CHAPTER V.

THE PRINCIPAL CATACOMBS OF ROME.

BEFORE leaving this division of our subject we will take a rapid survey of the more remarkable of that vast system of Christian cemeteries that engirdles the city of Rome. It will be more convenient to notice them in topographical order, beginning with those on the Appian Way, and sweeping around the city to the north-west, over the great roads on the borders of which the Catacombs are chiefly situated. The ground near these roads is honeycombed with sepulchral excavations, to which there are said to be six hundred entrances scattered over the Campagna. Bosio found them in almost every vineyard near the Salarian Way. In some of these the peasants keep their wine, although their fears prevent them from venturing far from the mouth; and sometimes villas fall in through the subsidence of the soil.

The various groups of crypts have been known by different names at different periods, or even at the same period; and it is sometimes difficult or impossible to disentangle the conflicting accounts, and to identify the cemeteries to which the ancient names were applied. The original records-the martyrologies and the Liber Pontificalis *-are sometimes utterly unreliable, and the

*This book, so often referred to, has been ascribed to Damasus but much of it is unquestionably of much later origin. While much of its information is valuable, more of it is quite unauthentic.

very existence of the saints and martyrs whose lives are recorded is often exceedingly apocryphal; and even if their traditions are in the main correct, it is in many cases doubtful if they are buried in the Catacombs which bear their names. Frequently, however, these traditions are confirmed by inscriptions and other monumental evidence, which establish beyond doubt the identity of the Catacomb, as in the case of that of Callixtus and others which we shall notice.

Fig. 25.-Tombs on Appian Way.

Southeastward from the ancient Porta Capena of the city of Rome stretches the celebrated Appian Way, the most remarkable of those vast arteries of commerce along which flowed to the most distant provinces the vital currents from the great heart of the empire. This "Queen of Roads," as it was proudly called, was lined on either side by the stately tombs in which reposed the

Appia longarum teritur Regina Viarum."-Stat. Syl., II, 2.

ashes of the mighty dead. * "The history of Christian Rome," says Padre Marchi, t "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 by the greater number and celebrity of its martyrs." Under the present pontiff this historic highway has been excavated and opened for travel as far as Albano; and one may now traverse that avenue of tombs on the very causeway on which Horace and Virgil, Augustus and Mæcenas, Cicero and Seneca, must often have entered Rome. But it is invested with a profounder interest as the way by which the great Apostle of the Gentiles approached the city, "an ambassador in bonds," to preach the gospel in Rome also, and to finish his testimony by a glorious martyrdom. By this very road also, according to an ancient tradition, his body was stealthily conveyed by night and deposited in an adjacent Catacomb; and here wended many a mourning procession

* Often mere vulgar wealth exhibited its ostentation even in death by the magnitude and magnificence of these tombs designed to perpetuate the memory of their occupants forever. But, as if to rebuke that posthumous pride, they are now mere crumbling ruins, often devoted to ignoble uses, the very names of whose tenants are forgotten. Many of them, during the stormy period of the Middle Ages, were occupied as fortresses. More recently that of Augustus, on the Campus Martius, was used as an arena for bull-fights, and as a summer theatre, where Harlequin played his pranks upon an emperor's grave. Some of the tombs have been converted into stables, pig-styes, or charcoal cellars. The cinerary urn of Agrippina, wife of Germanicus, was long used as a measure for corn. In many a vignarolo's hovel in the Campagna swine may be seen eating out of sculptured sarcophagi, and in the imperial halls where banqueted the masters of the world they hold their unclean revels. Expende Hannibalem," says the Roman satirist, "quot libras in duce summo invenies?"

+ Monumenti delle Arti Cristiane Primitive, p. 73.

bearing to those lowly crypts the remains of Rome's early bishops, martyrs, and confessors.

The ancient Porta Capena, with the dripping aqueduct above it,* have disappeared, and the fountain of Egeria, trampled by cattle, is no longer the haunt of nymph or naiad. Passing through the modern Sebastian. gate and crossing the classic Almo, the traveller reaches. at a short distance the little church of Domine quo vadis, with which is connected one of the most beautiful legends of the martyrology.t

About a mile and three quarters from the city he comes to Vigna Animendola, on the doorway leading to which is a marble tablet with the words COMETERIVM S. CALLIXTI. Beneath this vineyard lies the celebrated Catacomb of Callixtus, of which we propose to enter into a somewhat detailed description, as it will give *Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam.

-Juv., Sat., iii.

The legend asserts that as the Apostle Peter was leaving Rome in the early dawn, in order to escape martyrdom, he met Our Lord bearing his cross, and, throwing himself at his feet, exclaimed, Domine quo vadis-"Lord, whither goest thou?" In accents of tender rebuke the Master answered, Venio Romam iterum crucifigi —“I am going to Rome to be crucified again." Stung with contrition and remorse, the disciple, according to the tradition, returned to the city, and there was crucified-by his own request with his head downwards, as unworthy to share the same mode of death as the Lord whom he had denied. In the neighbouring church of St. Sebastian is a white marble slab bearing impressions said to have been made by the feet of Our Lord. The story is first mentioned by Origen, who applies it to St. Paul. St. Ambrose substitutes St. Peter, but the precise spot was not fixed till the fifteenth century; and Aringhi, in the seventeenth century, is the first who mentions the impression of the feet in "that stone most worthy, more valuable than any precious jewel." This white marble slab is certainly very unlike the dark gray porphyry of the Appian pavement, and the irregular depression in its surface bears slight resemblance to human feet. But no his. torical difficulties are too great for the devout credulity of Rome.

greater definiteness to the general conceptions already received, and will serve as a typical example of the origin and history of the Catacombs in general.

In the year 1849 De Rossi found in a cellar in this vineyard a broken marble slab with the mutilated inscription ELIVS MARTYR, and at the beginning the upper part of the letters RN. He immediately conjectured that this was a fragment of the tombstone of Cornelius, a Roman bishop of the third century, whose sepulchre would probably be found not far off. At his persuasion the pope purchased the vineyard, and the archæological commission began the work of excavation. They were rewarded by some of the most remarkable discoveries which have yet been made.

The cemetery is situated between the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina, which are connected by narrow cross-roads. De Rossi has prepared a map of the principal part of it, divided into fifteen rectilinear and generally rectangular areas. The dimensions of these areas are not fractional but round numbers, as 100, 125, 150, and 250 feet, which cannot be the result of accident, and, with other evidences, indicate that they were, like similar pagan sepulchral areas, originally so many separate places of burial. When brought under the ecclesiastical control of Callixtus, about A. D. 200, they probably received one common name, became structurally united, and were used as a public cemetery of the church.

The first of these areas which we reach on entering the vineyard is that known as the crypt of St. Lucina. It has a frontage of one hundred feet on the Via Appia, and an extension in agro of two hundred and thirty feet. The limits of this area are exactly defined by the presence of a small pagan hypogeum on each side, which the