rome, of Paul the 
 Apostle, and of Simon Peter, the Prince of the Apostles," is commemorated on the 28th of 
 December (Journal of Sacred L Herat ii7\' and Biblical Records for January i866). 
 St Gregory of Nyssa and St Sophronius of Jerusalem assign the same date to the festival 
 of the two Apostles. 
 
400 
 
 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 however, for the opinion of St Austin — Does it profit a man's soul 
 that his body should be buried after death near to the shrine of 
 some saint ? [apud sancti alicujus ineinoriain.) 
 
 St Austin answers, first, that there are many whom it does not 
 profit at all, viz., those whose lives were so good that they need 
 no such help, and those who were so bad that they cannot be 
 benefited by it. Next, he quotes 2 Macch. xii. 43, and adds, that 
 even if this had not been written in the Old Scriptures, the author- 
 ity of the Church would have been of no small weight in this 
 matter, which always provides that the recommendation of the 
 faithful departed should have its place among the prayers which 
 the priest pours forth to God at His altar. Then he enters into 
 ratio7iale of the thing, and says, quoting St Matt. x. 28-30, that 
 even the absence of any burial at all cannot bring any real loss to 
 the soul ; that all that concerns a funeral is more for the consolation 
 of the survivors than the good of the deceased ; nevertheless, that 
 it is a part of religion to respect the bodies of the dead, which have 
 been the instruments and temples of the Holy Ghost ; and that if 
 it be an act of religion to bury the dead, the choice of a place for 
 the burial can. hardly be altogether indifferent. He conceives the 
 benefit of being buried near the shrine of a saint to be this : that, 
 when we call to mind the place of our friends' burial, we may com- 
 mend them to the saints near whom they lie, that being received 
 by them as by patrons, they may be helped by their prayers with 
 God ; but without those prayers of ours he does not think the 
 place would be of much use. {Adjiivat defuncti spiritum^ non 
 mortiii corporis loais, sed ex loci memorid viviis \i7iatris\ a pectus.) 
 The Church prays for all who have died in the communion of the 
 Catholic Church, under a general commemoration, without any 
 mention of names, that those who have no children or parents, 
 friends or relatives, to perform this work of piety in their behalf, 
 may receive it at the hands of the Church as the common mother 
 of us all. 
 
 " How the martyrs help men is a question," he says, " which 
 passes the powers of my understanding. Nevertheless, that they 
 do so is certain. Whether they themselves are present by virtue 
 of their own power at one and the same time in so many differ- 
 ent and distant places, either at their shrines, or wherever else 
 they are felt to be present ; or whether they remain in a place 
 suited to their deserts, far removed from all converse with mortal 
 things, yet praying in general for all the needs of their petitioners 
 (just as we pray for the dead, to whom nevertheless we are not 
 present, and we neither know where they are nor what they do), 
 and Almighty God, who is everywhere present, neither confounded 
 
A ppendix. 
 
 401 
 
 and made one with us, nor yet 'removed to a distance from us, 
 hearing their prayers, gives these consolations to those to whom 
 He thinks it right to bestow them amid the miseries of this life, 
 by means of the ministry of angels everywhere dispersed,. and thus, 
 by His wonderful and ineffable power and goodness, commends 
 the merits of His martyrs wherever He pleases, when He pleases, 
 and as He pleases, but especially by means of their shrines, be- 
 cause He knows it to be expedient to us for the building up of our 
 faith in Christ, for confessing Whom they have suffered — This is 
 a matter higher than I can reach, more abstruse than I can pene- 
 trate ; and therefore I dare not define which of these two it is, or 
 whether both perchance may be true, viz., that these things some- 
 times happen by means of the very presence of the martyrs them- 
 selves, sometimes by means of angels assuming their persons, I 
 would rather inquire of those who know ; for some one perhaps 
 may know, though not he who seems to himself to know and is 
 really ignorant ; for they are the gifts of God, who gives some 
 things to some men, and others to others, according to the testi- 
 mony of the apostle (i Cor. xii. 7-1 1)." 
 
 After this full and explicit discussion of the question by the great 
 Doctor of the West, it is hardly necessary to quote any other 
 witnesses. The reader, however, who desires it, will find similar 
 testimony in St Ambrose's sermon on the death of his brother, and 
 in his epitaph upon him ; in a sermon of St Maximus of Turin 
 (Hom. Ixxxi.) ; and in several epitaphs collected by Le Blant, 
 Inscriptions Chi'eticnnes de la Ganle, &c., tom. i. pp. 396, 471 ; 
 ii. p. 219. 
 
 Note E (page 184). 
 
 The Libc? Pontijicalis attributes to St P^clix, Pope about the Mass said o\ 
 year 270, the institution of the law that Mass should be celebrated ^'^^ ''^^^^^ 
 on the sepulchres of the martyrs. Baronius, however, and others from the ea^,- 
 are of opinion that the practice had been universal and long estab- liest ages, 
 lished, before there was any legislation on the subject. The testi- 
 mony of the fourth and fifth centuries is very explicit and abund- 
 ant as to the practice of those days. St Ambrose speaks of the 
 martyrs Gervasius and Protasius in this way. He says that he 
 had intended to be buried there (under the altar) himself, because 
 it seemed to him fitting that the priest should rest where he was 
 wont to offer the holy sacriiice whilst alive ; but that he yields the 
 place to the martyrs to whom it is due, for that those triumphant 
 victims ought to be where Christ is the victim {ubi Christits hostia 
 
402 
 
 Rom a Sot terra nea. 
 
 or on altars 
 near their 
 graves. 
 
 est}\ only He who died for all lies upoi the altan they who were 
 redeemed by His passion lie below it;* in which last words he 
 seems to intend a reference to the language of the Book of the Apo- 
 calypse, VI. 9-1 1. That which St Ambrose testifies about Milan, 
 Prudentius testifies about Spain ; the sepulchres of St Eulalia at 
 Barcelona, and of St Vincent at Valenza ; also, as we have seen, 
 of St Hippolytus in Rome.f St Jerome J also, about the tombs of 
 Saints Peter and Paul, in the same city ; and he appeals at the same 
 time to the practice of all the bishops throughout the world. 
 
 We need not suppose, however, that the altar was always imme- 
 diately over the grave, though doubtless this was the more usual 
 practice. Prudentius speaks as though, in the case of St Hippoly- 
 tus, the altar was only near his tomb (" Propter ubi apposita est ara 
 dicata Deo ") ; and both Bosio and Boldetti seem to have found in- 
 stances in which the altar was placed in the middle of the cham- 
 ber, not on a tomb in the walls, just as w e have seen that it was, at 
 one period, in the Papal crypt. 
 
 Neither were the niensce of these altar-tombs always fixed and 
 immovable. On the contrary, in three or four instances they have 
 been found with massive bronze rings inserted in them, by which 
 they could be lifted off", and a sight of the martyr's relics obtained.§ 
 St Martin of Tours is said to have been the first saint, not a mar- 
 tyr, whose tomb became an altar.il When altars were multiplied 
 in churches, it was a rule universally observed that the altar must 
 contain some relics, and there still remain many indications of the 
 ancient practice in the prayers and ceremonies of the Liturgy. 
 The prayer in the mass immediately after the Co7ifiteor, when first 
 
 practice in the priest goes Up to the altar, contains these words : " We beseech 
 
 ])resent Ordo , , ^. ^ , . , ,. ^ •■, ll 
 
 Misscc ^ ^^^^ ^^^^ merits of the samts whose relics are here — Oramus 
 
 te per merita sanctorum quorum reliquicE hie sunt'' — and the priest 
 kisses the altar. Moreover, the little recess in the altar-stone, in 
 Avhich these relics are placed, is called the sepukrum, in manifest 
 allusion, as it would appear, to the ancient practice of which we 
 have been speaking ; and the act of depositing the relics in this 
 sepulcruui is so essential a part of the consecration of an altar, 
 that should they by any accident be removed or lost, it is not 
 sufficient to replace them by others, — the whole altar must be con- 
 secrated afresh. 
 
 and in the con- The details of the prayers and ceremonies appointed for the con- 
 secration of an secration of an altar, and especially for this portion of it, recall in 
 the most striking manner the burial of the saints and martyrs of 
 
 Traces of this 
 
 alt 
 
 * Epist. xxii. 15. + Peiisteph. Hymni III. V. 
 
 \ Adv. Vigilant. § Rom. Sott. i. 169, 285. 
 
 II Grcppo. Dissertations sur I'Histoirc du Culte des Reliques, p. 16. 
 
A ppeiidix. 
 
 403 
 
 old. The bodies of the dead were often carried to the cemetery 
 in which they were to be deposited on the eve before the day of 
 burial ; and so, in like manner, the relics about to be placed in the 
 sepulcrum of an altar are brought to the church on the previous 
 evening, in some vessel prepared and blest for the purpose. Three 
 grains of incense are enclosed in the same vessel with them, like 
 the spices and perfumes with which the bodies of the saints were 
 so frequently buried ; and ecclesiastics keep watch before them all 
 night, reciting the office of the saint whose relics they are. Then, 
 in the office of Consecration the next day, these relics are carried in 
 solemn procession, and among the hymns and prayers used on the 
 occasion, the vision of St John, already referred to (Apoc. vi. 10), 
 holds a conspicuous place. Finally, the consecrating bishop closes 
 the sepulchre, and secures it with mortar, m the very same way 
 in which the fossors formerly closed tombs in the Catacombs. 
 The rappi-ochenient between these two functions cannot be acci- 
 dental. It is clearly the result of an unbroken tradition. It 
 prevails in the Greek Church as well as the Roman. 
 
 It has been pretended by some writers that the doctrine of the Doctrine of the 
 Church underwent some change when the arcosolia, or tombs of Christian sacn- 
 the martyrs, became also altars for the celebration of the Holy of St^H^ippoly- 
 Eucharist. It has even been recently asserted that none of the tus, &c. 
 Fathers before St Cyprian knew anything of a sacrifice in which, 
 or an altar on which, the Body of Christ was offered. Dr Bollin- 
 ger, however, has shown in his commentary on the Philosophu- 
 mena, that St Hippolytus, who lived before St Cyprian, clearly 
 taught this , same doctrine, and that the same may be said also of 
 many Greek Fathers who lived immediately after St Cyprian, and 
 who certainly did not borrow their doctrine from the Latin writings of 
 the Bishop of Carthage. The earlier Greek Fathers, indeed, avoided 
 the expressions which were in use as designating Pagan altars. 
 They either spoke of " the holy table," or they used the word that 
 had been introduced to designate the Jewish altar, which also was 
 quite unknown to the Greeks. They did not use Bw/^os or iaxapoL, Names used 
 but dvcnacTTrjpLov. It is not till a constitution of the Emperors 
 Theodosius II, and Valentinian in the fifth century, that the first of 
 these words is used in speaking of a Christian altar. The Chris- 
 tians of the Latin Church, on the contrary, had no hesitation in 
 designating their altars by the names a7-a and altai'e, though they 
 had been hitherto used in a Pagan sense. In fact, the expression, 
 " holy table," would have conveyed the same meaning to the Latin- 
 speaking heathens as the word aia. When the Christians were 
 reproached by the heathens for having no temples or altars like 
 other religions and nations, they admitted the charge in the sense 
 
 for the aha 
 
404 
 
 Roma Sottcrranea. 
 
 in which the heathens used those terms, and with good reason. 
 Nevertheless, Origen speaks of the altars to be met with in Chris- 
 tian Churches ; and although Caecilius, in Minucius Felix, speaks 
 of Christians having no public altars visible to the Pagans, yet St 
 Cyprian gives the Pagan Demetrius clearly to understand that 
 they had their altars in secret. Compare also the language of St 
 Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews (xiii. lo), " We have an altar 
 whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle." 
 
 Note F (page 310). 
 
 Origin of the The oldest writers confess that pallium had been in use from 
 Pallnim. time immemorial, and that its origin was lost in antiquity. The 
 most natural and probable account of it, however, is certainly that 
 to which reference is made in the text, and which is supported with 
 great skill and learning in the treatise, De Pallii Origifie, pub- 
 lished in Rome in 1856 by Monsignore Vespasiani. 
 
 He observes that the scholars of the most famous heathen philo- 
 sophers used to adopt the dress, as well as the principles, of their 
 masters, and that the handing on of the mantle, or upper garment 
 of the master served to designate his legitimate successor. It may 
 easily be shown that among the early Christians also, a certain 
 religious meaning and value was attached to the wearing tl^ie 
 mantle of any great saint or doctor, as though a more intimate 
 and immediate communion were thereby established with the origi- 
 nal owner of the mantle. Thus, the great St Athanasius gave his 
 to St Antony ; and when St Paul, the hermit of Egypt, prayed St 
 Antony to bring it to his cell, and to wrap his body in it for 
 burial, St Antony took the hermit's mantle from off his shoulders, 
 and ever afterwards wore it on all great occasions of solemnity. 
 When St Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, was habited in the 
 episcopal vestments, we read that " they reverently put on him the 
 venerable cloak of St James, the brother of our Lord, which had 
 lately been brought from Jerusalem, and which Ignatius received 
 with the same respect and veneration as though he had recog- 
 nised in it its former apostolic owner." 
 
 But other examples are still more important as involving the 
 principle of succession to office by him to whom the mantle was 
 transferred. Thus, we read that Metrophanes, who occupied the 
 see of Byzantium in the time of Constantine, took off his pallium, 
 and laid it on the altar, charging that it should be preserved and 
 delivered to his successor. And still more distinctly, Liberatus 
 the Deacon, in his history of the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies,, 
 
A ppendix. 
 
 405 
 
 testifies as an essential part of the ceremony of consecrating and 
 enthroning the Patriarchs of Alexandria. "It is the custom at 
 Alexandria,'' he says, " for him who succeeds to the deceased 
 bishop, to keep a vigil by the corpse of the deceased, to lay the 
 dead man's head upon his own head, and then, having buried him 
 with his own hands, to take thepailiuni of St Mark and to place it 
 on his own neck, after which he is held legitimately to occupy his 
 place." Thus, the pallhini^ or mantle of St Mark, was religiously 
 handed on from one of his successors to another in the see of Alex- 
 andria, and its possession was accounted an important token of 
 the legitimate possession of that dignity and office. 
 
 The origin of the Roman pallium seems to have been precisely 
 the same. The oldest writers agree in referring its first use to the 
 immediate successor of St Peter, and say that it implied the pos- 
 session of plenary jurisdiction, /.t'., of succession to the jurisdic- 
 tion enjoyed by St Peter. Moreover, it has always been described, 
 and is still described, as pallium de corpora S. Petri. It is always 
 blessed on the feast of his martyrdom, — the very day, that is, on 
 which its first transfer was made, if not materially, yet morally, — 
 and, when blest, it is laid upon the apostle's tomb.* 
 
 It is always assumed by each successive Pontiff at the altar 
 above that tomb, and used to be delivered to archbishops or their 
 procurators only at the same place. When it was conferred upon 
 any one, it was always given as to a person holding the place of 
 the Pope for the time being, acting as his deputy and representa- 
 tive within certain limits. Thus, Pope Vigilius sends it to Auxan- 
 ius, holding the see of Aries, as a fitting ornament to one "acting 
 in our stead^ Pelagius sends it to another occupant of the same 
 see, as " our vicar." St Gregory the Great sends it to many, but 
 the same condition is always implied, and generally expressed. 
 
 This sculpture, then, of Elias giving his mantle to Eliseus, seems 
 really to typify, if it does not sometimes directly represent, our 
 Lord giving His commission to St Peter, and St Peter, not deem- 
 ing himself w-orthy to receive it, holds forth his hands under the 
 cover of his cloak, just as it has been mentioned in the text that he 
 is always represented as receiving the Book of the Law from cur 
 Blessed Lord with the same outward token of reverence. 
 
 This note has been abridged from an article contributed by the 
 writer, to the Rambler of July 1856. 
 
 * It used to be laid upon his Chair, until tliat relic was inclosed in bronze, and ele- 
 vated to the position described in Note C. 
 
4o6 
 
 RoDia Sotterra7iea. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE ATLAS OR LARGE MAP, 
 AND PARTICULARLY OF AREA V. 
 
 The following notes upon some other portions of the cemetery of St Cal- 
 lixtus may be added to the short explanations given in the Atlas itself, as a 
 kind of supplement to the Analysis of Area III. They are intended to 
 explain the Section, Fig. 44, page 336, and also the Plan, Fig. 51, page 
 349 ••— 
 
 Area I. The most ancient portion of Area I is the staircase \)g I, leading to a 
 gallery about 37 feet beneath the surface of the ground. This gallery, 
 Fig. 44. which in Fig. 44 is marked U, leads to the doorway X, which is the 
 L . entrance to the aibiaihim duplex^ the frescoes on whose walls have been 
 described as probably belonging to the first century. The gallery was 
 originally continued at the same level, but the same reasons which we have 
 noticed in page 343, led here also to that level being depressed, so that a 
 B. flight of steps now leads from U to a lower level, BGI. B may be found 
 I, ii^ the Atlas as Y)h I, a gallery leading to three ciibiciila, while another 
 short gallery, G, at right angles to it, springs from the foot of the same 
 staircase, and by an entrance opposite to I leads to the crypt of St Cor- 
 2- nelius, D/z 3. The traces of another staircase, afterwards destroyed, are 
 Crypt of St to be found at T)k 2, and T)/i 4 is the vast ruined monument of which some 
 Cornelius. notice is given in page 123. The long gallery of the third piano is con- 
 nected with g in Fig. 51. 
 Pagan tombs. Between Area I and the cross-road is a small hypogeuvi, D/z 5, 
 apparently of the age of Alexander Severus, which marks the limits of the 
 area on this side. On the other it is equally limited by another hypogeum, 
 Qh 4, which does not appear to be more ancient than the end of the third 
 century. Another small sepulchral cell, which may have been a Christian 
 chapel, and which stands immediately opposite the present entrance to the 
 Catacomb enclosure, is marked Ck i. A small Pagan columbarium mzy 
 be noticed near the Via Appio-Ardeatina, A^ I. 
 Area III. Areoe III. and IV. have been fully described in our Analysis. It will 
 suffice to mention that V>e \ is the staircase A, and Be 3 the staircase B of 
 the Plan ; B^ 2 is the staircase by which we now enter the crypt of St 
 Cecilia, which is marked Jie 5, and that of the Popes, Be 4. Be 6 is the 
 passage leading to the crypt Be 7, or Q\ in which were discovered several 
 Area IV. sarcophagi. B/ I and B/ 2 are described in the Analysis as Q"' and Q^; 
 
 and Ce 5 and Ce 6 as A^ and A^; while Ae i, 2, is the secret passage 
 described as x*, and of which an account is given, page 347. 
 
 An enlarged plan of Area V. is given in page 349, where its connexion 
 with Area III. is explained ; and the three-apsed building above ground, 
 Ce I, together with the square building Ce ^, are stated to be remains of 
 ancient Christian oratories of the time of St Fabian. C^ 4, C/i, C/2, 
 
 Area V 
 
A ppendix. 
 
 C/ 3, are there marked respectively o'^, a^, a^, and c. It may be worth Description 
 while to describe that Area according to those letters, observing that the of Fig. 51. 
 gallery is represented in this Atlas as transgressing the limits of the 
 tirea, which is an error of the artist. 
 
 The wide though irregular gallery a was originally entered by a stair- a. 
 case, now demolished, but of which the remains still exist in the long 
 luminare which may be seen on the Plan. It terminated anciently at C/3, 
 where it now breaks through locuti and passes the limits of the area. 
 Along this amhilacrtitn are several arcosolia, some of which are decorated 
 with frescoes, and on the right and left are the entrances to ciibiaila. 
 
 «2 is a chamber containing three large arcosolia, formerly lined with ^^2* 
 marble, and having figures on the ceiling which represent classical personi- 
 fications of the seasons, &c., without any distinctively Christian allusion. 
 This ceiling is evidently much more ancient than the arcosolia, and confirms 
 De Rossi's opinion that this and the opposite chambers were origmally in- 
 tended simply for secular purposes. 
 
 a., is a large chamber whose walls were once lined with marble, which ''a- 
 still remains on the bench which goes round three of its sides, and also on 
 the pavement, where is the inscription, I'AVLVS exorcista dep. mar- 
 TVRIES VI. A deep and wide recess at the end of the chamber once con- 
 tained an immense sarcophagus, probably that of St Melchiades, the cover 
 of which, shaped like the roof of a house, still remains. Its corners are 
 decorated Avith bassi relievi of a shepherd and sheep. The remains of 
 frescoes on the ceiling of the chamber resemble those of ^2 i'^ style and 
 subject, except that here we see the Good Shepherd and the Raising of 
 Lazarus. Both cubicula are well lighted by the same wide luminare as in 
 Fig. 6, page 31. 
 
 The two chambers, rt-^, a-^, are of a date posterior to the arcosolia in ^4, a.^. 
 a^, a^, and each have in one corner a small table of (ufa snnilar to 
 that described in the crypt of St Cornelius, page 184, 
 
 A long narrow chamber, on the principal arcosoliiim of which are two of <7o- 
 tlie graffiti to Sophronia mentioned page 132. This and the opposite ''■t 
 chamber are much filled up by modern constructions deemed necessary for 
 the safety of the Jiypogemn. 
 
 A gallery, unites a with the gallery S, connecting this hypogeiirn with b. 
 Area III. It contains several large lociili, one of which is marked on the 
 Plan as closed by a wall. Nearly opposite this, and just belore the gallery 
 passes the limits of the area into the labyrinth, is an arcosoliiim beautifully 
 painted, although the linntte has been almost destroyed by graves. The 
 ceiling has an orantc, and on either side Daniel and Jonas are painted in 
 separate compartments. 
 
 De Rossi calls c a subterranean piazza. Over the door which leads from c. 
 it into a ciibicnlum are to be seen the names of the first visitors of the 
 Catacombs in the fifteenth century, see page 2. Out of this piazza extends 
 d, a gallery in a very ruined condition, and which falls into ambiilacrinn <l. 
 0 by a rapid descent near the point of junction. This portion o{ d, however, 
 seems to liave been of a later jieriod than the rest of the gallery. Only one 
 
4o8 Roma Sotterranea. 
 
 d ^. ciibiculum is entered from this gallery, and this is elaborately painted — the 
 lower portion of the walls have a lattice-work pattern, and the upper por- 
 tion fruit, flowers, birds, and putU. A head of Oceanus is on the ceiling, 
 the liiminare of which is adorned with the bust of a man holding a book, 
 with his name in white letters below. His face seems to have been origin- 
 ally painted on canvas, which has been removed, so that now we have only 
 the faint outlines of his features. The chamber was originally designed for 
 a single arcosoUnm, which was decorated with frescoes, and had above it a 
 painting of the Good Shepherd, which is now all but gone. 
 d^^ d^, e The galleries d.^^ d ^ and e are still unexcavated. 
 
 f Is a small gallery with large loadi in it, and contains a staircase leading 
 
 to a lower piano, which is also reached by the little staircase in A^. 
 o Is an ambidacriim which extends throughout the whole length of Area 
 VI., taking its rise from the foot of the staircase, Qe 2. It was afterwards 
 continued to meet the gallery d, and pushed forward until it fell into a. 
 The cnbicula 0^, 0*, o\ 0^, are poorly constructed, apparently after the 
 o'. time of Diocletian. In 0'' are Avritten on the walls the names of visitors of 
 the fifteenth century, Ce 4. 
 Area VT. staircase Ce2 is remarkable for its leading both to the higher and 
 
 lower piano of the area, which were apparently excavated at nearly the 
 same period. 
 
 Crypt of vSt Turning to the left in the lower piano, we come at once to the crypt of 
 
 Eusebius. St Eusebius, Del, described page 167. Further on still we come to two 
 more cidnatla on opposite sides of the gallery, of which the one marked 
 
 Calocerus and ^^d i is the crypt of Calocerus and Parthenius, mentioned page 175. 
 
 Parthenius. Between these two crypts a gallery crosses the ambiilacriim, which after- 
 wards breaks through the wall of gallery C in Area III., as shown in Fig. 
 46, q^. 
 
 Area VII, Continuing our course along the ambtdacriim, we pass into Area VII., 
 
 the centre of which De Rossi has discovered in the cubicidiim Dd 4, which 
 was once the principal staircase of this a7--ea, and of the three others which 
 appear to have been constructed subsequently. The last of these (Area 
 VIII.) had afterwards a staircase of its own, D<r2. Opposite to the door 
 of T>d 4 is a gallery which leads us to the cubicidum duplex of the Deacon 
 Severus. See page 93. The remaining ai'ese are not yet sufficiently 
 excavated to enable us to give a detailed account of them. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abercius, St, Epitaph of, 217. 
 Acts of Martyrs, their vahie, 21 
 
 (see Cecilia and Perpetiia). 
 Ad relioionem meam pertinent es, 
 
 meaning of, 61. 
 Agapitus, St, deacon and martyr, 
 
 144. 
 
 Agnes, St, on glasses, 286 (see 
 
 Catacojnb). 
 Alaric, Rome taken by, 103. 
 Alexander, St, Pope, martyrdom 
 
 and burial, 81 ; cemetery of, 81, 
 
 334- 
 
 Alexandria, Catacomb paintings of, 
 221. 
 
 Allegorical (see Paintings). 
 
 Almanac (see Filocalus). 
 
 Altar in Papal crypt, 135 ; in crypt 
 of St Cornelius, 184 ; over relics, 
 401 ; consecration of, 402 ; doc- 
 trine of, unchanged, 403 ; words 
 used for, 403. 
 
 Anacletus, St, Pope, erected vie- 
 moria of St Peter, 64. 
 
 Antherus, St, Pope, his work, 18; 
 his epitaph, 137, 142. 
 
 Apamea, coins of, representing Noe, 
 241. 
 
 Apostles, paintings of, 237 ; sculp- 
 tures of, 308 (see Peter and 
 Paid) ; Catacombs in age of, 63, 
 
 64, 74, 75- 
 
 Arcosolinni, 30; age of, 350, 
 ArenariujH, sometimes connected 
 
 with Catacombs, 28, 323, 327, 
 
 329-33 
 
 Aringhi, his edition of Bosio, 7. 
 
 Arvales, Fr aires, 385. 
 
 Asclepiodote, epitaph, 207. 
 
 Augustine, vSt, o\\ cemeteries, 90 ; 
 on milk as symbol of Eucharist, 
 228 ; on fish and bread, 215 ; on 
 intercession of martyrs, 400. 
 
 Aurelian, edicts of, 54, 89. 
 Authors on Catacombs, modern, i ; 
 
 ancient, 17. 
 Autun, epitaph at, on Eucharist, 
 
 218. 
 
 Baptism of Christ, 119, 252 ; sacra- 
 ment of, 264, 265 ; symbols of, 
 Noe, 240 ; Jonas, 243. 
 
 Baronius, Cardinal, 3, 156. 
 
 Basilicas over tombs of martyrs, 96. 
 
 Bishops, burial of, 138; in Rome, 
 140. 
 
 Boldettion Christian antiquities, 11. 
 Boniface IV. translates relics from 
 
 Catacombs, 107. 
 Bosio, his life and labours, 5-8. 
 Brandea, a kind of relic, 23. 
 Brnttia Crispina, 70. 
 Buonarrotti on gilded glasses, 12. 
 Burnet, his ignorant remarks on 
 
 Catacombs, 11, 318. 
 Burning of dead not Christian, 59. 
 
 I 
 
 I Caius, St, Pope, 145. 
 
 Callixtus, St, deacon to Pope 
 Zephyrinus, 83-86 ; cemetery of, 
 83, 1 10-185, 336-378; identified, 
 117 ; distinct arecc in, 120, 122 ; 
 maps of, 121 ; first aira of, 126, 
 I30> 338-355 ; second area, 127, 
 348 ; third area, 127, 355. 
 
 Calocerus and Parthenius, their epi- 
 taph and tomb, 145. 
 I Canon of Council of Elvira on 
 I sacred pictures, 191. 
 
 Catacomb, the name, 109. 
 
 Catacomb of St Agnes, 27, 29, 31. 
 
 St Alexander, 81. 
 
 St Balbina, 128, 129. 
 
 St Callixtus (see Cailixlus). 
 
 St Commodilla. 65. 
 
 St Domitilla, 69-74. 
 
Roma Sotteri^anea. 
 
 Catacomb of Generoses, 384-386. 
 
 ■ St Hermes, 323. 
 
 — St Hippolytus, 98. 
 
 Ostrianus, or Fons Petri, 
 
 67, 396. 
 
 • • St Praetextatus, 76-81. 
 
 St Priscilla, 66, 330. 
 
 St Sebastian, 108, 112- 
 
 117. 
 
 St Soteris, 128. 
 
 Catacombs, discovery of, I ; early 
 visits to, 2 ; general description 
 of, 25 ; locality of, 25, 331 ; 
 number and names of, ix. , 27; 
 Christian origin of, 28, 56, 
 317-332 ; excavated on high 
 ground, 334 ; in tufa gj'am/iare, 
 319, 325 ; i'^ various piani, 337 ; 
 within certain prescribed limits, 
 47, 120, 340 ; at first small, 61 ; 
 used for worship, 54, 348 ; for 
 hiding-places, 89, 346 ; martyr- 
 doms in, 87, 88 ; disuse of for 
 burial, 95, 103 ; frequented as 
 shrines, 31, 97, 104 ; described 
 by St Jerome, 97 ; by Prudentius, 
 98 ; damaged by indiscreet devo- 
 tion, 96, 100, 102 ; repaired by 
 Popes, 97, 104, 105, 354 ; relics 
 translated from, 106 ; finally 
 abandoned, 108, 359 ; redis- 
 covei'ed, 33 ; history of, 63-109; 
 Jewish, 58. 
 
 Cecilia, St, her tomb, 151, 158, 
 160 ; her family, 160, 164 ; her 
 history, 152, 163 ; her Acts veri- 
 fied and corrected, 162 ; various 
 versions of them, 387 ; her body 
 translated by Paschal I., 154; 
 found incorrupt in sixteenth cen- 
 tury, 154; statue of, 157 ; crypt 
 of, 1 51-166 ; its original form, 
 346, 371- 
 
 Cemetery, the term of Christian 
 origin, 29 (see Cataconih) ; gra- 
 dual development of a, 338-359. 
 
 Cemeteries protected by Roman 
 law until the middle of third cen- 
 tury, 45, 83 ; invaded by Pagans, 
 54, 88 ; proscribed by Valerian, 
 55 ; restored to Christians, 87 ; 
 confiscated by Diocletian, 90 ; 
 restored, 90, 146 ; ecclesiastical 
 administration of, 91-93, loi ; 
 all extramural, 56. 
 
 Ccrealis et Sallnstia cmn .r.r/., ^^raf- 
 fito, 185. 
 
 Chairs of tufa in Catacombs, 31, 
 128. 
 
 Chair of St Peter in Vatican, its 
 description, 389 ; its history, 
 391 ; in cemetery of Ostrianus, 
 396 ; two Feasts of, explained, 
 397- 
 
 Children, Three, in paintings, 245 ; 
 on glasses, 280, 290 ; in sculp- 
 ture, 313. 
 
 Christ, paintings of, 119, 252; 
 symbols of, e.g., Orpheus, 199 ; 
 the Good Shepherd, 199, 234 ; 
 the Fish, or IXGTC, 207-212 ; 
 monogram of, 230. 
 
 Christians did not burn their dead, 
 59 (see Cenieteries) ; Roman, 
 legal position of, 34 ; at first 
 regarded as a Jewish sect, 40 ; 
 persecuted by Nero, &c., 42 ; their 
 cemeteries protected, 45 ; per- 
 sons of noble rank, 35 ; even of 
 the imperial family, 36. 
 
 Christian art, 186-316 (see Glasses, 
 Paintings, Sculpture, Symbols) ; 
 antiquity of, 187, &c. ; can be 
 traced to Apostolic times, 188, 
 197 ; growth of, 1 90 ; checked 
 by persecution, 191 ; early history 
 of, 196 ; not formed entirely on 
 Pagan models, 198 ; classes of, 
 200. 
 
 Chrysanthus and Daria buried in 
 arenario, 328. 
 
 Ciacconio, his researches, 4. 
 
 Columbaria, Pagan, 57 ; never 
 Christian, 60. 
 
 Cornelius, St, Pope, his account of 
 the Roman clergy, 92 ; his family, 
 177; his epitaph, 117, 118; why 
 in Latin, 177; his sepulchre, 
 175-185 ; near an arenariuni, 
 327 ; painting of, with St Cy- 
 prian, 181. 
 
 Clement, St, Pope, 17 ; basilica of, 
 74- 
 
 Confraternities, burial, 49 ; some of 
 them Christian, 53. 
 
 Cross disguised, 127 ; various forms 
 of, 229, 230. 
 
 Crypt (see Catacomb, Cecilia, Cor- 
 nelius, Popes, &c.) ; of St Lucina, 
 27, 122-126, 336, 337, 356. 
 
 Cupid and Psyche, 261. 
 
 Cyprian, St, painting of, 182. 
 
 D'Agincourt, damage done to Cata- 
 combs by, 13 ; on Christian art, 
 186. 
 
 Damasus, St, Pope, his love for the 
 Catacombs, 96, 102; value of his 
 
Index. 
 
 411 
 
 inscriptions, 20, 97 ; his inscrip- 
 tion to St Agnes, 286 ; his in- 
 scription in baptistery of Vatican, 
 390 ; his inscription in cemetery 
 ad Cataciimbas, 114; his inscrip- 
 tion at toml) of St Cornelius, 179, 
 180 ; his inscription at the tomb 
 of St Eusebius, 105, 167-174; 
 his inscription at tomb of St 
 Januarius, 80; his inscription at 
 tomb of St Marcellus, 174; his 
 inscription at tomb of St Peter 
 and St Paul, 334 ; his inscription 
 at tomb of Papal crypt, 118, 147 ; 
 his inscription at tomb of Six- 
 tus II., 144; his labours, 354, 
 355- 
 
 Daniel in paintings, 73, 245 ; in 
 sculpture, 303, 307. 
 
 De Rossi, Gio. Battisla, his method 
 of research, 15 ; his chief sources 
 of information, 16 ; his recon- 
 struction of early history, 93. 
 
 De Rossi, Michel Stefano, brother 
 of the Commendatore, his success 
 in mapping the Catacombs, 121 ; 
 his analysis, 360. 
 
 De Winghe, his sketches in Cata- 
 combs, 4. 
 
 D. M., meaning of, on Christian epi- 
 taphs, 59. 
 
 Domitian, Emperor, his Christian 
 relatives, 39, 42. 
 
 Domitilla, St, 39, 69 ; her ceme- 
 tery, 69-74 ; bronze medal found 
 in, 284 ; sarcophagi in, 295. 
 
 EccLESiA Fkatrum, significance 
 of, 53- 
 
 Edict, first, against cemeteries by 
 Valerian, 54, 87 ; revoked by 
 Gallienus, 87 ; renewed by Aure- 
 lian, 89 ; by Diocletian, 90 ; of 
 Milan, 90, 95. 
 
 Eleutherius, St, Pope, 64, 163. 
 
 Elias taken up to heaven, in sculp- 
 ture, 250, 310. 
 
 Ennodius of Pavia on St I'eter's 
 Chair, 392. 
 
 r'.|ntaphs csf Popes, 137 ; episcopal, 
 very rare (see Eusebius and Da- 
 inasits); of St Abercius, 217; of 
 Autun, 218. 
 
 Eucharist, Ploly, symbolised by fish 
 and bread, 215-224 ; by milk, 
 225-229; doctrine of, illustrated 
 by paintings of second and third 
 centuries, 222, 266-271 ; consti- 
 tution of St Zephyrinus concern- 
 
 I ing, 292 ; represented in sculp- 
 ture, 302, 305. 
 
 Eusebius, St, Pope, remarkable 
 incident in life of, 172 ; epitaph 
 of, 167 ; broken and recopied, 
 171 ; its interpretation, 172. 
 
 Eutychianus, St, Pope, his epitaph, 
 137, 143- 
 
 Evelyn, John, his visit to the Cata- 
 combs, 10. 
 
 1 Fabian, St, Pope, 17, 137, 142. 
 Fabretti on inscinptions, 11. 
 Fanstiniamcs, an inscription, 82. 
 Felix, St, I'ope, 401. 
 Felicissimus, deacon and martyr, 
 144. 
 
 Fideutibiis in Domino, significance 
 of, 62. 
 
 Filocalus, Furius Dionysius, his 
 almanac, 19 ; his inscriptions, 
 170. 
 
 Filippi ad Sextiim, cemetery of, 386. 
 
 Flavius Clemens, 37 (see Do- 
 mitilla). 
 i Flavius Sabinus, 37. 
 I Fratres Aii>ales, the, 385. 
 
 Garrucci, Padre, S.T., on gilded 
 
 I glasses, 11,1']'] ; on Jewish Cata- 
 comb, 58. 
 Glasses, gilded, ibund in Catacombs, 
 275-294 ; two recently fouiid at 
 
 I Cologne, 277, 289 ; date of, 279 ; 
 
 I sul)jects on, 280 ; their probable 
 
 I use, 283, 291, 293. 
 
 ; Good Shepherd, in paintings, 274, 
 234-238; in sculpture, 299; 
 statues of, 304 ; Pagan examples 
 of, 261, 298, 299. 
 
 ! Graffiti of three kinds, 131 ; in 
 Papal crypt, 130, 144 ; in crypt 
 of St Cecilia, 161 ; in crypt of St 
 
 i Cornelius, 184. 
 
 j Gregory the Great, Pope, on burial 
 of St Peter and St I'aul, 115, 
 116; on relics, 23. 
 Gregory of Tours, St, on a martyr- 
 dom in Catacombs, 88. 
 Ilippolytus, his cemetery, 98 ; his 
 festa in fourth or fifth centuries, 
 99 ; his statue, 313 ; his Paschal 
 Canon, 314. 
 
 I Hyacinth, St, his body discovered 
 
 j by Padre Marchi, 15, 379. 
 
 j Itixerarik.s of seventh century, 
 ! 22, 23, III, 112. 
 
412 
 
 Roma Sotterraiiea. 
 
 Januarius, St, tomb of, 79, 80. 
 
 Jerome, St, on Catacombs, 97 ; on 
 the ivy or gourd of Jonas, 243. 
 
 Jews protected by Roman laws, 41 ; 
 occupied Trastevere, 278. 
 
 Jewish Catacombs, 58. 
 
 John and Paul, Saints, buried within 
 the walls, 106. 
 
 John III., Pope, directs mass to be 
 said in Catacombs, 105. 
 
 Jonas, history of, in paintings, 243, 
 244 ; in glasses, 290 ; in sculp- 
 ture, 304, 305. 
 
 Kalendar of St Hippolytus, 314. 
 
 Lamb, a symbol of Christ, Figs. 37, 
 38; of Christians, 103, 225. 
 
 Lazarus, raising of, in paintings, 
 247, 271 ; in sculpture, 302, 304, 
 306, 313. 
 
 Leo IIL, Pope, his care for ceme- 
 teries, 107 ; his decorations in 
 crypt of St Cornelius, 183. 
 
 Leo IV., Pope, translated relics 
 from Catacombs, 107. 
 
 Liber Pontificalis, account of, 20. 
 
 Linus, St, Pope, his sepulchre, 65. 
 
 Liturgical paintings, 262-274. 
 
 Loailo a meiisa, 30. 
 
 Lucius, St, Pope, his epitaph, 137, 
 143- 
 
 Lucina, St, probably Pomponia 
 Groecina, 124 ; crypt of, 122, 
 126, 337 ; frescoes in, 103, 185, 
 201, 224, 225. 
 
 Lumhiai-e, 31, 127, 129, 165, 348. 
 
 Mabillon de ciiltii sanctorum igno- 
 
 tortun, 12. 
 Macarius, his Hagioglypta, 4. 
 Magi, adoration of, in paintings, 
 
 246, 257 ; in sculpture, 301, 311. 
 Malmesbury, William of, 22, 62. 
 Marangoni, his labours in Cata- 
 combs, 12. 
 Marcellus, St, Pope, 90. 
 Marcellinus, St, Pope, 90, 93, 279. 
 Marchi, Padre, S.J., his labours 
 
 and writings, 14 ; the first to 
 
 insist upon the Christian origin of 
 
 Catacombs, 318. 
 Mark, St, Pope, buried in St Bal- 
 
 bina, 95, 129, 
 Martyr vindicates equivalent to 
 
 canonizatns, 143. 
 Martyrs, vast number of, 148 ; they 
 
 assist us by their prayers, 400 ; 
 
 desire of Christians to be buried 
 
 near to, 102 ; this practice de- 
 fended and accounted for by St 
 Augustine, 399. 
 
 M % r tyro log ill m , Hieronyjn ia 7tnm, 
 I J ; Bedae, Adonis, &c., 21. 
 
 Alelchiades, St, Pope, recovered the 
 confiscated cemeteries, 90, 91 ; 
 the last Pope buried in Cata- 
 combs, 95, 146 ; his tomb, 146, 
 349- 
 
 Merivale, Mr, not correct as to 
 early Christian burial, 59. 
 
 Misson, his rash assertions, 1 1. 
 
 Monogram (see Christ). 
 
 Monza, papyrus MS. at, 23. 
 
 Moses, in paintings, 247 ; taking off 
 his shoes, 248 ; when striking the 
 rock typifies St Peter, in paint- 
 ings, 248, 265 ; in glasses, with 
 name Petrus, 286 ; and in sculp- 
 ture, 302. 
 
 Nicolas L, Pope, visited Cata- 
 combs, 108. 
 
 A^i^nbus, use of, in determining 
 dates of pictures, 193. 
 
 Noe in the ark, in paintings, 
 240-242 ; in sculpture, 305 ; not 
 copied from Pagan coin, 241. 
 
 Olea from shrines taken away as 
 relics, 23 
 
 Optatus, St, fresco of, 166. 
 
 Ordo ccenariini, its resemblance to 
 the Christian Kalendar, 53. 
 
 Orpheus, type of Christ, in paint- 
 ing, 199, 373 ; in sculpture, 300. 
 
 Ostrianus, cemetery of, 67, 396. 
 
 Pallium, origin of, 310, 404. 
 
 Paintings, determination of date of, 
 192 ; by nimbus, 193 ; by letters 
 on dress, 195 ; by choice of sub- 
 ject and treatment, 195 ; Gnostic, 
 199 ; allegorical, 233-238 ; Bibli- 
 cal, 239-250; of Christ, 252, 253 ; 
 of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 
 254-260 ; of St Joseph, 260 ; 
 of Isaias, 258 (see Moses, Magi, 
 &c.) ; liturgical, 262-274 \ syii"!- 
 bolical, 202-231. 
 
 Panvinius, Onophrius, on Christian 
 cemeteries, 32. 
 
 Papyrus MS. at Monza, 23. 
 
 Paschal I., St, Pope, his translation 
 of relics, 107 ; of St Cecilia, 155. 
 
 Paul, St, the Apostle, his tomb, 65. 
 
 Paul I., Pope, his translation of 
 relics, 106. 
 
Index. 
 
 413 
 
 Ferpetua, St, Acts of, 226. ' 
 
 Peter, St, his tomb, 64, 113, 116, 
 139 (see Chair) ; i-epresented as 
 Moses, 286-289 (see Moses). 
 
 Peter and Paul, Saints, burial and 
 translation of, 113-116; feast of, 
 281 ; Damasine inscription to, 
 114; figured on glasses, 281; 
 symbolised the Roman Church, 
 285. 
 
 PhilosopJutnieiia, its testimony to 
 Catacombs, 83, 85. 
 
 Policamus, painting of, 165. 
 
 Pomponia Grascina, 39. 
 
 Poniponius Bassus, 124 ; sarcopha- 
 gus of, 311. 
 
 Pomponio, Leto, 2, 352, 362. 
 
 Pontianus, St, Pope, 142. 
 
 Popes, early register of burial of, 
 19 ; at first buried in Vatican, j 
 and then at San Callisto, 86 ; 
 epitaphs of, 137 ; officially known I 
 to Pagan governors, 19 ; crypt of, 
 130-150, 
 
 PP. for Papa, in use in third cen- 
 tury, 93 ; PP. Rom., 183. 
 
 Prayers for dead, 131 ; to departed 
 saints, 132. j 
 
 Praetextatus, Catacomb of, 76-81 ; 
 discovery of, 77 ; paintings in, 
 78, 79 ; martyrdom of St Sixtus 
 II. in, 143. 
 
 Priscilla, Catacomb of, 66 ; sepul- 
 chre of Pudens and his family, 66 ; 
 ancient painting of Blessed Vir- 
 gin in, 258. 
 
 PtoloniKus Silvius, 398. 
 
 (^UIRINUS, St, tomb of, 80. 
 (^)uirinus, a Bishop of Siscia, 165. 
 (^uattroCoronati buried in arenario.^ 
 325, 327- 
 
 Records, ancient, of Roma Sottcr- 
 
 ranea, 17. 1 
 Relics, different kinds of, 23 (see 
 
 Cecilia, Peter, &c.) 
 Restiiiits M. Ant. inscription, 62. 
 Roma Sotterranea, the name, I ; of 
 
 Bosio, 7. 
 Roman Academy, the, 2. 
 Roman l)u rial-grounds adapted for 
 
 Christian cemeteries, 46 ; burial 
 
 confraternities, 48; their rules, 50. 
 Roman Church symbolised by St 
 
 Peter and St Paul, 285 (see 
 
 Christians). 
 Roman clergy in time of St Cvpi ian, 
 
 92. " 
 
 Roman fcsta in fifth century, 98, 
 281. 
 
 Roman laws regarding burial, 44, 
 45- 
 
 Rome taken by ^Alaric, 103 ; by 
 Totila, 105 ; by Vitiges, 104; by 
 Astolphus, 106. 
 
 Rosatio, a Pagan ceremony, 129, 
 
 Sabinus, the deacon, his epitaph, 
 102. 
 
 Sebastian, St, cemetery of, 108, 
 
 112-117. 
 Sentia Renata, epitaph of, 60. 
 Sergius I., Pope, his epitaph to 
 
 Ceadwalla, 391. 
 Sergius II., Pope, translates relics, 
 
 107. 
 
 Severano, Padre, editor of Bosio, 7. 
 Severus the deacon, his cubicnlum, 
 93- 
 
 Sfondrati, Cardinal, finds the body 
 
 of St Cecilia, 155. 
 Siricius, St, Pope, inscription by, 
 
 180. 
 
 Sixtus II., St, Pope, his martyrdom, 
 77, 87, 143 ; inscription to, 144 ; 
 prayers to, 132. 
 
 Sophronia, graffiti of, 132. 
 
 Soter, St, Pope, 141. 
 
 Soteris, St, cemetery of, 113, 128, 
 355- 
 
 Stephen, St, Pope, confused with 
 
 St Sixtus II., 144. 
 Sylvester, St, Pope, buried in a 
 
 basilica, above ground, 95, 107, 
 
 146, 308. 
 
 Symbolism, 203 ; rules for inter- 
 preting, 204. 
 
 Symbols, anchor, 204 ; sheep and 
 dove, 205 ; fish, 207 ; fish and 
 dove, 212 ; fish and bread, 213 ; 
 Ciood Shepherd, 234 ; Noe, 240 ; 
 Jonas, 243. 
 
 Tertullian, his testimony to the 
 condition of Christians at end of 
 second century, 19, 36, 37, 41, 
 43, 51, 84 ; on cemeteries, 52, 
 54 ; styles the Church Jcrusalon, 
 134 ; explains symbols of dove 
 and ark, 242 ; milk, 226 ; the 
 rock, 247, 264; fish, 211; the 
 paralytic, 266 ; the use of the 
 palliwn by Christians, 267 ; the 
 custom of painting the Good 
 Shepherd on chalices, 291 ; f in 
 Cjreek and Latin regarded as a 
 form of the Cross, 230. 
 
Roma Soffe7'rane(y. 
 
 414 
 
 Theodelinda, (^uecu, relics sent to, 
 23- 
 
 Titiili or parishes of Rome, 91. 
 Tufa gj^amtlare, 319, 321 ; litoide, 
 319 ; chairs, &c., cut in, 32, 358. 
 
 Urban, St, Pope, 141, 163, 164, 
 182. 
 
 Valerian, his edicts aq;ainst Chris- 
 tian cemeteries, 54, 87. 
 
 Vatican, Memoria of St Peter in, 
 
 64, 65 ; Popes buried there, 64 ; 
 
 Christian museum of, 13, 275 
 
 (see Chair). 
 Vigilius, Pope, restored Damasine 
 
 inscriptions, 105, 170. 
 Volcanic strata around Rome, 319. 
 
 Zephyrinus, St, Pope, entrusted 
 the first public cemetery to Callix- 
 tus, 83, 85 ; buried there, 141. 
 
■■■■■^ , -Sm liiilli™ 
 
 Maderna's Sintue of Si Cecii/a. 
 
 ^y-B.—lt was not observed until too late that in Fig. 17, page 157, the artist had sup- 
 plied from his imagination a view of the features of St Cecilia. The present figure, by 
 the same artist, is a faithful representation of Maderna's statue. 
 
 BALLANTYNIi AND COMI'ANY, I'KINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
set* >^ 
 
 "t- 
 
 g'y^ r fip 
 
 ^ ^ - • ,h --ii Pi 
 
 > & S 
 
 M g cr^ 
 
 £ 5 ^ ^rg. ^ 
 
 0 
 
 Jii 
 
 nP^ fc^SvM- 
 
 u u 0 u ir ^0 0 
 
 ..w^ 
 
 8 
 
1 
 
 Plate X 
 
1 
 
 Plate XII. 
 
Plate KV. 
 
1 
 
 Plate XVII 
 
2 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE 
 
 3 3125 01030 8498