ARENARIUS. - Shortly after the discovery of the Christian cemetery galleries on the via Salaria in the spring of 1578, the Sanctorum Martyrum Abundii presbyteri, Abundantii diaconi, Marciani Ioannis et filii eius Passio (Rome 1578) was published, with a list of texts that gave the catacombs the name of arenari. All the early illustrators of subterranean Rome held, with the exception of Bosio, that the catacombs were pre-existing sand quarries used by the Christians. One of the testimonies cited most frequently was a passage from the Passio sancti Sebastiani in which it is related that the martyrs Mark and Marcellian were buried « in loco qui dicitur ad arenas, quia cryptae arenarum illic erant, ex quibus urbis moenia struebantur ». Against the theory stood up Fr. Marchi, who from the observation of the rocks composing the Roman soil came to the conviction that the catacombs had been dug solely by the Christians, not for the purpose of extracting building material, but only as a place of burial. In fact only exceptionally are parts of earlier arenarii found in Rome used for Christian burials, as in the catacombs of Priscilla, of Domitilla and of Commodilla (B. Bagatti, Il cimitero di Commodilla, Vatican City 1936, p. 35 with fig. 22). The galleries of the arenarii were of a much wider excavation, at times with rounded walls, usually about 2.20 m wide by 2.30 m high, whereas the galleries dug by the Christians are much narrower and have vertical walls.
Outside Rome, also the cemetery known as that of S. Gennaro dei Poveri at Capodimonte in Naples, and that known as S. Maria della Stella at Albano, make use of galleries already dug for extracting building materials.
Bibliography2 works
Enrico Josi