Of the bodies Where the pos

Rossi states that he has assisted at the removal of a body from the Catacombs to a church two miles distant without the displacement of a single bone.* The age of the deceased and the nature of the ground also affect the condition in which the remains are found. of children nothing but dust remains. zolana is damp, the bones are often well preserved; and where water has infiltrated, a partial petrifaction sometimes occurs. Campana describes the opening of a hermetically sealed sarcophagus, which revealed the undisturbed body clad in funeral robes, and wearing the ornaments of life; but while he gazed it suddenly dissolved to dust before his eyes. Sometimes the sarcophagus was placed behind a perforated slab of marble, as shown in the following example, given by Maitland. The lower part of the slab is broken.

The other essential constituent of the Catacombs, besides the galleries already described, consists of the cubicula.t These are chambers excavated in the tufa *Rom. Sott., ii, 127.

† D'Agincourt, Histoire de l'art par les Monumens, i, 20.

Literally, little sleeping chambers, from cubo, I lie down. The same name was also given to the cells for meditation and prayer at. tached to the Church of Nola. Paulin., ep. 12, ad Sever.

on either side of the galleries, with which they commu nicate by doors, as seen in Fig. 4. These often bear the character of family vaults, and are lined with graves, like the corridors without. They are generally square or rectangular, but sometimes octagonal or circular. They were probably used as mortuary chapels, for the celebration of funeral service, and for the administration of the eucharist near the tombs of the martyrs on the anniversaries of their death. They were too small to be used for regular worship, except perhaps in time of persecution. They are often not more than eight or ten feet square. Even the so-called "Papal Crypt," a chamber of peculiar sanctity, is only eleven by fourteen

feet; and that

of St. Cecilia adjoining it, one of a large size, is less than

twenty feet

square. Even the largest

would not ac

commodate

more than a

few dozen per

sons. These

chambers are

generally facing one another on opposite sides of a gallery, as in the annexed plan of two cubicula in the Catacomb of Callixtus.

It is thought that in the celebration of

worship one

of these chambers was designed for men and the other for women. Sometimes separate passages to the chapels and distinct entrances to the Catacombs seem intended to facilitate this separation of the sexes. Sometimes three, or even as many as five, cubicula, as in one example in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, were placed on the same

axial line, and formed one continuous suite of chambers. The accompanying section of what is known as "The Chapel of Two Halls," in the Catacomb of St. Prætextatus, illustrates this: A is the main gallery, D a large cubiculum known as "The Women's Hall," to the right, and to the left B, a hexagonal vaulted room with a smaller chamber, c, opening from it. The length of the entire range from G to F, according to the accurate measurement of M. Perret, is twenty-three and a half mètres, or nearly seventy-seven feet. The larger engraving (Fig. 11) gives a perspective view looking toward the left of the hexagonal chamber,(D. Fig. 10,) and the smaller one, c, opening from it. By means

of these connected chambers the Christians were enabled in times of persecution to assemble for worship in these "dens and caves of the earth," surrounded by the slum

bering bodies of the holy dead.

The cubicula had vaulted roofs, and were sometimes plastered or cased with marble and paved with tiles, or, though rarely, with mosaic. These, however, were generally additions of later date than the original construction, as were also the semi-detached columns in the angles, with stucco capitals and bases, as indicated in Fig. 9, and shown more clearly in the following engraving, which is a perspective view of the lower chamber