She

for our Divine Author gave you to me as a sacred (boon). You, well-deserving one, having left your (relations), lie in peace-in sleep you will arise a temporary rest is granted you. lived forty-five years, five months, and thirteen days: buried in peace. Placus, her husband, made this.

Nor was the hope of the Christians confined to their own bosoms. They published it abroad to all the world, in a manner which, while it provoked the scorn and malice of many, proved also a powerful inducement to others to join their community. The dismal annihilation of the soul taught by the Pagans, or the uncertain Elysium, which, though received by the uneducated, was looked upon as mere matter of superstition by the learned, had in it something so utterly unsuited to the wants and longings of mankind, that the spectacle of a Christian, thoroughly assured of a future state, so blessed and so certain as to have power to draw him irresistibly towards it through the extremest tortures, must have awakened in the heart of many a wishing, doubting Pagan, a feeling in favour of Christianity not easily suppressed. But, with the more infuriated persecutors, the view of a triumphant exit only served to stir up a desperate desire to deprive the martyr of his last expectation; and connecting the interment of the body with the prospect of its being restored to life, they thought by preventing the one, to cut off all hope of the other. In the well-known epistle of the churches of Lyons and Vienne, descriptive of their sufferings during the persecution of Antonine in the second century,

this last effort of malice on the part of their enemies is noticed.

"The bodies of the martyrs having been contumeliously treated and exposed for six days, were burnt and reduced to ashes, and scattered by the wicked into the Rhone, that not the least particle of them might appear on the earth any more. And they did these things, as if they could prevail against God, and prevent a resurrection: and that they might, as they expressed it, destroy the hope of a future life, on which relying they introduce a new and strange religion, despise the most excruciating tortures, and die with joy. Now let us see if they will rise again, and if their God can help them and deliver them out of our hands."

The custom of burying the dead was brought to Rome from the East, where the Jewish converts had inherited it. Prudentius states, that the prospect of a resurrection was the motive of the honours and attentions paid to the departed. "There will soon come a time when genial warmth shall revisit these bones, and the soul will resume its former tabernacle, animated with living blood. The inert corpses, long since corrupted in the tomb, shall be borne through the thin air *,' in company with the souls. For this reason is such care bestowed upon the sepulchre: such honour paid to the motionless limbs-such luxury displayed in funerals. We spread the linen cloth of spotless white-myrrh and frankincense embalm the body.

'Volucres rapientur in auras." Cathemerinon. Hymn, x.

What do these excavated rocks signify? What these fair monuments? What, but that the object intrusted to them is sleeping, and not dead. **** ** But now death itself is blessed, since through its pangs a path is thrown open to the just, a way from sorrow to the stars. We will adorn the hidden bones with violets and many a bough; and on the epitaph and the cold stones we will sprinkle liquid odours."

The ceremonies performed on these occasions are alluded to by authors of the time. Paulinus of Nola says of the surviving friends, "Let them carefully sprinkle the tomb of the martyr with spikenard, and bring medicated ointments to the holy grave." The "Acts" represent the Prefect Maximus as saying to Tarachus, "You fancy, wickedest of men, that those women of yours (muliercula) will obtain your body after your death, in order to preserve it with spices and ointments? But I will find some way of exterminating your very dust."* Boldetti relates that an odour of spices was perceived on opening some of the graves. Tertullian, in answer to the objection made by the political economists of his day, that the new religion was unfavourable to commerce, exclaims, "Is not incense brought from a distance? If Arabia should complain, tell the Sabeans that more of their merchandise, and that of a more expensive quality, is employed in burying Christians than in fumigating the gods." †

Ruinart. Acta Tarachi, Probi, &c. † Apologeticus, cap. 42.

It is time to set before the reader the appearance and construction of the cemeteries from which these monuments have been taken. In the greater number of galleries the height is about eight or ten feet, and the width from four to six: in the annexed drawing the author has attempted to express their usual appearance.

The graves are cut in the walls, either in a straggling line, or in tiers, represented by d'Agincourt as occasionally amounting to six in height. The large grave at the bottom of the drawing is a bisomum, cut downwards as well as inwards in the tufa. Further back is seen a branch of the gallery walled off to prevent accidents, which still occasionally happen to those who penetrate much beyond the entrance. The daylight finding its way into the mouth of the cavern, as described by Prudentius, serves to render visible the rifled sepulchres. There is seen in the more distant part of the gallery a small square hole, in which was originally deposited a cup.

Antiquarians have not succeeded in explaining the fact, that most of the graves near the entrance of the catacombs are so small as scarcely to allow room for the body of a child. The want of solidity in the material prevented the excavators, or fossors, as they were termed, from completing the graves before they were required, since the falling in of the soil would have destroyed their form: it is therefore possible that these small cells may have been the commencement of large graves thus begun, and from various causes left unfinished. Boldetti found some branches of the catacombs with the intended sepulchres merely sketched upon the

walls.

The galleries often run in stories two or three deep, communicating with each other by flights of