The graves are cut in the walls, either in a straggling line, or in tiers, represented by d'Agincourt as occasionally amounting to six in height. The large grave at the bottom of the drawing is a bisomum, cut downwards as well as inwards in the tufa. Further back is seen a branch of the gallery walled off to prevent accidents, which still occasionally happen to those who penetrate much beyond the entrance. The daylight finding its way into the mouth of the cavern, as described by Prudentius, serves to render visible the rifled sepulchres. There is seen in the more distant part of the gallery a small square hole, in which was originally deposited a cup. Antiquarians have not succeeded in explaining the fact, that most of the graves near the entrance of the catacombs are so small as scarcely to allow room for the body of a child. The want of solidity in the material prevented the excavators, or fossors, as they were termed, from completing the graves before they were required, since the falling in of the soil would have destroyed their form: it is therefore possible that these small cells may have been the commencement of large graves thus begun, and from various causes left unfinished. Boldetti found some branches of the catacombs with the intended sepulchres merely sketched upon the walls. The galleries often run in stories two or three deep, communicating with each other by flights of steps. The plan of such a catacomb is here copied from d'Agincourt, vol. iv. pl. ix. At the top is seen the entrance, partly formed like a shaft, and partly like an oblique gallery with steps: on reaching a certain depth, this passage takes a horizontal direction, giving off a lateral branch. Below it are seen the sections of two corridors running towards the spectator; and still lower, communicating with each other by a staircase partly seen en face, are two others parallel with the uppermost one. All these appear completely filled with graves, to the number of five and even six tiers. The steps leading downwards are mentioned by Prudentius in a passage already quoted; and both he and Jerome describe the numerous perpendicular shafts by which the subterranean E ways were lighted. Many of these communications with the upper air are of a date more recent than the times of persecution, and would have been fatal to the safety of the refugees. D'Agincourt gives a sketch of one of the later perforations communicating with a chapel below ground: chapels so lighted were called cubicula clara. Boldetti supposes the pits in question to have been sunk for the extraction of sand: but Rostell, adducing the fact that they are found in Christian additions, thinks them to have been made with a view to the admission of light.* At the present time, many such holes are found in the Campagna near Rome, proving dangerous to the incautious rider. D'Agincourt availed himself of them on several occasions to enter the Catacombs. Some of those inspected by the writer, seem to have been produced by the falling in of the ground through the roof of a gallery too nearly approaching the surface. On the other hand, it is probable that some of the air-holes, called in the Acts of the Martyrs luminaria crypta, were in existence during the persecutions. In the Acts of Marcellinus and Peter, quoted by Raoul Rochette, it is said, "Candida, a saint and a virgin, having been thrown down the precipice, (that is, the lighthole of the crypt,) was overwhelmed with stones." The corresponding passage in Baronius is somewhat different, nor does it contain the word luminare. * Bunsen's Rome, vol. i. p. 365. In the subjoined view, copied from Boldetti, are seen two graves; one still closed by three slabs of terra cotta, cemented to the rock by plaster; and the other partially opened, so as to display the skeleton lying within. It must not be supposed that in all cases the slabs were of terra cotta, or that their usual number was three; pieces of marble, of the most irregular figure, were often employed. The palm branch is scratched upon the plaster with a sharp instrument. The number of graves contained in the Catacombs is very great. In order to form a general estimate of them, we must remember that from the year 98 A. D. to some time after the year 400, (of both which periods consular dates have been found in the cemeteries,) the whole Christian population of Rome was interred there. As this time includes nearly a century after the establishment of Christianity under Constantine, the numbers latterly must have been very considerable. A city peopled by more than a million of inhabitants, so far christianised as to give rise to a general complaint that the altars and temples of the gods were deserted, must have required cemeteries of no ordinary dimensions.* The number of Christians in the time of Decius has been estimated by historians at between forty and fifty thousand. Added to this, a horror of disturbing the graves already occupied, would effectually prevent the custom, common in our own country, of employing the same ground for fresh interments after the lapse of a few years. This feeling of the sanctity of tombs was inherited from the heathen, and was often expressed in their epitaphs. An instance is subjoined, in an inscription, evidently Pagan from the connection between the infernal regions and happiness. It was found inside the Aurelian gate: C. TULIUS. C. L. OLLA EJUS. SI QUI OU VIOLARIT AD INFEROS NON RECIPIATUR. C. Tullius Barnaeus. If any one violate his urn, let him not be received into the infernal regions (that is, Elysium). * The general absence of Heathen cemeteries greatly facilitates the distinction between the Christian and Pagan remains. |
