It is probably in allusion to this temple that Propertius says:
Martial alludes to a little temple of Hercules near this:
Near the gate also stood the tomb of the murdered sister of the Horatii,[192] with the temples of Honour and Virtue, vowed by Marcellus and dedicated by his son,[193] and a fountain, dedicated to Mercury:
It was at the Porta Capena that the survivor of the Horatii met his sister.
"Horatius went home at the head of the army, bearing his triple spoils. But as they were drawing near to the Capenian gate, his sister came out to meet him. Now she had been betrothed in marriage to one of the Curiatii, and his cloak, which she had wrought with her own hands, was borne on the shoulders of her brother; and she knew it, and cried aloud, and wept for him she had loved. At the sight of her tears Horatius was so wrath that he drew his sword, and stabbed his sister to the heart; and he said, 'So perish the Roman maiden who shall weep for her country's enemy!'"—Arnold's Hist. of Rome, i. 16.
Among the many other historical scenes with which the Porta Capena is connected, we may remember that it was here that Cicero was received in triumph by the senate and people of Rome, upon his return from banishment B.C. 57.
Two roads lead to the Via S. Sebastiano, one the Via S. Gregorio, which comes from the Coliseum beneath the arch of Constantine; the other, the street which comes from the Ghetto, through the Circus Maximus, between the Palatine and Aventine.
The first gate on the left, after the junction of these roads, is that of the vineyard of the monks of S. Gregorio, in which the site of the Porta Capena was found. The remains discovered have been reburied, owing to the indifference or jealousy of the government; but the vineyard is worth entering on account of the picturesque view it possesses of the Palace of the Cæsars.
On the right, a lane leads up the Pseudo-Aventine to the Church of Sta. Balbina, described Chap. VIII.
On the left, where the Via Appia crosses the brook of the Almo, now called Maranna, the Via di San Sisto Vecchio leads to the back of the Cœlian behind S. Stefano Rotondo. Here, in the hollow, in the grounds of the Villa Mattei, under some picturesque farm-buildings, is a spring which modern archæology has determined to be the true Fountain of Egeria, where Numa Pompilius is described as having his mysterious meetings with the nymph Egeria. The locality of this fountain was verified when that of the Porta Capena was ascertained, as it was certain that it was in the immediate neighbourhood of that gate, from a passage in the 3d Satire of Juvenal, which describes, that when he was waiting at the Porta Capena with Umbritius while the waggon was loading for his departure to Cumæ, they rambled into the valley of Egeria, and Umbritius said, after speaking of his motives for leaving Rome, "I could add other reasons to these, but my beasts summon me to move on, and the sun is setting. I must be going, for the muleteer has long been summoning me by the cracking of his whip."
To this valley the oppressed race of the Jews was confined by Domitian, their furniture consisting of a basket and a wisp of hay:
On the right, are the Baths of Caracalla, the largest mass of ruins in Rome, except the Coliseum; consisting for the most part of huge shapeless walls of red and orange-coloured brickwork, framing vast strips of blue sky, and tufted with shrubs and flowers. These baths, which could accommodate 1600 bathers at once, were begun in A.D. 212, by Caracalla, continued by Heliogabalus, and finished under Alexander Severus. They covered a space of 2,625,000 square yards—a size which made Ammianus Marcellinus say that the Roman baths were like provinces—and they were supplied with water by the Antonine Aqueduct, which was brought hither for that especial purpose from the Claudian, over the Arch of Drusus.
Antiquaries have amused themselves by identifying different chambers, to which, with considerable uncertainty, the names of Calidarium, Laconicum, Tepidarium, Frigidarium, &c., have been affixed.
The habits of luxury and inertion which were introduced with the magnificent baths of the emperors were among the principal causes of the decline and fall of Rome. Thousands of the Roman youth frittered away their hours in these magnificent halls, which were provided with everything which could gratify the senses. Poets were wont to recite their verses to those who were reclining in the baths.
"These Thermæ of Caracalla, which were one mile in circumference, and open at stated hours for the indiscriminate service of the senators and the people, contained above sixteen hundred seats of marble. The walls of the lofty apartments were covered with curious mosaics that imitated the art of the pencil in elegance of design and in the variety of their colours. The Egyptian granite was beautifully encrusted with the precious green marble of Numidia. The perpetual stream of hot water was poured into the capacious basons through so many wide mouths of bright and massy silver; and the meanest Roman could purchase, with a small copper coin, the daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury which might excite the envy of the kings of Asia. From these stately palaces issued forth a swarm of dirty and ragged plebeians, without shoes and without mantle; who loitered away whole days in the street or Forum, to hear news and to hold disputes; who dissipated, in extravagant gaming, the miserable pittance of their wives and children; and spent the hours of the night in the indulgence of gross and vulgar sensuality."—Gibbon.
In the first great hall was found, in 1824, the immense mosaic pavement of the pugilists, now in the Lateran museum. Endless works of art have been discovered here from time to time, among them the best of the Farnese collection of statues,—the Bull, the Hercules, and the Flora,—which were dug up in 1534, when Paul III. carried off all the still remaining marble decorations of the baths to use for the Farnese Palace. The last of the pillars to be removed from hence is that which supports the statue of Justice in the Piazza Sta. Trinità at Florence.
A winding stair leads to the top of the walls, which are worth ascending, as well for the idea which you there receive of the vast size of the ruins, as for the lovely views of the Campagna, which are obtained between the bushes of lentiscus and phillyrea with which they are fringed. It was seated on these walls that Shelley wrote his "Prometheus Unbound."
"This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees which are extended in ever-winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and the effect of the vigorous awakening spring in that divinest climate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits even to intoxication, were the inspiration of the drama."—Preface to the Prometheus.
"Maintenant les murailles sont nues, sauf quelques fragments de chapiteaux oubliés par la destruction; mais elles conservent ce que seules des mains de géant pourraient leur ôter, leur masse écrasante, la grandeur de leurs aspects, la sublimité de leurs ruines. On ne regrette rien quand on contemple ces énormes et pittoresque débris, baignés à midi par une ardente lumière ou se remplissant d'ombres à la tombée de la nuit, s'élançant, à une immense hauteur vers un ciel éblouissant, ou se dressant, mornes et mélancoliques, sous un ciel grisâtre,—ou bien, lorsque, montant sur la plate-forme inégale, crevassée, couverte d'arbustes et tapissée de gazon, on voit, comme du haut d'une colline, d'un côté se dérouler la campagne romaine et le merveilleux horizon de montagnes qui la termine, de l'autre apparaître, ainsi qu'une montagne de plus, le dôme de Saint-Pierre, la seule des œuvres d'homme qui ait quelque chose de la grandeur des œuvres de Dieu."—Ampère, Emp. ii. 286.
The name of the lane which leads to the baths (Via all' Antoniana) recalls the fact that, "with a vanity which seems like mockery, Caracalla dared to bear the name of Antoninus," which was always dear to the Roman people.
Passing under the wall of the government-garden for raising shrubs for the public walks, a door on the left of the Via Appia, with a sculptured marble frieze above it, is that of Guidi, the antiquity vendor, who has a small museum here of splendid fragments of marble and alabaster for sale. Opposite is the Vigna of Signor Guidi, who has unearthed a splendid mosaic pavement of Tritons riding on dolphins, and who has here also a collection of antique fragments to be disposed of.
On the right, is SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, a most interesting little church. The tradition runs that St. Peter, going to execution, let drop here one of the bandages of his wounds, and that the spot was marked by the early Christians with an oratory, which bore the name of Fasciola. Nereus and Achilles, eunuchs in the service of Clemens Flavius and Flavia Domitilla (members of the imperial family exiled to Pontia under Diocletian), having suffered martyrdom at Terracina, their bodies were transported here in 524 by John I., when the oratory was enlarged into a church, which was restored under Leo III., in 795. The church was rebuilt in the sixteenth century, by Cardinal Baronius, who took his title from hence. In his work he desired that the ancient basilica character should be carefully carried out, and all the ancient ornaments of the church were preserved and re-erected. His anxiety that his successors should not meddle with or injure these objects of antiquity is shown by, the inscription on a marble slab in the tribune:
"Presbyter, Card. Successor quisquis fueris, rogo te, per gloriam Dei, et per merita horum martyrum, nihil demito, nihil minuito, nec mutato; restitutam antiquitatem pie servato; sic Deus martyrum suorum precibus semper adjuvet!"
The chancel is raised and surrounded by an inlaid marble screen. Instead of ambones there are two plain marble reading-desks for the epistle and gospel. The altar is inlaid, and has "transennæ," or a marble grating, through which the tomb of the saints Nereus and Achilles may be seen, and through which the faithful might pass their handkerchiefs to touch it. Behind, in the semicircular choir, is an ancient episcopal throne, supported by lions, and ending in a gothic gable. Upon it part of the twenty-eighth homily of St. Gregory was engraved by Baronius, under the impression that it was delivered thence,—though it was really first read in the catacomb, whence the bodies of the saints were not yet removed. All these decorations are of the restoration under Leo III., in the eighth century. Of the same period are the mosaics on the arch of the tribune (partly painted over in later times), representing, in the centre, the Transfiguration (the earliest instance of the subject being treated in art), with the Annunciation on one side, and the Madonna and Child attended by angels on the other.
It is worth while remarking that when the relics of Flavia Domitilla (who was niece of Vespasian) and of Nereus and Achilles were brought hither from the catacomb on the Via Ardeatina, which bears the name of the latter, they were first escorted in triumph to the Capitol, and made to pass under the imperial arches which bore as inscriptions: "The senate and the Roman people to Sta. Flavia Domitilla, for having brought more honour to Rome by her death than her illustrious relations by their works." ... "To Sta. Flavia Domitilla, and to the Saints Nereus and Achilles, the excellent citizens who gained peace for the Christian republic at the price of their blood."
Opposite, on the left, is a courtyard leading to the Church of S. Sisto, with its celebrated convent, long deserted on account of malaria.
It was here that St. Dominic first resided in Rome, and collected one hundred monks under his rule, before he was removed to Sta. Sabina by Honorius III. After he went to the Aventine, it was decided to utilize this convent by collecting here the various Dominican nuns, who had been living hitherto under very lax discipline, and allowed to leave their convents, and reside in their own families. The nuns of Sta. Maria in Trastevere resisted the order, and only consented to remove on condition of bringing with them a Madonna picture attributed to St. Luke, hoping that the Trasteverini would refuse to part with their most cherished treasure. St. Dominic obviated the difficulty by going to fetch the picture himself at night, attended by two cardinals, and a bare-footed, torch-bearing multitude.
"On Ash-Wednesday, 1218, the abbess and some of her nuns went to take possession of their new monastery, and being in the chapter-house with St. Dominic and Cardinal Stefano di Fossa Nuova, suddenly there came in one tearing his hair, and making great outcries, for the young Lord Napoleon Orsini, nephew of the cardinal, had been thrown from his horse, and killed on the spot. The cardinal fell speechless into the arms of Dominic, and the women and others who were present were filled with grief and horror. They brought the body of the youth into the chapter-house, and laid it before the altar; and Dominic, having prayed, turned to it, saying, 'O adolescens Napoleo, in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi tibi dico surge,' and thereupon he arose sound and whole, to the unspeakable wonder of all present."—Jameson's Monastic Orders.
After being convinced by this miracle of the divine mission of St. Dominic, forty nuns settled at S. Sisto, promising never more to cross its threshold.[194]
There is very little remaining of the ancient S. Sisto, except the campanile, which is of 1500. But the vaulted Chapter-House, now dedicated to St. Dominic, is well worth visiting. It has recently been covered with frescoes by the Padre Besson,—himself a Dominican monk,—who received his commission from Father Mullooly, Prior of S. Clemente, the Irish Dominican convent, to which S. Sisto is now annexed. The three principal frescoes represent three miracles of St. Dominic—in each case of raising from the dead. One represents the resuscitation of a mason of the new monastery, who had fallen from a scaffold; another, that of a child in a wild and beautiful Italian landscape; the third, the restoration of Napoleone Orsini on this spot,—the mesmeric upspringing of the lifeless youth being most powerfully represented. The whole chapel is highly picturesque, and effective in colour. Of two inscriptions, one commemorates the raising of Orsini; the other, a prophecy of St. Dominic, as to the evil end of two monks who deserted their convent.
Just beyond S. Sisto, where the Via della Ferratella branches off on the left to the Lateran, stands a small ædiculum, or Shrine of the Lares, with brick niches for statues.
Further, on the right, standing back from a kind of piazza, adorned with an ancient granite column, is the Church of S. Cesareo, which already existed in the time of St. Gregory the Great, but was modernized under Clement VII. (1523—34). Its interior retains many of its ancient features. The pulpit is one of the most exquisite specimens of church decoration in Rome, and is covered with the most delicate sculpture, interspersed with mosaic; the emblems of the Evangelists are introduced in the carving of the panels. The high altar is richly encrusted with mosaics, probably by the Cosmati family; tiny owls form part of the decorations of the capitals of its pillars. Beneath is a "confession," where two angels are drawing curtains over the tomb of the saint. The chancel has an inlaid marble screen. In the tribune is an ancient episcopal throne, once richly ornamented with mosaics.
In this church St. Sergius was elected to the papal throne, in 687; and here, also, an Abbot of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio was elected in 1145, as Eugenius III., and was immediately afterwards forced by the opposing senate to fly to Montecelli, and then to the Abbey of Farfa, where his consecration took place.
Part of the palace of the titular cardinal of S. Cesareo remains in the adjoining garden, with an interesting loggia of c. 1200.
In this neighbourhood was the Piscina Publica, which gave a name to the twelfth Region of the city. It was used for learning to swim, but all trace of it had disappeared before the time of Festus, whose date is uncertain, but who lived before the end of the fourth century—
Here a lane turns on the left, towards the ancient Porta Latina (through which the Via Latina led to Capua), now closed.
In front of the gate is a little chapel, of the sixteenth century, called S. Giovanni in Oleo, decorated with indifferent frescoes, on the spot where St. John is said to have been thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil (under Domitian), from which "he came forth as from a refreshing bath." It is the suffering in the burning oil which gave St. John the palm of a martyr, with which he is often represented in art. The festival of "St. John ante Port. Lat." (May 6) is preserved in the English Church Calendar.
On the left, is the Church of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina, built in 1190 by Celestine III.
In spite of many modernizations, the last by Cardinal Rasponi in 1685, this building retains externally more of its ancient character than most Roman churches, in its fine campanile and the old brick walls of the nave and apse, decorated with terra-cotta friezes. The portico is entered by a narrow arch resting on two granite columns. The entrance-door and the altar have the peculiar mosaic ribbon decoration of the Cosmati, of 1190. The frescoes are all modern; in the tribune, are the deluge and the baptism of Christ,—the type and antitype. Of the ten columns, eight are simple and of granite, two are fluted and of porta-santa, showing that they were not made for the church, but removed from some pagan building—probably from the temple of Ceres and Proserpine. Near the entrance is a very picturesque marble Well, like those so common at Venice and Padua, decorated with an intricate pattern of rich carving.
In the opposite vineyard, behind the chapel of the Oleo, very picturesquely situated under the Aurelian Wall, is the Columbarium of the Freedmen of Octavia. A columbarium was a tomb containing a number of cinerary urns in niches like pigeon-holes, whence the name. Many columbaria were held in common by a great number of persons, and the niches could be obtained by purchase or inheritance; in other cases, the heads of the great houses possessed whole columbaria for their families and their slaves. In the present instance the columbarium is more than usually decorated, and, though much smaller, it is far more worth seeing than the columbaria which it is the custom to visit immediately upon the Appian Way. One of the cippi, above the staircase, is beautifully decorated with shells and mosaic. Below, is a chamber, whose vault is delicately painted with vines and little Bacchi gathering in the vintage. Round the walls are arranged the urns, some of them in the form of temples, and very beautifully designed, others merely pots sunk into the wall, with conical lids, like pipkins let into a kitchen-range. A beautiful vase of lapis-lazuli found here has been transferred to the Vatican.
Proceeding along the Via Appia, on the left by a tall cypress (No. 13) is the entrance to the Tomb of the Scipios, a small catacomb in the tufa rock, discovered in 1780, from which the famous sarcophagus of L. Scipio Barbatus, and a bust of the poet Ennius,[195] were removed to the Vatican by Pius VII.
The contadino at the neighbouring farmhouse provides lights, with which one can visit a labyrinth of steep narrow passages, some of which still retain inscribed sepulchral slabs. Among the Scipios whose tombs have been discovered here were Lucius Scipio Barbatus and his son, the conqueror of Corsica; Aula Cornelia wife of Cneius Scipio Hispanis; a son of Scipio Africanus; Lucius Cornelius son of Scipio Asiaticus; Cornelius Scipio Hispanis and his son Lucius Cornelius. At the further end of these passages, and now, like them, subterranean, may be seen the pediment and arched entrance of the tomb towards the Via Latina. "It is uncertain whether Scipio Africanus was buried at Liternum or in the family tomb. In the time of Livy monuments to him were extant in both places."[196]
There is a beautiful view towards Rome from the vineyard above the tomb.
A little further on, left (No. 14), is the entrance of the Vigna Codini (a private garden with an extortionate custode), containing three interesting Columbaria. Two of these are large square vaults, supported by a central pillar, which, as well as the walls, is perforated by niches for urns. The third has three vaulted passages.
We now reach the Arch of Drusus. On its summit are the remains of the aqueduct by which Caracalla carried water to his baths. The arch once supported an equestrian statue of Drusus, two trophies, and a seated female figure representing Germany.
The Arch of Drusus was decreed by the senate in honour of the second son of the empress Livia, by her first husband, Tiberius Nero. He was father of Germanicus and the emperor Claudius, and brother of Tiberius. He died during a campaign on the Rhine, B.C. 9, and was brought back to be buried by his step-father Augustus in his own mausoleum. His virtues are attested in a poem ascribed to Pedo Albinovanus.
"This arch, 'Marmoreum arcum cum tropæo Appia Via' (Suet. I), is, with the exception of the Pantheon, the most perfect existing monument of Augustan architecture. It is heavy, plain, and narrow, with all the dignified but stern simplicity which belongs to the character of its age."—Merivale.
"It is hard for one who loves the very stones of Rome, to pass over all the thoughts which arise in his mind, as he thinks of the great Apostle treading the rude and massive pavement of the Appian Way, and passing under that Arch of Drusus at the Porta S. Sebastiano, toiling up the Capitoline Hill past the Tabularium of the Capitol, dwelling in his hired house in the Via Lata or elsewhere, imprisoned in those painted caves in the Prætorian Camp, and at last pouring out his blood for Christ at the Tre Fontane, on the road to Ostia."—Dean Alford's Study of the New Testament, p. 335.
The Porta San Sebastiano has two fine semicircular towers of the Aurelian wall, resting on a basement of marble blocks, probably plundered from the tombs on the Via Appia. Under the arch is a gothic inscription relating to the repulse of some unknown invaders.
It was here that the senate and people of Rome received in state the last triumphant procession which has entered the city by the Via Appia, that of Marc-Antonio Colonna, after the victory of Lepanto in 1571. As in the processions of the old Roman generals, the children of the conquered prince were forced to adorn the triumph of the victor, who rode into Rome attended by all the Roman nobles, "in abito di grande formalità,"[197] preceded by the standard of the fleet.
From the gate, the Clivus Martis (crossed by the railway to Civita Vecchia) descends into the valley of the Almo, where antiquaries formerly placed the Porta Capena. On the hillside stood a Temple of Mars, vowed in the Gallic war, and dedicated by T. Quinctius the "duumvir sacris faciundis," in B.C. 387. No remains exist of this temple. It was "approached from the Via Capena by a portico, which must have rivalled in length the celebrated portico at Bologna extending to the church of the Madonna di S. Luca."[198] Near this, a temple was erected to Tempestas in B.C. 260, by L. Cornelius Scipio, to commemorate the narrow escape of his fleet from shipwreck off the coast of Sardinia.[199] Near this, also, the poet Terence owned a small estate of twenty acres, presented to him by his friend Scipio Emilianus.[200] After crossing the brook, we pass between two conspicuous tombs. That on the left is the Tomb of Geta, son of Septimius Severus, the murdered brother of Caracalla; that on the right is the Tomb of Priscilla, wife of Abascantius, a favourite freedman of Domitian.
Just beyond this, the Via Ardeatina branches off on the right, passing, after about two miles, the picturesque Vigna Marancia, a pleasant spot, with fine old pines and cypresses.
Where the roads divide, is the Church of Domine Quo Vadis, containing a copy of the celebrated footprint said to have been left here by Our Saviour: the original being removed to S. Sebastiano.
"After the burning of Rome, Nero threw upon the Christians the accusation of having fired the city. This was the origin of the first persecution, in which many perished by terrible and hitherto unheard-of deaths. The Christian converts besought Peter not to expose his life. As he fled along the Appian Way, about two miles from the gates, he was met by a vision of our Saviour travelling towards the city. Struck with amazement, he exclaimed, 'Lord, whither goest thou?' to which the Saviour, looking upon him with a mild sadness, replied, 'I go to Rome to be crucified a second time,' and vanished. Peter, taking this as a sign that he was to submit himself to the sufferings prepared for him, immediately turned back to the city.[201] Michael Angelo's famous statue, now in the Church of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, is supposed to represent Christ as he appeared to St. Peter on this occasion. A cast or copy of it is in the little church of 'Domine, quo vadis?'
"It is surprising that this most beautiful, picturesque, and, to my fancy, sublime legend, has been so seldom treated; and never, as it seems to me, in a manner worthy of its capabilities and high significance. It is seldom that a story can be told by two figures, and these two figures placed in such grand and dramatic contrast;—Christ in His serene majesty, and radiant with all the joy of beatitude, yet with an expression of gentle reproach; the Apostle at his feet arrested in his flight, amazed, and yet filled with a trembling joy; and for the background the wide Campagna, or towering walls of imperial Rome."—Mrs. Jameson.[202]
Beyond the church is a second "Bivium," or cross-ways, where a lane on the left leads up the Valle Caffarelle. Here, feeling an uncertainty which was the crossing where Our Saviour appeared to St. Peter, the English Cardinal Pole erected a second tiny chapel of "Domine Quo Vadis," which remains to this day.
On the left, is the Columbarium of the Freedmen of Augustus and Livia, divided into three chambers, but despoiled of its adornments. Other Columbaria near this are assigned to the Volusii, and the Cæcilii.
Over the wall on the left of the Via Appia now hangs in profusion the rare yellow-berried ivy. Many curious plants are to be found on these old Roman walls. Their commonest parasite, the Pellitory—"herba parietina," calls to mind the nickname given to the Emperor Trajan in derision of his passion for inscribing his name upon the walls of Roman buildings which he had merely restored, as if he were their founder;[203] a passion in which the popes have since largely participated.
We now reach (on the right) the entrance of the Catacombs of St. Calixtus.
(The Catacombs (except those at S. Sebastiano) can only be visited in company of a guide. For most of the Catacombs it is necessary to obtain a permesso at the office of the Cardinal-Vicar, 70 Via della Scrofa, before 12 A.M.; upon which a day (generally Sunday) is fixed, which must be adhered to. The Catacombs of St. Calixtus are sometimes superficially shown without a special permesso. It may be well for the visitor to provide himself with tapers—cerini.)
All descriptions of dangers attending a visit to the Catacombs, if accompanied by a guide, and provided with "cerini," are quite imaginary. Neither does the visitor ever suffer from cold; the temperature of the Catacombs is mild and warm; the vaults are almost always dry, and the air pure.
"The Roman Catacombs—a name consecrated by long usage, but having no etymological meaning, and not a very determinate geographical one—are a vast labyrinth of galleries excavated in the bowels of the earth in the hills around the Eternal City; not in the hills on which the city itself was built, but in those beyond the walls. Their extent is enormous; not as to the amount of superficial soil which they underlie, for they rarely, if ever, pass beyond the third mile-stone from the city, but in the actual length of their galleries; for these are often excavated on various levels, or piani, three, four, or even five—one above the other; and they cross and recross one another, sometimes at short intervals, on each of these levels; so that, on the whole, there are certainly not less than 350 miles of them; that is to say, if stretched out in one continuous line, they would extend the whole length of Italy itself. The galleries are from two to four feet in width, and vary in height according to the nature of the rock in which they are dug. The walls on both sides are pierced with horizontal niches, like shelves in a bookcase or berths in a steamer, and every niche once contained one or more dead bodies. At various intervals this succession of shelves is interrupted for a moment, that room may be made for a doorway opening into a small chamber; and the walls of these chambers are generally pierced with graves in the same way as the galleries.
"These vast excavations once formed the ancient Christian cemeteries of Rome; they were begun in apostolic times, and continued to be used as burial-places of the faithful till the capture of the city by Alaric in the year 410. In the third century, the Roman Church numbered twenty-five or twenty-six of them, corresponding to the number of her titles, or parishes, within the city; and besides these, there are about twenty others, of smaller dimensions, isolated monuments of special martyrs, or belonging to this or that private family. Originally they all belonged to private families or individuals, the villas or gardens in which they were dug being the property of wealthy citizens who had embraced the faith of Christ, and devoted of their substance to His service. Hence their most ancient titles were taken merely from the names of their lawful owners, many of which still survive. Lucina, for example, who lived in the days of the Apostles, and others of the same family, or at least of the same name, who lived at various periods in the next two centuries; Priscilla, also a contemporary of the Apostles; Flavia Domitilla, niece of Vespasian; Commodilla, whose property lay on the Via Ostiensis; Cyriaca, on the Via Tiburtina; Pretextatus, on the Via Appia; Pontiano, on the Via Portuensis; and the Jordani, Maximus and Thraso, all on the Via Salaria Nova. These names are still attached to the various catacombs, because they were originally begun upon the land of those who bore them. Other catacombs are known by the names of those who presided over their formation, as that of St. Calixtus, on the Via Appia; or St. Mark, on the Via Ardeatina; or of the principal martyrs who were buried in them, as SS. Hermes, Basilla, Protus, and Hyacinthus, on the Via Salaria Vetus; or, lastly, by some peculiarity of their position, as ad Catacumbas on the Via Appia, and ad duas Lauros on the Via Labicana.
"It has always been agreed among men of learning who have had an opportunity of examining these excavations, that they were used exclusively by the Christians as places of burial and of holding religious assemblies. Modern research has now placed it beyond a doubt, that they were also originally designed for this purpose and for no other: that they were not deserted sand-pits (arenariæ) or quarries, adapted to Christian uses, but a development, with important modifications, of a form of sepulchre not altogether unknown even among the heathen families of Rome, and in common use among the Jews both in Rome and elsewhere.
"At first, the work of making the Catacombs was done openly, without let or hindrance, by the Christians; the entrances to them were public on the high-road or on the hill-side, and the galleries and chambers were freely decorated with paintings of a sacred character. But early in the third century, it became necessary to withdraw them as much as possible from the public eye; new and often difficult entrances were now effected in the recesses of deserted arenariæ, and even the liberty of Christian art was cramped and fettered, lest what was holy should fall under the profane gaze of the unbaptized.
"Each of these burial-places was called in ancient times either hypogæum, i. e. generically, a subterranean place, or cœmeterium, a sleeping-place, a new name of Christian origin which the pagans could only repeat, probably without understanding; sometimes also martyrium, or confessio (its Latin equivalent), to signify that it was the burial-place of martyrs or confessors of the faith. An ordinary grave was called locus or loculus, if it contained a single body; or bisomum, trisomum, or quadrisomum, if it contained two, three, or four. The graves were dug by fossores, and burial in them was called depositio. The galleries do not seem to have had any specific name; but the chambers were called cubicula. In most of these chambers, and sometimes also in the galleries themselves, one or more tombs are to be seen of a more elaborate kind; a long oblong chasse, like a sarcophagus, either hollowed out in the rock or built up of masonry, and closed by a heavy slab of marble lying horizontally on the top. The niche over tombs of this kind was of the same length as the grave, and generally vaulted in a semicircular form, whence they were called arcosolia. Sometimes, however, the niche retained the rectangular form, in which case there was no special name for it, but for distinction's sake we may be allowed to call it a table-tomb. Those of the arcosolia, which were also the tomb of martyrs, were used on the anniversaries of their deaths (Natalitia, or birthdays) as altars whereon the holy mysteries were celebrated; hence, whilst some of the cubicula were only family-vaults, others were chapels, or places of public assembly. It is probable that the holy mysteries were celebrated also in the private vaults, on the anniversaries of the deaths of their occupants; and each one was sufficiently large in itself for use on these private occasions; but in order that as many as possible might assist at the public celebrations, two, three, or even four of the cubicula were often made close together, all receiving light and air through one shaft or air-hole (luminare), pierced through the superincumbent soil up to the open air. In this way as many as a hundred persons might be collected in some parts of the catacombs to assist at the same act of public worship; whilst a still larger number might have been dispersed in the cubicula of neighbouring galleries, and received there the bread of life brought to them by the assistant priests and deacons. Indications of this arrangement are not only to be found in ancient ecclesiastical writings; they may still be seen in the very walls of the catacombs themselves, episcopal chairs, chairs for the presiding deacon or deaconess, and benches for the faithful, having formed part of the original design when the chambers were hewn out of the living rock, and still remaining where they were first made."—Roma Sotterranea, Northcote and Brownlow.
"To our classic associations, Rome was still, under Trajan and the Antonines, the city of the Cæsars, the metropolis of pagan idolatry—in the pages of her poets and historians we still linger among the triumphs of the Capitol, the shows of the Coliseum; or if we read of a Christian being dragged before the tribunal, or exposed to the beasts, we think of him as one of a scattered community, few in number, spiritless in action, and politically insignificant. But all this while there was living beneath the visible an invisible Rome—a population unheeded, unreckoned—thought of vaguely, vaguely spoken of, and with the familiarity and indifference that men feel who live on a volcano—yet a population strong-hearted, of quick impulses, nerved alike to suffer or to die, and in number, resolution, and physical force sufficient to have hurled their oppressors from the throne of the world, had they not deemed it their duty to kiss the rod, to love their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and to submit, for their Redeemer's sake, to the 'powers that be.' Here, in these 'dens and caves of the earth,' they lived; here they died—a 'spectacle' in their lifetime 'to men and angels,' and in their death a 'triumph' to mankind—a triumph of which the echoes still float around the walls of Rome, and over the desolate Campagna, while those that once thrilled the Capitol are silenced, and the walls that returned them have long since crumbled into dust."—Lord Lindsay' s Christian Art, i. 4.
The name Catacombs is modern, having originally been only applied to S. Sebastiano "ad catacumbas." The early Christians called their burial-places by the Greek name Cœmeteria, sleeping-places. Almost all the catacombs are between the first and third mile-stones from the Aurelian wall, to which point the city extended before the wall itself was built. This was in obedience to the Roman law which forbade burial within the precincts of the city.
The fact that the Christians were always anxious not to burn their dead, but to bury them, in these rock-hewn sepulchres, was probably owing to the remembrance that our Lord was himself laid "in a new tomb hewn out of the rock," and perhaps also for this reason the bodies were wrapt in fine linen cloths, and buried with precious spices, of which remains have been found in the tombs.
The Catacomb which is known as St. Calixtus, is composed of a number of catacombs, once distinct, but now joined together. Such were those of Sta. Lucina; of Anatolia, daughter of the consul Æmilianus; and of Sta. Soteris, "a virgin of the family to which St. Ambrose belonged in a later generation," and who was buried "in cœmeterio suo," A.D. 304. The passages of these catacombs were gradually united with those which originally belonged to the cemetery of Calixtus.
The high mass of ruin which meets our eyes on first entering the vineyard of St. Calixtus, is a remnant of the tomb of the Cæcilii, of which family a number of epitaphs have been found. Beyond this is another ruin, supposed by Marangoni to have been the basilica which St. Damasus provided for his own burial and that of his mother and sister; which Padre Marchi believed to be the church of St. Mark and St. Marcellinus;—but which De Rossi identifies with the cella memoriæ, sometimes called of St. Sistus, sometimes of St. Cecilia (because built immediately over the graves of those martyrs), by St. Fabian in the third century.[204]
Descending into the Catacomb by an ancient staircase restored, we reach (passing a sepulchral cubiculum on the right) the Chapel of the Popes, a place of burial and of worship of the third or fourth century, (as it was restored after its discovery in 1854) but still retaining remains of the marble slabs with which it was faced by Sixtus III. in the fifth century, and of marble columns, &c. with which it was adorned by St. Leo III. (795—816). The walls are lined with graves of the earliest popes, many of them martyrs—viz. St. Zephyrinus, (202—211); St Pontianus, who died in banishment in Sardinia, (231—236); St. Anteros, martyred under Maximian in the second month of his pontificate, (236); St. Fabian, martyred under Decius, (236—250); St. Lucius, martyred under Valerian, (253—255); St. Stephen I., martyred in his episcopal chair under Valerian, (255—257); St. Sixtus II., martyred in the catacombs of St. Pretextatus, (257—260); St. Dionysius, (260—271); St. Eutychianus, martyr, (275—283); and St. Caius, (284—296). Of these, the gravestones of Anteros, Fabian, Lucius, and Eutychianus, have been discovered, with inscriptions in Greek, which is acknowledged to have been the earliest language of the Church,—in which St. Paul and St. James wrote, and in which the proceedings of the first twelve Councils were carried on.[205] Though no inscriptions have been found relating to the other popes mentioned, they are known to have been buried here from the earliest authorities.
Over the site of the altar is one of the beautifully-cut inscriptions of Pope St. Damasus (366—384), "whose labour of love it was to rediscover the tombs which had been blocked up for concealment under Diocletian, to remove the earth, widen the passages, adorn the sepulchral chambers with marble, and support the friable tufa walls with arches of brick and stone."[206]