Pagan and Christian Rome Part 21

Many attempts have been made to estimate the extent of our catacombs, the length of their galleries, and the number of tombs which they contain. Michele Stefano de Rossi, brother of the archaeologist, gives the following results for the belt of catacombs within three miles of the gates of Servius:[150]--

(A) Surface of tufa beds, capable of being excavated into catacombs, 67,000,000 square feet.

(B) Surface actually excavated into catacombs, from one to four stories deep, 22,500,000 square feet,--more than a square mile.

(C) Aggregate length of galleries, calculated on the average construction of six different catacombs, 866 kilometres, equal to 587 geographical miles.

The sides of the galleries contain several rows of loculi, sometimes six or eight. Some bodies are buried under the floor, or in the cubiculi which open right and left at short intervals. a.s.suming these galleries to be capable of containing two bodies per metre, the number of Christians buried in the catacombs, within three miles from the gates of Servius, may be estimated at a minimum of 1,752,000.

The construction of this prodigious labyrinth required the excavation and removal of 96,000,000 cubic feet of solid rock.

With regard to the number of inscriptions, I quote the following pa.s.sage from Northcote's "Epitaphs," page 3: "Of Christian inscriptions in Rome, during the first six centuries, de Rossi has studied more than fifteen thousand, the immense majority of which were taken from the catacombs; and he tells us there is still an average yearly addition of about five hundred, derived from the same source.

This number, vast as it is, is but a poor remnant of what once existed. From the collections made in the eighth and ninth centuries it appears that there were once at least one hundred and seventy ancient Christian inscriptions in Rome, which had an historical or monumental character; written generally in metre, and to be seen at that time in the places which they were intended to ill.u.s.trate. Of these only twenty-six remain, either whole or in parts. In the Roman topographies of the seventh century, one hundred and forty sepulchres of famous martyrs and confessors are enumerated; we have recovered only twenty inscribed memorials, to a.s.sist us in the identification of these. Only nine epitaphs have come to light belonging to the bishops of Rome during the same six centuries; and yet, during that period, there were certainly buried in the suburbs of the city upwards of sixty. Thus, whatever facts we take as the basis of our calculation, it would seem that scarcely a seventh part of the original wealth of the Roman church in memorials of this kind has survived the wreck of ages; and de Rossi gives it as his conviction that there were once _more than one hundred thousand_ of them."

When the catacombs began to be better known to the general public, and were visited by crowds of the devout or curious, they became one of the marvels of Rome. Travellers who so admired the _syringes_ or crypts of the kings of Thebes, calling them t? ?a?ata (the wonders), could not help being struck with awe at the great work accomplished by our Christian community in less than three centuries.

An inscription found by Deville at Thebes, in one of the royal crypts, and published in the "Archives des missions scientifiques," 1866, vol.

ii. p. 484, thus refers to the parallel wonders of Roman and Egyptian catacombs: "Antonius Theodorus, intendant of Egypt and Phnicia, who has spent many years in the Queen-city of Rome, has seen the wonders (t? ?a?ata) both there and here." The allusion to the catacombs in comparison with the _syringes_ is evident. The inscription dates from the second half of the fourth century.

To the edict of Milan, and to the peace which it gave to the Church, we must attribute the origin of the decadence of underground cemeteries. Burial in open-air cemeteries having become secure once more, there was no reason why the faithful should give preference to the unhealthy and overcrowded crypts below. The example of desertion was set by the Popes themselves. Melchiades (311-314), who was the first to occupy the Lateran palace after the victory of the Church, was the last Pope buried near his predecessors _in cmeteris Callisti in cripta_. Sylvester, his successor, was buried in a chapel built expressly, above the crypt of Priscilla, Mark above the crypts of Balbina, Julius above those of Calepodius, and so on. Still, the desire of securing a grave in proximity to the shrine of a martyr was so intense that the use of the catacombs lasted for a century longer, although in diminishing proportions. When a gallery is discovered which contains more graves than usual, and has been excavated even in the narrow ledges of rock which separated the original loculi, or else at the corners of the crossings, which were usually left untouched, as protection against the caving-in of the earth, we may be sure we are approaching a martyr's altar-tomb. Sometimes the paintings which decorate a martyr's _cubiculum_ have been disfigured and their inscriptions effaced by an overzealous devotee. The accompanying cut shows the damage inflicted on a picture of the Good Shepherd in the cubiculum of S. Januarius, in the Catacombs of Praetextatus, by an unscrupulous disciple who wished to be buried as near as possible to his patron-saint.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cubiculum of Januarius.]

By the end of the fourth century burials in catacombs became rare, and still more between 400 and 410. They were apparently given up altogether after 410. The development of open-air cemeteries increased in proportion, those of S. Lorenzo and S. Paolo fuori le Mura being among the most popular. In 1863, when the entrance-gate to the modern Camposanto adjoining S. Lorenzo was built, fifty tombs, mostly unopened, were found in a s.p.a.ce ninety feet long by forty feet wide.

Since that time five hundred tombstones have been gathered in the neighborhood of that favorite church. As regards S. Paul's cemetery, more than one thousand inscriptions, whole or in fragments, were found in rebuilding the basilica and its portico, after the fire of 1823;[151] two hundred in the excavations of S. Valentine's basilica, outside the Porta del Popolo. These last excavations are the only ones ill.u.s.trating a Christian cemetery which are left visible; but their importance is limited. The cemeteries of Arles and Pola, alluded to by Dante, have disappeared; and so has the magnificent one of the officers and men employed in the Roman a.r.s.enal at Concordia Sagittaria, which was discovered in 1873, near Portogruaro, by Perulli and Bartolini. This cemetery, which contains, in the section already explored, nearly two hundred sarcophagi, cut in limestone, in the shape of Petrarch's coffin, at Arqua, or Antenor's at Padua, was wrecked by Attila in 452, and buried soon after by an inundation of the river Tagliamento, which spread ma.s.ses of mud and sand over the district, and raised its level five feet. The accompanying plate is from a photograph taken at the time of the discovery.

I have just stated that burial in catacombs seems to have been abandoned in 410, because no inscription of a later date has yet been found. The reader will easily perceive the reason for the abandonment.

On August 10, 410, Rome was stormed by Alaric, and the suburbs devastated. This fatal year marks the end of a great and glorious era in Christian epigraphy, and in the history of catacombs the end of the work of the _fossores_. More fatal still was the barbaric invasion of 457. The actual destruction began in 537, during the siege of Rome by Vitiges. The biographer of Pope Silverius expressly says: "Churches and tombs of martyrs have been destroyed by the Goths" (_ecclesiae et corpora sanctorum martyrum exterminata sunt a Gothis_). It is difficult to explain why the Goths, confessed and even bigoted Christians (Arians) as they were, and full of respect for the basilicas of S. Peter and S. Paul, as Procopius declares, should have ransacked the catacombs, violated the tombs of martyrs, and broken their historical inscriptions. Perhaps it was because none of the barbarians could read Latin or Greek epitaphs, and make the distinction between pagan and Christian cemeteries; or perhaps they were moved by the desire of finding hidden treasures, or securing relics of saints. Whatever may have been the reason of their behavior, we must remember that two encampments, at least, of the Goths were just over catacombs and around their entrances; one on the Via Salaria, over those of Thrason; the other on the Via Labicana, above those of Peter and Marcellinus. The barbarians could not resist the temptation of exploring those subterranean wonders; indeed they were obliged to do so by the most elementary rules of precaution in order to insure the safety of their intrenchments against surprises. Here I have to record a remarkable coincidence. In each of these two catacombs the following memorial tablet has been seen or found, written in distichs by Pope Virgilius:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRISTIAN MILITARY CEMETERY OF CONCORDIA SAGITTARIA]

"When the Goths pitched their camps under the walls of Rome, they declared an impious war against the Saints:

"And destroyed in their sacrilegious attack the tombs dedicated to the memory of martyrs:

"Whose epitaphs, composed by Pope Damasus, have been destroyed.

"Pope Virgilius, having witnessed the destruction, has repaired the tombs, the inscriptions, and the underground sanctuaries after the retreat of the Goths."

The repairs must have been made in haste, between March, 537, the date of the flight of Vitiges, and the following November, the date of the journey of Virgilius to Constantinople, from which he never returned.

Traces of this Pope's restorations have been found in other catacombs.

In those of Callixtus the fragments of a tablet, dedicated by Damasus to S. Eusebius, have been found, dispersed over a large area, and also a copy set up by Virgilius in the place of the original. In those of Hippolytus, on the Via Tiburtina, an inscription was discovered in 1881, which stated that the "sacred caverns" had been restored _praesule Virgilio_. The example of Virgilius and his successors in the See of Rome was followed by private individuals. The tomb of Crysanthus and Daria on the Via Salaria was restored, after the retreat of the barbarians, _pauperis ex censu_, that is to say, with the modest means of a devotee.

Nibby has attributed the origin of cemeteries within the walls to the invasion of Vitiges, burial within the city limits having been strictly forbidden by the laws of Rome. But the law seems to have been practically disregarded even before the Gothic wars. Christians were buried in the Praetorian camp, and in the gardens of Maecenas, during the reign of Theodoric (493-526). I have mentioned this particular because it marks another step towards the abandonment of suburban cemeteries. The country around Rome having become insecure and deserted, it was deemed necessary to place within the protection of the city walls the bodies of martyrs who had been buried at a great distance from the gates. The first translation took place in 648: the second in 682, when the bodies of Primus and Felicia.n.u.s were removed from Nomentum, and those of Viatrix, Faustinus and Simplicius from the _Lucus Arvalium_ (Monte delle Piche, by la Magliana). The last blow to the catacombs was given by Paschal I. (817-824). Contemporary doc.u.ments mention innumerable transferences of bodies. The mosaic legend of the apse of S. Pra.s.sede says that Pope Paschal buried the bodies of many saints within its walls.[152]

The official catalogue of the remains removed on July 20, 817, which was compiled by the Pope's notary and engraved on marble, has come down to us. It speaks of the translation of twenty-three hundred bodies, most of which were buried under the chapel of S. Zeno, which Paschal I. had built as a memorial to his mother, Theodora Episcopa.

The legend in the apse of S. Caecilia speaks, likewise, of the transference to her church of bodies "which had formerly reposed in crypts" (_quae primum in cryptis pausabant_): among them those of Caecilia herself, Valeria.n.u.s, Tiburtius, and Maximus. The finding and removal of Caecilia's remains from the Catacombs of Callixtus is one of the most graceful episodes in the life of Paschal I. He describes it at length in a letter addressed to the people of Rome.

After many unsuccessful attempts to discover the coffin of the saint, he had come to the conclusion that it must have been stolen by the Lombards, when they were besieging the city in 755. S. Caecilia, however, told him in a vision where her grave was; and hurrying to the catacombs of the Appian Way he at last discovered her crypt and coffin, together with those of fourteen Popes, from Zephyrinus to Melchiades. It is only fair to say that the discoveries made in this very crypt, between 1850 and 1853, confirm the account of Paschal in its minutest details.

The first half of the ninth century thus marks the final abandonment of the catacombs, and the cessation of divine worship in their historical crypts. In later times we find little or no mention of them in Church annals. When we read of Nicholas I. (858-867) and of Paschal II. (1099-1118) visiting the cemeteries, we must believe that their visits were to the basilicas erected over the catacombs, and to their special crypts, not to the catacombs themselves. In the chronicle of the monastery of S. Michael ad Mosam we read of a pilgrim of the eleventh century who obtained relics of saints "from the keeper of a certain cemetery, in which lamps are always burning." He refers to the basilica of S. Valentine and the small hypogaeum attached to it (discovered in 1887), not to catacombs in the true sense of the word.

The very last account referring directly to them dates from the time of Pope Nicholas I. (858-867) who is said to have restored the crypt of Mark on the Via Ardeatina, and of Felix, Abdon, and Sennen on the Via Portuensis. At this time also the visits of pilgrims, to whose itineraries, or guidebooks, we are indebted for so much knowledge of the topography of suburban cemeteries, come to an end. The best itineraries are those of Einsiedeln, Salzburg, Wurzburg, and William of Malmesbury; and the list of the oils from the lamps burning before the tombs of martyrs, which were collected by John, abbot of Monza, at the request of queen Theodolinda. The pilgrims left many records of their visits scratched on the walls of the sanctuaries; and to these _graffiti_ also we are indebted for much information, since they contain formulas of devotion addressed to the saint of the place. They are very interesting in their simplicity of thought and diction, as are generally the memoirs of early pilgrims and pilgrimages. I shall mention one, discovered not many years ago in the cemetery of Mustiola at Chiusi. It is a plain tombstone, inscribed with the words:--

HIC POSITUS EST PEREGRINUS CICONIAS CUIUS NOMEN DEUS SCIT

"Here is buried a pilgrim from Thrace, whose name is known only to G.o.d." The tale is simple and touching. A pilgrim on his way to Rome, or back to his country, was overtaken by death at Chiusi, before he could make himself known to those who had come to his help. They could only suppose he had come from Thrace, the country of the Cicones, possibly from the language he spoke, or from the costume he wore.

On May 31, 1578, a workman, while digging a sandpit in the vineyard of Bartolomeo Sanchez at the second milestone of the Via Salaria, came upon a Christian cemetery containing frescoes, sarcophagi, and inscriptions. This unexpected discovery created a great sensation,[153] and the report was circulated that an underground city had been found. The leading men of the age hastened to the spot; among them Baronius, who speaks of these wondrous crypts three or four times in his annals.[154] It seems that the network of galleries, crossing one another at various angles, the skylights, the wells, the symmetry of the cubiculi and arcosolia, the number of loculi with which the sides of the galleries were honeycombed, affected the imagination of visitors even more than the pictures, the sarcophagi, and the epitaphs. The subjects of the frescoes were so varied as to contain almost the whole cycle of early Christian symbolism. There were the Good Shepherd and the Praying Soul, Noah and the ark, Daniel and the lions, Moses striking the rock, the story of Jonah, the sacrifice of Isaac, the three men in the fiery furnace, the resurrection of Lazarus, etc. The bas-reliefs of the marble coffins represented Christian love-feasts and pastoral scenes. The epitaphs contained simply names, except one, which was raised by a girl "to her sweet nurse Paulina, who dwells in Christ among the blessed." These pious memorials of the primitive church led the learned visitors to investigate their meaning and value, as well as the history and name of those mysterious labyrinths. The origin of Christian archaeology, therefore, really dates from May 1, 1578. Antonio Bosio, the Columbus of subterranean Rome, was but three years old at that time, but he seems to have developed his marvellous instinct on the strength of what he saw in the Vigna Sanchez in his boyhood. The crypts, however, had but a short life: the quarry-men damaged and robbed them to such an extent that, when Bos...o...b..gan his career in 1593, every trace of them had disappeared. They have never been found since. We can only point out to the lover of these studies the site of the Vigna Sanchez.

It is marked by a monumental gate, on the right side of the Via Salaria, crowned by the well-known coat-of-arms of the della Rovere family, to whom the property was sold towards the end of the sixteenth century. The gate is a little more than a mile from the Porta Salaria.

From that time to the first quarter of the present century, we have to tell the same long tale of destruction. And who were responsible for this wholesale pillage? The very men--Aringhi, Boldetti, Marangoni, Bottari--who devoted their lives, energies and talents to the study of the catacombs, and to whom we are indebted for many standard works on Christian archaeology. Such was the spirit of the age. Whether an historical inscription came out of one cemetery or another did not matter to them; the topographical importance of discoveries was not appreciated. Written or engraved memorials were sought, not for the sake of the history of the place to which they belonged, but to ornament houses, museums, villas, churches and monasteries. In 1863, de Rossi found a portion of the Cemetery of Callixtus, near the tombs of the Popes, in incredible confusion and disorder: loculi ransacked, their contents stolen, their inscriptions broken and scattered far and wide, and the bones themselves taken out of their graves. The perpetrators of the outrage had taken care to leave their names written in charcoal or with the smoke of tallow candles; they were men employed by Boldetti in his explorations of the catacombs, between 1713 and 1717. Some of the tombstones were removed by him to S. Maria in Trastevere, and inserted in the floor of the nave. Benedict XIV.

took away the best, and placed them in the Vatican Library. They have now migrated again to the Museo Epigrafico of the Lateran Palace.

Those left in the floor of S. Maria in Trastevere were removed to the vestibule of the church in 1865.

In 1714, some beautiful paintings of the first century were discovered in the crypt of the Flavian family (Domitilla) at Torre Marancia. They were examined by well-known archaeologists and churchmen, whose names are scratched or written on the walls: Boldetti, Marangoni, Bottari, Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, and G. B. de Rossi (the last two since canonized by the Church), and by hundreds of priests, nuns, missionaries, and pilgrims. No mention is made of this beautiful discovery in contemporary books; but an attempt was made to steal the frescoes, which resulted, as usual, in their total destruction.[155]

The catacombs owe their sad fate to the riches which they contained.

In times of persecution, when the _fossores_ were pressed by too much work and memorial tablets could not be secured in time, it was customary for the survivors to mark the graves of the dear ones either with a symbol, a word, or a date scratched in the fresh cement; or with some object of identification, such as gla.s.s cups, medallions, cameos, intaglios, objects cut in rock crystal, coral, etc. If the work of exploration has been carried on actively in the last three centuries, it is on account of the rich harvest which searching parties were sure to reap whenever they chanced to come across a catacomb or part of a catacomb, yet unexplored, with these signs of recognition untouched.

The best works of the glyptic art, the rarest gems, coins, and medallions of European cabinets have come to light in this way. Pietro Sante Bartoli, who chronicled the discoveries made in Rome in the second half of the seventeenth century, speaks several times of treasure-trove in catacombs:[156]

"In a Christian cemetery discovered outside the Porta Portese, in the vineyard of a priest named degli Effetti, many relics of martyrs have been found, a beautiful set of the rarest medallions (_bellissima serie di medaglioni rarissimi_), works in metal and crystal, engraved stones, jewels, and other curios and interesting objects, many of which were sold by the workmen at low prices." And again: "The opening of a catacomb was discovered by accident under the Casaletto of Pius V., outside the Porta S. Pancrazio. Although the crypt had never been entered, and promised to be very rich, no excavations were attempted, owing to the dangerous condition of the rock. One object only was extracted from the ruinous cavern; a polychrome cameo of marvellous beauty (_di meravigliosa bellezza_) representing a Baccha.n.a.lian. The stone measured sixteen inches in length by ten in width. It was given to cardinal Ma.s.simi."[157]

The number of catacombs has been greatly exaggerated. Panvinius and Baronius stated it as forty-three; Aringhi and his followers raised this number to sixty. De Rossi, however, in vol. i., p. 206, of the "Roma sotterranea" proves that the number of catacombs excavated during the first three centuries, within a radius of three miles from the walls of Servius Tullius, is but twenty-six; besides eleven of much less importance, and five which were excavated after the Peace of Constantine.

It would be impossible to give even a summary description of these forty-two cemeteries, within the limits of the present chapter. De Rossi's account of Lucina's crypts in the Cemetery of Callixtus occupies one hundred and thirty-two folio pages, and has required thirty-five plates of ill.u.s.tration. I must confine myself to the mention of the few discoveries, connected with the history and topography of underground Rome, which have come within my personal experience, or which I have had occasion to study.

THE CATACOMBS OF GENEROSA. In 1867, while watching with my friend commendatore Visconti (the present director of the Vatican Museum) the excavations of the Sacred Grove of the Arvales, on the Via Campana, five miles outside the Porta Portese, I witnessed for the first time the discovery of a catacomb. The experience could not have been more pleasant, nor the history of the first occupants of these crypts more interesting.

In the persecution of Diocletian two brothers, Simplicius and Faustinus, were tortured and put to death for their faith, and their bodies were thrown into the Tiber from the bridge of aemilius Lepidus.

The stream carried them to a considerable distance, and their young sister Beatrix, who was anxiously watching the banks of the river for the recovery of their dear remains, discovered them lying in the shallows of la Magliana, near the grove of the Arvales. She buried them in a small Christian cemetery which a certain Generosa had excavated close by, under the boundary line of the grove itself.

Beatrix, left alone in the world, found shelter in the house of one of the Lucinas; but the persecutors, to whom her pious action had evidently been reported, discovered her retreat, and killed her by suffocation, seven months after the execution of Simplicius and Faustinus. Lucina laid her to rest in the same cemetery of Generosa, by the side of her brothers. This touching story is related in contemporary doc.u.ments.

Pope Damasus, who in his younger days had been notary and stenographer of the church of Rome, and was acquainted with every detail of the last persecution, raised a small oratory to the memory of the three martyrs, and sanctified the ground which for eleven centuries had been the seat of the worship of the Dea Dia. The chapel lasted until the pontificate of Leo II., when it became evident that the only way of saving the remains of Beatrix, Simplicius, and Faustinus from profanation and robbery, was to remove them from a place so conspicuous for many miles around, and directly in the path of pirates and invaders from the sea, and to place them under the protection of the city walls. The translation took place in 682; the bodies were removed to the church of Santa Biviana, or the Bibiana, on the Esquiline, and placed in a sarcophagus, with the record: "Here lie in peace Simplicius and Faustinus, martyrs, drowned in the Tiber and buried in the cemetery of Generosa, above the landing-place called ad s.e.xtum Philippi." Sarcophagus and inscription are still in existence.

The discovery of the oratory of Pope Damasus and the cemetery of Generosa took place, as already stated, in the spring of 1867, when a fragment of the architrave of the altar was found in front of the apse, inscribed with the names, STINO VIATRICI, engraved in the best Damasian calligraphy. The spelling of the second name deserves attention, because it is certainly intentional, as Damasus and his engraver Furius Dionysius Philocalus are distinguished for absolute epigraphic correctness. _Viatrix_, the feminine of _Viator_, is altogether different from _Beatrix_, and has its own Christian meaning, as an allusion to the eventful journey of human life. Must we take the word _Beatrix_ as a new form, more or less connected with the adjective _beatus_, or as a corruption of the genuine name? No doubt it is a corruption, as the oldest martyrologies and liturgies have the genuine spelling. The subst.i.tution of the B instead of the V took place in the eighth or ninth century, and appears for the first time in the Codex of Berne. The grammarian who wrote it was evidently of the opinion that _Viatrix_ was not the right spelling; and so the true and beautiful name of the sister of Faustinas and Simplicius became corrupted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sancta Viatrix.]

The accompanying ill.u.s.tration represents the portrait of Viatrix discovered in the Catacomb of Generosa in the spring of 1868.

THE CEMETERY OF DOMITILLA. The farm of Torre Marancia, at the crossing of the Via Ardeatina and the Via delle Sette Chiese, is familiar to archaeologists on account of the successful excavations which the d.u.c.h.ess of Chablais made there in the spring of the years 1817 and 1822. Bartolomeo Borghesi, who first visited them in April, 1817, describes the remains of a n.o.ble villa of the first century, with mosaic pavements, fountains, statuary, candelabra, and frescos. The pictures of Pasiphae, Canace, Phaedra, Myrrha, and Scylla, which are now in the Cabinet of the Aldobrandini Marriage, in the Vatican Library, were discovered in one of the bedrooms of the villa. Other works of art, now exhibited in the third compartment of the Galleria dei Candelabri, were found in the peristyle. An exact description of these discoveries, with maps and ill.u.s.trations, is given by Marchese Biondi in a volume called "Monumenti Amaranziani," published in Rome in 1825.

The Villa Amaranthiana, from which the modern name of Torre Marancia is derived, belonged to two ladies, one of imperial descent, Flavia Domitilla, a relative of Domitian and t.i.tus, the other of patrician birth, Munatia Procula, the daughter of Marcus. Domitilla's name appears twice in doc.u.ments attesting her ownership of the ground; the first is the grant of a sepulchral area, measuring thirty-five feet by forty, to Sergius Cornelius Julia.n.u.s _ex indulgentia Flaviae Domitillae_; the other mentions the construction of another tomb, _Flaviae Domitillae divi Vespasiani neptis beneficio_.[158] These concessions refer to burial-plots above ground, on the Via Ardeatina.

Much more important was the permission given by Domitilla for the excavation of a catacomb in the service of the Church, which had just been established in Rome by the apostles. The catacomb consisted originally of two sections; one for the use of those members of the imperial Flavian family who had been converted to the gospel, and one for common use. I have already given a brief account of the first (see p. 10). The entrance to the crypts was built in a conspicuous place, under the safeguard of the law which guaranteed the inviolability of private tombs. The place can still be visited. On each side of the entrance are apartments for the celebration of anniversary banquets, the ???pa? or love-feasts of the early Church. Those on the left are decorated in the so-called Pompeian style, with birds and festoons on a red ground. Here is the well, the drinking-fountain, the washing-trough, and the wardrobe. On the opposite side is the _schola_, or banqueting-room, with benches on three sides. There is no doubt that the builders and owners of these crypts were Christians; because the graves within were arranged for the interment of bodies, not for cremation; that is, for sarcophagi and coffins, not for cinerary urns; and, as I stated at the beginning of the previous chapter, the pagans of the first century, and of the first half of the second, were never interred. The Domitilla after whom the catacombs were named was a niece of Vespasian, _Divi Vespasiani neptis_. The reader will remember that in chapter i. I quoted Xiphilinus as saying that in the year 95 some members of the imperial family were condemned by Domitian on the charge of atheism, together with other leading personages, who had adopted "the customs and persuasion of the Jews,"--an expression which means the Christian faith. Among those condemned he mentions Clemens and Domitilla, whose genealogy is still subject to some uncertainty.

A tombstone discovered in 1741, by Marangoni, in these very catacombs, mentions two names, Flavius Sabinus and Flavia t.i.tiana. They are descendants, perhaps grandchildren, of Flavius Sabinus, the brother of Vespasian. Sabinus was prefect of Rome during the persecution of Nero; but Tacitus[159] describes him as a gentle man, who hated violence (_mitem virum abhorrentem a sanguine et caedibus_). His second son, t.i.tus Flavius Clemens, consul A. D. 82, was executed in 95 on account of his Christian faith; and Flavia Domitilla, his daughter-in-law, was banished for the same cause to the island Pandataria. There is a record of the banishment of another Flavia Domitilla to the island of Pontia; but her genealogy and relationship with the former have not been yet clearly established. Some writers, however, have identified her with the niece of Vespasian, mentioned in the inscription referred to above, as owner of the villa of Torre Marancia and founder of the catacombs. The small island, where she spent many years in solitary confinement, is described by S. Jerome as one of the leading places of pilgrimage in the fourth century of our era.

The "Acta Martyrum" state that Flavia Domitilla, niece of Flavius Clemens, was buried at Terracina, with her attendants, Theodora and Euphrosyne; and that her body-servants, or _cubicularii_, Nereus and Achilleus, who were executed for the same reason, were laid to rest in the crypts of the Villa Amaranthiana, half a mile from Rome, near the tomb of Petronilla, the so-called daughter of S. Peter. In the early itineraries the place is also indicated as the "cemetery of Domitilla, Nereus, and Achilleus, near Santa Petronilla." Bosio discovered it towards the end of the sixteenth century, and mistook it for the Cemetery of Callixtus. The discoveries made in 1873 leave no doubt as to its identification with the famous burial-place of the Flavians; they brought to light, not a crypt of ordinary dimensions, but a basilica equal in size to the one dedicated to S. Lorenzo by Constantine.