"The Good Shepherd seems to have been quite the favourite subject. We cannot go through any part of the Catacombs, or turn over any collection of ancient Christian monuments, without coming across it again and again. We know from Tertullian that it was often designed upon chalices. We find it ourselves painted in fresco upon the roofs and walls of the sepulchral chambers; rudely scratched upon gravestones, or more carefully sculptured on sarcophagi; traced in gold upon glass, moulded on lamps, engraved on rings; and, in a word, represented on every species of Christian monument that has come down to us. Of course, amid such a multitude of examples, there is considerable variety of treatment. We cannot, however, appreciate the suggestion of Kügler, that this frequent repetition of the subject is probably to be attributed to the capabilities which it possessed in an artistic point of view. Rather, it was selected because it expressed the whole sum and substance of the Christian dispensation. In the language even of the Old Testament, the action of Divine Providence upon the world is frequently expressed by images and allegories borrowed from pastoral life; God is the Shepherd, and men are His sheep. But in a still more special way our Divine Redeemer offers Himself to our regards as the Good Shepherd. He came down from His eternal throne into this wilderness of the world to seek the lost sheep of the whole human race, and having brought them together into one fold on earth, thence to transport them into the ever-verdant pastures of Paradise."—Roma Sotterranea.
Other biblical subjects are:—from the Old Testament (those of Noah, Moses, Daniel, and Jonah being the only ones at all common)—
1. The Fall. Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of Knowledge, round which the serpent is coiled. Sometimes, instead of this, "Our Saviour (as the representative of the Deity) stands between them, condemning them, and offering a lamb to Eve and a sheaf of corn to Adam, to signify the doom of themselves and their posterity to delve and to spin through all future ages."
2. The Offering of Cain and Abel. They present a lamb and sheaf of corn to a seated figure of the Almighty.
3. Noah in the Ark, represented as a box—a dove, bearing an olive-branch, flies towards him. Interpreted to express the doctrine that "the faithful having obtained remission of their sins through baptism, have received from the Holy Spirit the gift of divine peace, and are saved in the mystical ark of the church from the destruction which awaits the world."[214] (Acts ii. 47.)
4. Sacrifice of Isaac.
6. Moses receiving the Law.
7. Moses striking water from the rock—(very common).
8. Moses pointing to the pots of manna.
9. Elijah going up to heaven in the chariot of fire.
10. The Three Children in the fiery furnace;—very common as symbolical of martyrdom.
11. Daniel in the lions' den;—generally a naked figure with hands extended, and a lion on either side; most common—as an encouragement to Christian sufferers.
12. Jonah swallowed up by the whale, represented as a strange kind of sea-horse.
13. Jonah disgorged by the whale.
14. Jonah under the gourd; or, according to the Vulgate, under the ivy.
15. Jonah lamenting for the death of the gourd.
These four subjects from the story of Jonah are constantly
repeated, perhaps as encouragement to the Christians suffering from
the wickedness of Rome—the modern Nineveh, which they were to warn
and pray for.
Subjects from the New Testament are:
1. The Nativity—the ox and the ass kneeling.
2. The Adoration of the Magi—repeatedly placed in juxtaposition with the story of the Three Children.
3. Our Saviour turning water into wine.
4. Our Saviour conversing with the woman of Samaria.
5. Our Saviour healing the paralytic man—who takes up his bed. This is very common.
6. Our Saviour healing the woman with the issue of blood.
7. Our Saviour multiplying the loaves and fishes.
8. Our Saviour healing the daughter of the woman of Canaan.
9. Our Saviour healing the blind man.
10. The raising of Lazarus, who appears at a door in his grave-clothes, while Christ with a wand stands before it. This is the New Testament subject oftenest introduced. It is constantly placed in juxtaposition with a picture of Moses striking the rock. "These two subjects may be intended to represent the beginning and end of the Christian course, 'the fountain of water springing up to life everlasting.' God's grace and the gift of faith being typified by the water flowing from the rock, 'which was Christ,' and life everlasting by the victory over death and the second life vouchsafed to Lazarus."[215]
11. Our Saviour's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
12. Our Saviour giving the keys to Peter—very rare.
13. Our Saviour predicting the denial of Peter.
14. The denial of Peter.
15. Our Saviour before Pilate.
16. St.Peter taken to prison.
These last six subjects are only represented on tombs.[216]
The class of paintings shown as Liturgical are less definite than these. In the Catacombs of Calixtus several obscure paintings are shown (in cubicula anterior to the middle of the third century), which are said to have reference to the sacrament of baptism. Pictures of the paralytic carrying his bed are identified by some Roman Catholic authorities with the sacrament of penance. (!) Bosio believed that in the Catacomb of Sta. Priscilla he had found paintings which illustrated the sacrament of ordination. Representations undoubtedly exist which illustrate the agape or love-feast of the primitive Church.
On the opposite side of the Via Appia from St. Calixtus (generally entered from the road leading to S. Urbano) is the Catacomb of St. Pretextatus, interesting as being the known burial-place of several martyrs. A large crypt was discovered here in 1857, built with solid masonry and lined with Greek marble.
"The workmanship points to early date, and specimens of pagan architecture in the same neighbourhood enable us to fix the middle of the latter half of the second century (A.D. 175) as a very probable date for its erection. The Acts of the Saints explain to us why it was built with bricks, and not hewn out of the rock—viz. because the Christian who made it (Sta. Marmenia) had caused it to be excavated immediately below her own house; and now that we see it, we understand the precise meaning of the words used by the itineraries describing it—viz. 'a large cavern, most firmly built.' The vault of the chapel is most elaborately painted, in a style by no means inferior to the best classical productions of the age. It is divided into four bands of wreaths, one of roses, another of corn-sheaves, a third of vine-leaves and grapes (and in all these, birds are introduced visiting their young in nests), and the last or highest, of leaves of laurel or the bay-tree. Of course these severally represent the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The last is a well-known figure or symbol of death; and probably the laurel, as the token of victory, was intended to represent the new and Christian idea of the everlasting reward of a blessed immortality. Below these bands is another border, more indistinct, in which reapers are gathering in the corn; and at the back of the arch is a rural scene, of which the central figure is the Good Shepherd carrying a sheep upon his shoulders. This, however, has been destroyed by graves pierced through the wall and the rock behind it, from the eager desire to bury the dead of a later generation as near as possible to the tombs of the martyrs. As De Rossi proceeded to examine these graves in detail, he could hardly believe his eyes when he read around the edge of one of them these words and fragments of words:—Mi Refrigeri Januarius Agatopos Felicissim Martyres—'Januarius, Agapetus, Felicissimus, martyrs, refresh the soul of....' The words had been scratched upon the mortar while it was yet fresh, fifteen centuries ago, as the prayer of some bereaved relative for the soul of him whom they were burying here, and now they revealed to the antiquarian of the nineteenth century the secret he was in quest of—viz. the place of burial of the saints whose aid is here invoked; for the numerous examples to be seen in other cemeteries warrant us in concluding that the bodies of the saints, to whose intercession the soul of the deceased is here recommended, were at the time of his burial lying at no great distance."—Roma Sotterranea.
The St. Januarius buried here was the eldest of the seven sons of St. Felicitas, martyred July 10, A.D. 162. St. Agapitus and St. Felicissimus were deacons of Pope Sixtus II., who were martyred together with him and St. Pretextatus[217] in this very catacomb, because Sixtus II. "had set at nought the commands of the Emperor Valerian."[218]
A mutilated inscription of St. Damasus, in the Catacomb of Calixtus, near the tomb of Cornelius, thus records the death of this pope:
"At the time when the sword pierced the heart of our Mother (Church), I, its ruler, buried here, was teaching the things of heaven. Suddenly they came, they seized me seated as I was;—the soldiers being sent in, the people gave their necks (to the slaughter). Soon the old man saw who was willing to bear away the palm from himself, and was the first to offer himself and his own head, fearing lest the blow should fall on any one else. Christ who awards the rewards of life recognises the merit of the pastor, he himself is preserving the number of his flock."
An adjoining crypt, considered to date from A.D. 130, is believed to be the burial-place of St. Quirinus.
Above this catacomb are ruins of two basilicas, erected in honour of St. Zeno; and of Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus, companions of Sta. Cecilia in martyrdom.
In the road leading to S. Urbano is the entrance to the Jewish Catacomb. It is entered by a chamber open to the sky, floored with black and white mosaic, which is supposed to have formed part of a pagan dwelling. The following chamber has remains of a well. Hence a low door forms the entrance of a gallery out of which open six cubicula, one of them containing a fine while marble sarcophagus, and decorated with a painting of the seven-branched candlestick. A side passage leads to other cubicula, and to an open space which seems to have been an actual arenarium. A winding passage at the end of the larger gallery leads to the graves in the floor divided into different cells for corpses, and called Cocim by Rabbinical writers. A cubiculum at the end of the catacomb has paintings of figures—Plenty, with a cornucopia; Victory, with a palm leaf, &c. The inscriptions found show that this cemetery was exclusively Jewish. They refer to officers of the synagogue, rulers (αρχοντες), and scribes (γραμματεις), &c. The inscriptions are in great part in Greek letters, expressing Latin words.
Another small Jewish catacomb has been discovered behind the basilica of St. Sebastian. Behind the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, on the right of the Via Ardeatina, is the Catacomb of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo. Close to its entrance is the farm of Tor Marancia, where are some ruins, believed to be remains of the villa of Flavia Domitilla. This celebrated member of the early Christian Church was daughter of the Flavia Domitilla who was sister of the Emperor Domitian,—and wife of Titus Flavius Clemens, son of the Titus Flavius Sabinus who was brother of the Emperor Vespasian. Her two sons were, Vespasian Junior and Domitian Junior, who were intended to succeed to the throne, and to whom Quinctilian was appointed as tutor by the emperor. Dion Cassius narrates that "Domitian put to death several persons, and amongst them Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was his nephew, and although he had Flavia Domitilla for his wife, who was also related to the emperor. They were both accused of atheism, on which charge many others also had been condemned, going after the manners and customs of the Jew; and some of them were put to death, and others had their goods confiscated; but Domitilla was only banished to Pandataria."[219] This Flavia Domitilla is frequently confused with her niece of the same name,[220] whose banishment is mentioned by Eusebius, when he says:—"The teaching of our faith had by this time shone so far and wide, that even pagan historians did not refuse to insert in their narratives some account of the persecution and the martyrdoms that were suffered in it. Some, too, have marked the time accurately, mentioning, amongst many others, in the fifteenth year of Domitian (A.D. 97), Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of a sister of Flavius Clemens, one of the Roman consuls of those days, who, for her testimony for Christ, was punished by exile to the island of Pontia." It was this younger Domitilla who was accompanied in her exile by her two Christian servants, Nereus and Achilles; whose banishment is spoken of by St. Jerome as "a life-long martyrdom,"—whose cell was afterwards visited by Sta. Paula,[221] and who, according to the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilles, was brought back to the mainland to be burnt alive at Terracina, because she refused to sacrifice to idols. The relics of Domitilla, with those of her servants, were preserved in the catacomb under the villa which had belonged to her Christian aunt.
Receiving as evidence the story of Sta. Domitilla, this catacomb must be looked upon as the oldest Christian cemetery in existence. Its galleries were widened and strengthened by John I. (523—526). A chamber near the entrance is pointed out as the burial-place of Sta. Petronilla.
"The sepulchre of SS. Nereus and Achilles was in all probability in that chapel to which we descend by so magnificent a staircase, and which is illuminated by so fine a luminare; for that this is the central point of attraction in the cemetery is clear, both from the staircase and the luminare just mentioned, as also from the greater width of the adjacent galleries and other similar tokens." Here then St. Gregory the Great delivered his twenty-eighth homily (which Baronius erroneously supposes to have been delivered in the Church of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, to which the bodies of the saints were not yet removed), in which he says—"These saints, before whose tomb we are assembled, despised the world and trampled it under their feet, when peace, plenty, riches, and health gave it charms."
" ... There is a higher and more ancient piano, in which coins and medals of the first two centuries, and inscriptions of great value, have been recently discovered. Some of these inscriptions may still be seen in one of the chambers near the bottom of the staircase; they are both Latin and Greek; sometimes both languages are mixed; and in one or two instances Latin words are written in Greek characters. Many of these monuments are of the deepest importance both in an antiquarian and religious point of view; in archaeology, as showing the practice of private Christians in the first ages to make the subterranean chambers at their own expense and for their own use, e. g.—'M. Aurelius Restutus made this subterranean for himself, and those of his family who believed in the Lord,'—where, both the triple names and the limitation introduced at the end (which shows that many of his family were still pagan), are unquestionably proofs of very high antiquity."—Northcote's Roman Catacombs, p. 103, &c.
Among the most remarkable paintings in this catacomb are, Orpheus with his lyre, surrounded by birds and beasts who are charmed with his music; Elijah ascending to heaven in a chariot drawn by four horses; and the portrait of Our Lord.
"The head and bust of our Lord form a medallion, occupying the centre of the roof in the same cubiculum where Orpheus is represented. This painting, in consequence of the description given of it by Kügler (who misnamed the catacomb St. Calixtus), is often eagerly sought after by strangers visiting the catacombs. It is only just, however, to add, that they are generally disappointed. Kügler supposed it to be the oldest portrait of Our Blessed Saviour in existence, but we doubt if there is sufficient authority for such a statement. He describes it in these words:—'The face is oval, with a straight nose, arched eyebrows, a smooth and rather high forehead, the expression serious and mild; the hair, parted on the forehead, flows in long curls down the shoulders; the beard is not thick, but short and divided; the age between thirty and forty.' But this description is too minute and precise, too artistic, for the original, as it is now to be seen. A lively imagination may, perhaps, supply the details described by our author, but the eye certainly fails to distinguish them."—Roma Sotterranea, p. 253.
Approached by a separate entrance on the slope of the hill-side is a sepulchral chamber, which De Rossi considers to have been the Burial-place of Sta. Domitilla.
"It is certainly one of the most ancient and remarkable Christian monuments yet discovered. Its position, close to the highway; its front of fine brickwork, with a cornice of terra-cotta, with the usual space for an inscription (which has now, alas, perished); the spaciousness of its gallery, with its four or five separate niches prepared for as many sarcophagi; the fine stucco on the wall; the eminently classical character of its decorations; all these things make it perfectly clear that it was the monument of a Christian family of distinction, excavated at great cost, and without the slightest attempt at concealment. In passing from the vestibule into the catacomb, we recognise the transition from the use of the sarcophagus to that of the common loculus; for the first two or three graves on either side, though really mere shelves in the wall, are so disguised by painting on the outside as to present to passers-by the complete outward appearance of a sarcophagus. Some few of these graves are marked with the names of the dead, written in black on the largest tiles, and the inscriptions on the other graves are all of the simplest and oldest form. Lastly, the whole of the vaulted roof is covered with the most exquisitely graceful designs, of branches of the vine (with birds and winged genii among them) trailing with all the freedom of nature over the whole walls, not fearing any interruption by graves, nor confined by any of those lines of geometrical symmetry which characterise similar productions in the next century. Traces also of landscapes may be seen here and there, which are of rare occurrence in the catacombs, though they may be seen in the chambers assigned by De Rossi to SS. Nereus and Achilles. The Good Shepherd, an agape, or the heavenly feast, a man fishing, and Daniel in the lions' den, are the chief historical or allegorical representations of Christian mysteries which are painted here. Unfortunately they have been almost destroyed by persons attempting to detach them from the wall."—Roma Sotterranea, p. 70.
A road to the left now leads to the Via Appia Nuova, passing about a quarter of a mile hence, a turn on the left to the ruin generally known as the Temple of Bacchus, from an altar dedicated to Bacchus which was found there, but considered by modern antiquaries as a temple of Ceres and Proserpine. This building has been comparatively saved from the destruction which has befallen its neighbours by having been consecrated as a church in A.D. 820 by Pope Pascal I., in honour of his sainted predecessor Urban I., A.D. 226—whose pontificate was chiefly passed in refuge in the neighbouring Catacomb of St. Calixtus—because of a belief that he was wont to resort hither.
A chapel at a great depth below the church, is shown as that in which St. Urban baptized and celebrated mass. A curious fresco here represents the Virgin between St. Urban and St. John.
Around the upper part of the interior are a much injured series of frescoes, comprising—the life of Christ from the Annunciation to the descent into Hades,—and the life of St. Cecilia and her husband Valerian, ending in the burial of Cecilia by Pope Urban in the Catacombs of Calixtus, and the story of the martyred Urban I. In the picture of the Crucifixion, the thieves have their names, "Calpurnius and Longinus." The frescoes were altered in the seventeenth century to suit the views of the Roman Church, keys being placed in the hand of Peter, &c. Sets of drawings taken before and after the alterations, are preserved in the Barberini Library, and curiously show the difference.
A winding path leads from S. Urbano into the valley. Here, beside the Almo rivulet, is a ruined Nymphæum containing a mutilated statue of a river-god, which was called "the Grotto of Egeria," till a few years ago, when the discovery of the true site of the Porta Capena fixed that of the grotto within the walls. The fine grove of old ilex-trees on the hillside, was at the same time pointed out as the sacred grove of Egeria.
It is now known that this nymphæum and the valley in which it stands belonged to the suburban villa called Triopio, of Herodes Atticus, whose romantic story is handed down to us through two Greek inscriptions in the possession of the Borghese family, and is further illustrated by the writings of Filostratus and Pausanias.
A wealthy Greek named Ipparchus offended his government and lost all his wealth by confiscation, but the family fortunes were redeemed, through the discovery by his son Atticus of a vast treasure, concealed in a small piece of ground which remained to them, close to the rock of the Acropolis. Dreading the avarice of his fellow-citizens, Atticus sent at once to Nerva, the then emperor, telling him of the discovery, and requesting his orders as to what he was to do with the treasure. Nerva replied, that he was welcome to keep it, and use it as he pleased. Not yet satisfied or feeling sufficiently sure of the protection of the emperor, Atticus again applied to him, saying that the treasure was far too vast for the use of a person in a private station of life, and asking how he was to use it. The emperor again replied that the treasure was his own and due to his own good fortune, and that "what he could not use he might abuse." Atticus then entered securely into possession of his wealth, which he bequeathed to his son Herodes, who used his fortune magnificently in his bountiful charities, in the encouragement of literature and art throughout both Greece and Italy, and (best appreciated of all by the Greeks) in the splendour of the public games which he gave.
Early in the reign of Antoninus Pius, Herodes Atticus removed to Rome, where he was appointed professor of rhetoric to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, the two adopted sons of the emperor, and where he attained the consulship in A.D. 143. Soon after his arrival he fell in love with Annia Regilla, a beautiful and wealthy heiress, and in spite of the violent opposition of her brother, Annius Attilius Braduas, who, belonging to the Julian family, and claiming an imaginary descent from Venus and Anchises, looked upon the marriage as a mesalliance, he succeeded in obtaining her hand. Part of the wealth which Annia Regilla brought to her husband was the Valle Caffarelli and its nymphæum.
For some years Herodes Atticus and Annia Regilla enjoyed the perfection of married happiness in this beautiful valley; but shortly before the expected birth of her fifth child, she died very suddenly, leaving her husband almost frantic with grief and refusing every consolation. He was roused, however, from his first anguish by his brother-in-law Annius Braduas, who had never laid aside his resentment at the marriage, and who now accused him of having poisoned his wife. Herodes demanded a public trial, and was acquitted. Filostratus records that the intense grief he showed and the depth of the mourning he wore, were taken as signs of his innocence. Further to clear himself from imputation, Herodes offered all the jewels of Annia Regilla upon the altar of the Eleusinian deities, Ceres and Proserpine, at the same time calling down the vengeance of the outraged gods if he were guilty of sacrilege.
The beloved Regilla was buried in a tomb surrounded by "a sepulchral field" within the precincts of the villa, dedicated to Minerva and Nemesis, and (as recorded in one of the Greek inscriptions) it was made an act of the highest sacrilege, for any but her own descendants to be laid within those sacred limits. A statue was also erected to Regilla in the Triopian temple of Ceres and Proserpine, which is now supposed to be the same with that usually called the temple of Bacchus. Not only did Herodes hang his house with black in his affliction, but all gaily coloured marbles were stripped from the walls, and replaced with the dark grey marble known as "bardiglio,"—and his depth of woe made him so conspicuous, that a satirical person seeing his cook prepare white beans for dinner, wondered that he could dare to do so in a house so entirely black.
The inscriptions in which this story is related (one of them containing thirty-nine Greek verses) are engraved on slabs of Pentelic marble—and Philostratus and Pausanias narrate that the quarries of this marble were the property of Herodes, and that in his magnificent buildings he almost exhausted them.[222]
The field path from hence leads back to the Church of Domine Quo Vadis, passing on the right a beautifully-finished tomb (of the time of Septimius Severus) known as the Temple of Divus Rediculus, and formerly described as having been built to commemorate the retreat of Hannibal, who came thus far in his intended attack upon Rome. The temple erected in memory of this event was really on the right of the Via Appia. It was dedicated to Rediculus, the god of Return. The folly of ciceroni often cites this name as "Ridiculous."
The neighbourhood of the Divus Rediculus (which he however places on the right of the Via Appia) is described by Pliny in connection with a curious story of imperial times. There was a cobbler who had his stall in the Roman Forum, and who possessed a tame raven, which was a great favourite with the young Romans, to whom he would bid good day as he sate perched upon the rostra. At length he became quite a public character, and the indignation was so great when his master killed him with his hammer in a fit of rage at his spoiling some new leather, that they slew the cobbler and decreed a public funeral to the bird; who was carried to the grave on a bier adorned with honorary crowns, preceded by a piper, and supported by two negroes in honour of his colour,—and buried—"ad rogum usque, qui constructus dextrâ Viæ Appiæ ad secundum lapidem in campo Rediculo appellate fuit."—Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. x. c. 60.
Returning to the Via Appia, we reach, on the right, the Basilica of S. Sebastiano, rebuilt in 1611 by Flaminio Ponzio for Cardinal Scipio Borghese on the site of a church which had been founded by Constantine, where once existed the house and garden of the matron Lucina, in which she had buried the body of Sebastian, after his (second) martyrdom under Diocletian. The basilica contains nothing ancient, but the six granite columns in the portico. The altar covers the relics of the saint (a Gaul, a native of Narbonne, a Christian soldier under Diocletian) and the chapel of St. Sebastian has a statue of him in his youth, designed by Bernini and executed by Antonio Giorgetti.
"The almost colossal form lies dead, the head resting on his helmet and armour. It is evidently modelled from nature, and is perhaps the finest thing ever designed by Bernini.... It is probably from the association of arrows with his form and story that St. Sebastian has been regarded from the first ages of Christianity as the protecting saint against plague and pestilence; Apollo was the deity who inflicted plague, and therefore was invoked with prayer and sacrifice against it; and to the honour of Apollo, in this particular character, St. Sebastian has succeeded."—Jameson's Sacred Art, p. 414.
The original of the footprint in the Domine Quo Vadis is said to be preserved here.
On the left of the entrance is the descent into the catacombs, with the inscription:
"In hoc sacrosancto loco qui dicitur ad Catacumbas, ubi sepulta fuerunt sanctorum martyrum corpora 174,000 ac 46 summorum pontificium pariterque martyrum. In altare in quo corpus divi Sebastiani Christi athletæ jacet celebrans summus Pontifex S. Gregorius Magnus vidit angelum Dei candidiorem nive, sibi in tremendo sacrificio ministrantem ac dicentem, 'Hic est locus sacratissimus in quo est divina promissio et omnium peccatorum remissio, splendor et lux perpetua, sine fine lætitia, quam Christi martyr Sebastianus habere promeruit.' Prout Severanus Tom. Pº. pagina 450, ac etiam antiquissimæ lapideæ testantur tabulæ.
"Ideo in hoc insigne privilegiato altari, tam missæ cantatæ quam privatæ, dum celebrante, animæ quæ sunt in purgatorio pro quibus sacrificium offertur plenariam indulgentiam, et omnium suorum peccatorum remissionem consequuntur prout ab angelo dictum fuit et summi pontifices confirmarunt."
These are the catacombs which are most frequently visited by strangers, because they can always be seen on application to the monks attached to the church,—though they are of greatly inferior interest to those of St Calixtus.
"Though future excavations may bring to light much that is interesting in this cemetery, the small portion now accessible is, as a specimen of the Catacombs, utterly without value. Its only interest consists in its religious associations: here St. Bridget was wont to kneel, rapt in contemplation; here St. Charles Borromeo spent whole nights in prayer; and here the heart of St. Philip Neri was so inflamed with divine love as to cause his very bodily frame to be changed."—Northcote's Roman Catacombs.
Owing to the desire in the early Christian Church of saving the graves of their first confessors and martyrs from desecration, almost all the catacombs were gradually blocked up, and by lapse of time their very entrances were forgotten. In the fourteenth century very few were still open. In the fifteenth century none remained except this of St. Sebastian, which continued to be frequented by pilgrims, and was called in all ancient documents "cœmeterium ad catacumbas."
At the back of the high-altar is an interesting half-subterranean building, attributed to Pope Liberius (352—355), and afterwards adorned by Pope Damasus, who briefly tells its history in one of his inscriptions, which may still be seen here:
"Here you should know that saints dwelt. Their names, if you ask them, were Peter and Paul. The East sent disciples, which we freely acknowledge. For the merit of their blood they followed Christ to the stars, and sought the heavenly home and the kingdom of the blest. Rome however deserved to defend her own citizens. May Damasus record these things for your praise, O new stars."
"The two Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, were originally buried, the one at the Vatican, the other on the Ostian Way, at the spot where their respective basilicas now stand; but, as soon as the Oriental Christians had heard of their death, they sent some of their brethren to remove their bodies, and bring them back to the East, where they considered that they had a right to claim them as their fellow-citizens and countrymen. These so far prospered in their mission as to gain a momentary possession of the sacred relics, which they carried off, along the Appian Way, as far as the spot where the church of St. Sebastian was afterwards built. Here they rested for a while, to make all things ready for their journey, or, according to another account, were detained by a thunderstorm of extraordinary violence, which delay, however occasioned, was sufficient to enable the Christians of Rome to overtake them and recover their lost treasure. These Roman Christians then buried the bodies, with the utmost secrecy, in a deep pit, which they dug on the very spot where they were. Soon, indeed, they were restored to their original places of sepulture, as we know from contemporary authorities, and there seems reason to believe the old ecclesiastical tradition to be correct, which states them to have only remained in this temporary abode for a year and seven months. The body of St. Peter, however, was destined to revisit it a second time, and for a longer period; for when, at the beginning of the third century, Heliogabalus made his circus at the Vatican, Calixtus, who was then pope, removed the relics of the Apostle to their former temporary resting-place, the pit on the Appian Way. But in A.D. 257, St. Stephen, the pope, having been discovered in this very cemetery and having suffered martyrdom there, the body of St. Peter was once more removed, and restored to its original tomb in the Vatican."—Northcote's Roman Catacombs.
In the passages of this catacomb are misguiding inscriptions placed here in 1409 by William, Archbishop of Bourges, calling upon the faithful to venerate here the tombs of Sta. Cecilia and of many of the martyred popes, who are buried elsewhere. The martyr St. Cyrinus is known to have been buried here from very early itineraries, but his grave has not been discovered.
"When I was a boy, being educated at Rome, I used every Sunday, in company with other boys of my own age and tastes, to visit the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, and to go into the crypts excavated there in the bowels of the earth. The walls on either side as you enter are full of the bodies of the dead, and the whole place is so dark, that one seems almost to see the fulfilment of those words of the prophet, 'Let them go down alive into Hades.' Here and there a little light, admitted from above, suffices to give a momentary relief to the horror of the darkness; but as you go forwards, and find yourself again immersed in the utter blackness of night, the words of the poet come spontaneously to your mind: 'The very silence fills the soul with dread.'"—St. Jerome (A.D. 354), In Ezek. ch. lx.
"A gaunt Franciscan friar, with a wild bright eye, was our only guide down into this profound and dreadful place. The narrow ways and openings hither and thither, coupled with the dead and heavy air, soon blotted out, in all of us, any recollection of the track by which we had come; and I could not help thinking, 'Good Heaven, if in a sudden fit of madness he should dash the torches out, or if he should be seized with a fit, what would become of us!' On we wandered, among martyrs' graves: passing great subterranean vaulted roads, diverging in all directions, and choked up with heaps of stones, that thieves and murderers may not take refuge there, and form a population under Rome, even worse than that which lives between it and the sun. Graves, graves, graves; graves of men, of women, of little children, who ran crying to the persecutors, 'We are Christians! we are Christians!' that they might be murdered with their parents; graves with the palm of martyrdom roughly cut into their stone boundaries, and little niches, made to hold a vessel of the martyr's blood; graves of some who lived down here, for years together, ministering to the rest, and preaching truth, and hope, and comfort, from the rude altars, that bear witness to their fortitude at this hour; more roomy graves, but far more terrible, where hundreds, being surprised, were hemmed in and walled up; buried before death, and killed by slow starvation.
"'The triumphs of the Faith are not above-ground in our splendid churches,' said the friar, looking round upon us, as we stopped to rest in one of the low passages, with bones and dust surrounding us on every side. 'They are here! among the martyrs' graves!' He was a gentle, earnest man, and said it from his heart; but when I thought how Christian men have dealt with one another; how, perverting our most merciful religion, they have hunted down and tortured, burnt and beheaded, strangled, slaughtered, and oppressed each other; I pictured to myself an agony surpassing any that this Dust had suffered with the breath of life yet lingering in it, and how these great and constant hearts would have been shaken—how they would have quailed and drooped—if a foreknowledge of the deeds that professing Christians would commit in the great name for which they died, could have rent them with its own unutterable anguish, on the cruel wheel, and bitter cross, and in the fearful fire."—Dickens.
"Countless martyrs, they say, rest in these ancient sepulchres. In these dark depths the ancient Church took refuge from persecution; there she laid her martyrs, and there, over their tombs, she chaunted hymns of triumph, and held communion with Him for whom they died. In that church I spend hours. I have no wish to descend into those sacred sepulchres, and pry among the graves the resurrection trump will open soon enough. I like to think of the holy dead, lying undisturbed and quiet there; of their spirits in Paradise; of their faith triumphant in the city that massacred them.
"No doubt they also had their perplexities, and wondered why the wicked triumph, and sighed to God, 'How long, O Lord, how long?'"—Schonberg Cotta Family.
"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."—Rev. vi. 9—11.
In the valley beneath S. Sebastiano are the ruins of the Circus of Maxentius, near those of a villa of that emperor. The circus was 1482 feet long, 244 feet broad, and was capable of containing 15,000 spectators, yet it is a miniature compared with the Circus Maximus, though very interesting as retaining in tolerable preservation all the different parts which composed a circus. The circular ruin near it was a Temple dedicated by Maxentius to his son Romulus.
"Le jeune Romulus, étant mort, fut placé au rang des dieux, dans cet olympe qui s'écroulait. Son père lui éleva un temple dont la partie inférieure se voit encore, et le cirque lui-même fut peut-être une dépendance de ce temple funèbre, car les courses de chars étaient un des honneurs que l'antiquité rendait aux morts, et sont souvent pour cela représentées sur les tombeaux."—Ampère, Emp. ii. 360.
These ruins are very picturesque, backed by the peaks of the Sabine range, which in winter are generally covered with snow.
The opposite hill is crowned by the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, daughter of Quintus Metellus Creticus, and wife of Crassus. It is a round tower, seventy feet in diameter. The bulls' heads on the frieze gave it the popular name of Capo di Bove. The marble coating of the basement was carried off by Urban VIII. to make the fountain of Trevi. The battlements were added when the tomb was turned into a fortress by the Caëtani in the thirteenth century.
"About two miles, or more, from the city gates, and right upon the roadside, is an immense round pile, sepulchral in its original purpose, like those already mentioned. It is built of great blocks of hewn stone, on a vast, square foundation of rough, agglomerated material, such as composes the mass of all the other ruinous tombs. But, whatever might be the cause, it is in a far better state of preservation than they. On its broad summit rise the battlements of a mediæval fortress, out of the midst of which (so long since had time begun to crumble the supplemental structure, and cover it with soil, by means of wayside dust) grow trees, bushes, and thick festoons of ivy. This tomb of a woman has become the dungeon-keep of a castle; and all the care that Cecilia Metella's husband could bestow, to secure endless peace for her beloved relics, only sufficed to make that handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles, long ages after her death."—Hawthorne, Transformation.
Close to the tomb are the ruins of a Gothic church of the Caëtani.