Since the date of what may be termed the rediscovery of the Catacombs in the vineyard on the Via Salaria in 1578[120] the work of excavation and research in the streets of the City of the Dead which lies beneath the suburbs of Rome has been slowly and somewhat fitfully carried on, exciting generally but little public interest, and until the last fifty years, roughly speaking, has been most mischievous and destructive.
It is probable that more destruction and havoc have been wrought by the well-meaning but ill-directed efforts of the explorer than were occasioned by the raids of the barbarians in the sixth and two following centuries and by the slow wear and sap of time.
Among these, Bosio, A.D. 1593–1629, the pioneer of the Catacomb explorers, occupies one of the few honourable places; his method of working was in many respects scientific. He was no mere explorer, working haphazard, but he guided his labours by carefully sifting all the information he could procure of the past history of the vast subterranean necropolis. But, after all, the materials of this history which he could get together were scanty when compared with the materials possessed by scholars of our day and time, and in consequence many of the conclusions to which this pioneer of Catacomb research came to were erroneous.
But in his manner of working Bosio had no successors. As a rule, since that really illustrious scholar and searcher has passed away, alas! a very different method has been with rare exceptions followed by explorers of the Catacombs, and owing to the careless and ill-regulated excavations which have been fitfully carried on during some 200 and more years, irreparable damage has been done, and the losses to this deeply important branch of early Christian history are simply incalculable.
The general results of this unfortunate exploration work in the past have been summarised as follows:
During this long period—roughly from A.D. 1629 to about the middle of the nineteenth century, some 220 years—the chief object and aim of Catacomb exploration were to procure relics; when these were once carried away, no heed was paid to the crypts, or to the streets of graves. The records of the excavations kept were scanty and utterly insignificant, and each Catacomb from which the relics were taken was left in a state of utter ruin and deplorable confusion. The result of these searchings of 220 years has been that few discoveries were made of any real importance to early Christian history or archæology. At last De Rossi, in the middle years of the nineteenth century, took in hand seriously the study and scientific exploration of the vast Christian necropolis of Rome.
De Rossi was the friend and pupil of Father Marchi, an indefatigable student of the Catacombs who was really impressed with the possibilities of a more careful exploration than had hitherto been undertaken. Marchi’s real title to honour will ever be that he imbued his pupil with a passionate love of the work to which he has devoted a long and strenuous life.
The great City of the Dead, largely thanks to De Rossi’s lifelong labours, is to us something far more than a vast museum of inscriptions and memorials, the work of the Christian congregations in Rome during the first two and a half centuries which followed the preaching and martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul. It is true that most important is the testimony of these precious relics to the earliest popular estimate of Christianity: we shall dwell later on the wonderful witness which the numberless inscriptions and strange emblems painted and graven on the tombs bear to the faith and belief of the early Church; but the eminent Roman scholar of whom we are speaking has taught us that there was more than even the witness of these precious inscriptions and emblems to be gathered from a patient study of the Catacomb secret.
De Rossi believed, and the splendid results of his long toil have strikingly verified his belief, that amidst the ruined and desolated streets of graves the historic crypts of the more famous and illustrious martyrs of Christ, of the men and women who during the first two centuries and a half through pain and agony passed to their rest and won their crowns, could be found and identified, and that thus a new and striking proof would be furnished of the truth of much of the martyr story of the early Church.
The official records of well-nigh all the Roman martyrdoms of the age of persecution, we know, were destroyed by the imperial government in the days of Diocletian. The martyrologies or histories of these heroes and heroines of the faith of Jesus which have come down to us, it is well known, were with a few notable exceptions for the most part largely composed some two or even more centuries after the events they relate had happened, and have in consequence been treated by careful Christian scholars as not dependable sources of early Christian history; this has been conceded by the most scholarly of the devout Christian students.
De Rossi’s great work, however, strange to say, has curiously rehabilitated very many of these long-discredited martyr stories,[121] and has clearly shown us that not a few of the more important of these have been absolutely founded on fact; of course, some of the various details as recounted in these martyrologies are more or less legendary, but the great cardinal fact of the existence, of the life-work and suffering, and noble testimony to the faith sealed with their life-blood, of these true servants of the adored Master, is positively established by what has been found in the last fifty years in the Roman city of the Christian dead.
De Rossi and his companions have indeed given us a perfectly new and most striking page in the history of this early Christian Church.
It will be of special interest briefly to glance over the principal portion of the materials which De Rossi made use of as his guide during his long forty years’ labours in the exploration of the Catacombs. First in order must be taken what may be termed the literature bearing on the City of the Dead.
The most important of these pieces are
1. The Acts of the Martyrs. These have already been alluded to as possessing, save in a few instances, little historic authority, as they were mostly composed two centuries or even more after the events which they purported to relate happened. But they were not without their value to the Catacomb explorers, for it must be remembered that when these “Acts” were put together in the form we now possess them, in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, the Catacombs were still an object of eager pilgrimage from all lands, and many of the details in these “Acts” evidently were based on an historical tradition, such as the place exactly where the martyr of the “Acts” was buried; such a detail, for instance, served as a guide to the explorer.
2. The Martyrology of S. Jerome—a compilation dating from about the middle of the sixth century, but certainly containing memoranda of an earlier date.
3. The (so-called) Liber Pontificalis—a generally reliable and most interesting work, the earlier portion of which has been largely used throughout Western Christendom, certainly since the sixth century. The first part of this work contains biographical notices of the Bishops of Rome from the days of S. Peter to the times of Pope Nicholas, A.D. 807. The earliest redaction of the first Papal notices in the Liber Pontificalis which has come down to us was made towards the end of the fifth century, or in the first years of the sixth. But it is evidently based on records of a much older date preserved in the Roman Church.
4. But what De Rossi found most valuable for the purposes of his great work was a group of writings known as Itineraries of Pilgrims. These were founded on handbooks composed for the use of devout pilgrims from Britain, Gaul, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland,—men and women who were desirous to see and to pay their devotions at the celebrated shrines of Rome.
Some five at least of these precious Pilgrim Itineraries or Guide-Books to the more celebrated shrines or places where martyrs were interred in the vast Roman City of the Dead have come down to us. They have proved of the highest value to De Rossi in his exploration work. The first perhaps in value of these is contained in the works of William of Malmesbury, which treat of the doings of the Crusaders in Rome. William of Malmesbury wrote in the year of grace 1095. But the Itinerary section in question speaks of the martyr saints as though they were still resting in their Catacomb graves, although we know that they had been translated into churches in the city about three centuries earlier. This clearly shows that the “Itinerary” section had been written several centuries before the writer William of Malmesbury lived and copied it into his work.
Other Pilgrim Itineraries have been found in famous monastic libraries, such as in the libraries of Einsiedeln and Salzburg. These may be roughly dated about the middle of the seventh century,—that is, before the days of the Pontificate of Paul I, A.D. 757, and Paschal I, A.D. 817, when the wholesale translation of the remains of the martyrs from the Catacombs to the securer shelter of the city churches took place. These were therefore written in a period when the traditions connected with the historic crypts and their venerated contents were all comparatively fresh and vivid.
In the same category with the Pilgrim Itineraries which the great Roman scholar has found so helpful in his Catacomb researches must be placed the celebrated papyrus preserved in the Cathedral of Monza. This is a contemporary catalogue or list of the sacred oils sent by Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 590–604) to Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards. The Lombard Queen sent a special messenger, one Abbot John, to Pope Gregory the Great asking him for relics of the saints buried in the Catacombs. At that period no portions of the sacred bodies were allowed to be removed, even at the request of so powerful a petitioner as Theodelinda; but as a substitute the Pope sent a little of the oil which fed the lamps which were ever kept burning before the tombs or shrines of the saints in question.
Each phial containing the oil was carefully ticketed or labelled, and a list of these tickets or labels was written on this Monza papyrus. Some sixty or seventy saints’ shrines are specially enumerated, besides about eight places mentioned before which oils were kept burning, before tombs which contained a crowd of unnamed saints and martyrs.
This Monza catalogue of the sacred oils De Rossi carefully compared with the topographical notices in the Pilgrim Itineraries above referred to. It was of great service to the scholar explorer in discovering and identifying many of the principal sanctuaries of the Catacombs.
Another and quite a different material for his investigations De Rossi found amidst the desolate Catacombs themselves: he noticed that certain unmistakable indications ever marked the near neighbourhood of some historic crypt.
1. The existence above ground of more or less ruined basilicas of various dimensions,—in some cases showing the remains of a considerable building, in others of a comparatively small edifice as of a chapel or an oratory. Such a ruined building evidently pointed to there being beneath the soil, at times deep down, an historic crypt of importance. Such a small basilica or oratory had no doubt been built after the Peace of the Church in the middle or latter years of the fourth or in the fifth century, when pilgrimage to the shrines of the saints and martyrs had become the fashion. It was intended to accommodate the ever-growing crowds who came often from distant countries to pray near and to venerate the saints and martyrs whose remains lay buried in the crypt immediately beneath.
2. The remains, more or less perfect, of a staircase or staircases leading down to the sacred crypt containing a tomb of some great confessor known and honoured in the tradition of the Church.
3. The presence of a “luminare” or shaft, sometimes of considerable size, which was constructed to give light and air to a subterranean chamber in the Catacombs, indicated that in the immediate neighbourhood of the “luminare” an historic crypt had once existed. These openings or shafts were mostly the work of Pope Damasus and his successors in the latter years of the fourth and in the earlier years of the fifth centuries.
4. Below—in some of the ruined corridors of tombs and in certain of the cubicula or separate chambers leading out of the corridors—on the walls a number of “graffiti” or inscriptions, often very rudely graved or painted, are visible, some of the inscriptions or questions being simply a name, others containing a brief prayer for the writer or for one dear to the writer. It was evident that the presence of such inscriptions indicated the immediate neighbourhood of an historic crypt which once contained the remains of a revered “great one,”—not unfrequently the name of the “great one” was included in some of the graffiti.
Such “graffiti” were clearly the work of the many pilgrims to the Catacombs in the fifth and following centuries.
5. In certain of the cubicula or separate chambers leading out of the corridors, remains of paintings, evidently of a period much later than the original Catacomb work, are discernible—paintings which belong to the Byzantine rather than to any classical school of art, and which cannot be dated earlier than the sixth or seventh centuries. The existence of such later decorative work clearly indicated that the spot so adorned was one of traditional sanctity, and no doubt had been the resting-place of a venerated saint and martyr.
6. In his “materials” for the identification of the historic crypts De Rossi found the inscriptions of Pope Damasus, who died A.D. 384, of the greatest assistance.
Damasus’ love for and work in the Catacombs is well known. He was a considerable poet, and precious fragments of poetical inscriptions composed by him have been found in many of the more important Catacombs which have been explored. These inscriptions were engraved on marble tablets by his friend and skilful artist Furius Dionysius Filocalus in clear beautiful characters. These fragments have been in many cases put together, and where the broken pieces were wanting have been wonderfully restored with the aid of “syllogæ” or collections of early Christian inscriptions gathered mostly in the ninth century by the industry of the monks. These “syllogæ” or collections have preserved for us some forty of the inscriptions of Pope Damasus in honour of martyrs and confessors buried in the Catacombs. With perhaps one solitary exception, they are all written in hexameter verse.
Such collections of early Christian inscriptions have been preserved in the libraries of such monasteries as Einsiedeln, S. Riquier, S. Gall, etc.
The result of the forty years of De Rossi’s researches and work in the Catacombs, based on the above-mentioned historical documents and on the evidence derived from what he found in the ruined corridors of tombs and the chambers leading out of them, has been that, whereas before his time at most three important historical crypts were known, now already more than fifteen[122] of these have been clearly identified, a wonderful and striking proof of the reality of the sufferings and constancy of the heroes and heroines of the faith in the first two hundred and fifty years of the existence of the religion of Jesus—sufferings and constancy which resulted in the final triumph of Christianity.
Briefly to enumerate just a very few of the more prominent later historical discoveries which have lifted much of the early history and inner life of the great Church of the Roman congregations from the domain of tradition into the realm of scientific history—
In the first century—the discoveries in the cemeteries of Domitilla and Priscilla. The long-disputed story of Nereus and Achilles; the existence and fate of the two Domitillas, kinswomen of the imperial house; the Christianity and martyrdom of the patrician Acilius Glabrio the Consul, have been largely authenticated.
In the second century—the discovery of the tombs of SS. Felicitas and Cecilia, of the grave of S. Januarius, the eldest son of Felicitas,[123] substantiate the existence and death of the famous martyrs, whose very existence has been doubted even by earnest Christian students, and whose life-story has been generally relegated to the sphere of religious romance.
In the early years of the third century—the wonderful “find” of the Papal Crypt in the Callistus Cemetery, and the ruined remains of the tombs of several of the Bishops of Rome, confessors and martyrs, bear irrefragable testimony to the truth of records of early Christian history, and set a seal upon tradition hitherto only held with but a half-hearted confidence. In the middle years of the same century the identification of the tombs of Agnes and her foster-sister Emerentiana replaced in the pages of serious history scenes often quoted in early martyrology, but which competent Christian critics had long relegated to the region of the merely legendary. The exploration and labours of De Rossi and his band of fellow-workers and pupils have also thrown a flood of light on the days of the fierce continuous persecution of the Emperor Diocletian, and have opened out to publicity a number of tombs of nameless martyrs who suffered under the iron hand of imperial Rome in the bloody times of that last and fiercest of attacks on Christianity. And besides the many nameless graves of a great multitude of martyrs and confessors who suffered under Diocletian, these explorations have identified the tombs of not a few of the more famous Christian leaders who witnessed a good confession at that same dread epoch, notably the resting-places of Peter and Marcellinus, of the Roman bishops Caius and Eusebius, of Marcus and Marcellinus. “A very glorious group of monuments—a group, too, which we may well expect to become larger and more far-reaching in its teaching, for innumerable crypts are still waiting to be explored and searched out. Each of the ancient roads leading from the immemorial capital of Italy, and once of the world; each historic cemetery or catacomb contains such a crypt with its central shrine of some once well-known martyr or illustrious confessor of the Name.”
So writes Marucchi, one of the foremost of the living Roman scholars in Catacomb lore, the disciple and successor of De Rossi. (These words were written in the year of grace 1903.)
Following closely upon the notices contained in the Pilgrim Itineraries of the seventh and eighth centuries, De Rossi, in a catalogue carefully composed, enumerates thirty-seven cemeteries or Catacombs. Several, however, of these have not been clearly identified. One or two of them are very small; while others, apparently extending over a wide area, communicate with one another; and some are very imperfectly known, others as yet quite unexplored.
It will be an assistance to the student wishing to grasp something of the vast extent of the great subterranean City of the Dead, and desirous to arrive at some idea of the present knowledge of the mighty Christian necropolis of the first days, if a brief sketch of the known cemeteries and their more important crypts is presented.
The sketch will deal with each of the “Viæ” or public roads leading out of Rome, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the different cemeteries or Catacombs have been excavated,—each public road having its own special group of cemeteries, lying hard by beneath the vineyards or gardens abutting on the road.
THE VATICAN HILL
Naturally, the cemetery on the Vatican Hill, which includes the tomb of S. Peter, must be mentioned first. The whole district of the Vatican in the days of Nero (middle years of the first century of the Christian era) was covered with gardens and villas; it communicated directly with the city by means of the Pons Triumphalis, afterwards termed the Pons Neronianus, and was traversed by the Via Triumphalis and the Via Cornelia. Between these two roads the Apostle S. Peter was buried. The Pilgrim Itineraries describe the sacred tomb now as “juxta viam Corneliam”—now as “juxta viam Triumphalem.” Directly over the apostle’s tomb[124] Anacletus, the Bishop of Rome, third in succession, erected a “Memoria” or little chapel. This “Memoria” or Chapel of Anacletus grew into the lordly basilica known subsequently as S. Peter’s at Rome.
The tomb in question is situated close by the spot where without doubt the apostle suffered martyrdom in the year of grace 67. Around the tomb of S. Peter, as we shall see, were buried the nine or ten first Bishops or Popes of Rome, as well as other nameless saints once famous in the early years of the story of the Roman congregations.
It is doubtful if there was ever a Catacomb, as we understand the term, on the Vatican Hill. No trace of subterranean corridors, or of chambers leading out of the corridors, have been found; only, it must be remembered that the neighbourhood of the tomb of S. Peter and the early Bishops of Rome has been completely changed owing to the excavations necessary for the foundations of the great basilica erected over the little Memoria of Anacletus by Constantine the Great in the first half of the fourth century.
THE VIA AURELIA
The Via Aurelia Vetus was probably originally laid out by C. Aurelius, Censor in the year of grace 512. It started from the Janiculum (the modern Gate of S. Pancras) and led directly towards the sea-board. It was the road from Rome to Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia).
The cemeteries along the Via Aurelia have been as yet very imperfectly explored.[125] The ancient Pilgrim Itineraries mention four distinct cemeteries here. (1) That of SS. Processus and Martinianus, first century. (2) S. Calepodius or S. Callistus, third century. (3) S. Pancratius, fourth century. (4) The two Felixes, fourth century.
Cemetery of SS. Processus and Martinianus.—(Apostolic age.) Tradition relates that these saints were the gaolers of S. Peter, and owed their conversion to their prisoner. They suffered martyrdom shortly after S. Peter’s death, being decapitated on the Via Aurelia; Lucina, a wealthy Roman matron, buried them in her garden near the place of their martyrdom. This Lucina was probably the same who gave her name to the ancient cemetery on the Via Appia, and which now forms part of the great network of cemeteries known generally as S. Callistus’ Catacomb.
Very little is known of this Catacomb. Among the network of sepulchral corridors on this portion of the Via Aurelia this special cemetery has not as yet been clearly identified.
These cemeteries are in a sadly ruined condition. The loculi which have been examined are evidently of a very early period. Marucchi, in pleading for a more detailed exploration here, suggests the probability of some “Memories” of S. Peter being eventually discovered.
Cemetery of S. Calepodius.—This saint appears to have been a priest who suffered martyrdom, probably in a popular rising, in the reign of Alexander Severus (A.D. 222–35). This cemetery is principally famous as being the resting-place of Pope Callistus, who also suffered in a popular rising, A.D. 222, and was laid to rest in this cemetery, perhaps as being nearer to the scene of his martyrdom than the official Papal Crypt on the Via Appia to which he gave his name. The exploration work here, as far as it has gone, has been carried out with difficulty owing to the ruinous state of the corridors.
Cemetery of S. Pancratius.—S. Pancras was a boy-martyr twelve, or as some accounts give fourteen years of age when in A.D. 304 he suffered for his faith in the Diocletian persecution.
This cemetery was in the first instance known under the name of Octavilla, a Christian matron who buried the young confessor in her garden on the Aurelian Way. It had probably been a cemetery before the deposition of the remains of the famous boy-martyr gave it a new name and not a little celebrity.
The story of S. Pancras has ever been an attractive one, and a certain number of churches named in his honour are scattered over many lands. A small basilica was built over the crypt containing his grave. Pope Siricius (end of fourth century) restored and adorned it. Honorius I, A.D. 620, rebuilt it. In the present Church of S. Pancras there are scarcely any traces of the original basilica. The remains of the martyr have disappeared. Strange to say, in the great translation of the ashes of saints and martyrs by Pope Paul I and Paschal I, S. Pancras was left undisturbed in his tomb. The corridors, however, have been completely wrecked, and have been very partially explored.
The site of the cemeteries mentioned in the Pilgrim Itineraries, named after two saints each bearing the name of Felix, has not been discovered.
THE VIA PORTUENSIS
This road leads from the old Porta Navalis in the Trastevere, the city “across the Tiber,” direct to Portus the port of Rome, a construction of Claudius when Ostia (Centumcellæ) was unable to cope with the commerce of the capital. Three cemeteries, according to the ancient Itineraries, were excavated on the Via Portuensis. That of Pontianus, the best known of the three, where lie the remains of SS. Abdon and Sennen; and a second, nearly five miles from the city, the Catacomb of Generosa. There is a third, the Cemetery of S. Felix, the position of which has not yet been discovered.
The Cemetery of Pontianus.—Pontianus was a wealthy Christian of the Trastevere quarter, who used in the second century—probably in the latter years of the century—to gather his fellow-Christians to prayer and teaching in his house. The cemetery which bears his name was originally excavated in one of his gardens. The old Pilgrim Itineraries speak of there being a vast number of martyrs in this Catacomb—“innumerabilis multitudo Martyrum.” Several of these are named; the most notable, however, are the two noble Persians, Abdon and Sennen, who, visiting Rome at the time of the persecution of Decius, suffered for their faith.
In this Catacomb there is a well-known ancient baptistery of considerable size, which was richly decorated in the sixth century. Such baptisteries have been found in other Catacombs, notably in that of S. Priscilla, a very ancient and vast cemetery which will be described with some detail later.
The remains of the more famous martyrs were removed into the city at the period of the great translation of sacred bodies in the ninth century, after which date this cemetery ceased to be visited. It has only been partially explored.
The Cemetery of S. Felix mentioned in the Itineraries is completely unknown as yet.
The Cemetery of Generosa, on the road to Porta, is not alluded to in the Pilgrim Guides, no doubt owing to its distance—some five miles—from the city. Lanciani gives a vivid description of its story and of its discovery in 1867. It is of small extent, and apparently was excavated in the persecution of Diocletian, circa A.D. 303, in what was once a sacred grove belonging to the College of the Arval Brothers, but which had been abandoned, probably after the dissolution of the Brotherhood, which is supposed to have taken place about the middle of the third century.
THE VIA OSTIENSIS
The Via Ostiensis, on the city side of the Tiber, one of the principal roads of the Empire, begins at the ancient Porta Ostiensis, known from the sixth century onwards as the Porta S. Pauli, and leads to the old harbour of Ostia. The Pilgrim Itineraries enumerate three cemeteries as situated hard by this road—the tomb of the Apostle S. Paul with the little Cemetery of Lucina, the Cemetery of Commodilla, and that of S. Theckla.
(1) According to a very general tradition, S. Paul suffered martyrdom, A.D. 67, and his body was laid in a tomb on the Ostian Way in a garden belonging to a Christian lady named Lucina,—some identify her with the “Lucina” of the Cemetery of Callistus on the Appian Way. There it rested, according to the most recent investigations, until the persecution and confiscation of the cemeteries in A.D. 258, when for security’s sake it was secretly removed at the same time as the body of S. Peter was brought from the grave on the Vatican Hill. The sacred remains of the two apostles were laid in the “Platonia” Crypt, in what was subsequently known as the Catacomb of S. Sebastian, on the Via Appia; and probably after an interval of some two years, when the cemeteries were restored to the Christian congregations by the Emperor Gallerius, the bodies of the two apostles were brought back again to their original resting-places.
Anacletus, the third in succession of the Roman bishops, erected in the first century a small “Memoria” or chapel over the tomb of S. Paul, like the one he built over the tomb of S. Peter on the Vatican Hill.
In the year 324–5 the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, over the apostle’s tomb and little “Memoria,” caused the first important basilica, known as S. Paul’s, to be erected; the Emperor treated the loculus or sarcophagus of S. Paul in the same manner as he had treated the sarcophagus of S. Peter, enclosing it in a solid bronze coffin, on which he laid a cross of gold. When the basilica was