Ancient Christian Cemeteries

ANCIENT CHRISTIAN CEMETERIES. -

I. GENERALITIES

1. Name

From the Greek κοιμη-

τήριον, κυμητήριον (= cimiterium, coemeterium, cymiterium, climiterium) the word c. (v.) means a place of rest of sleep, a dormitory; it contains within itself the concept of the Jewish and Christian religion that death is but a sleep awaiting the resurrection. In this sense St. John Chrysostom expressed himself: hic colligimur, ob id ipse etiam locus coemeterium nominatus est, ut discas mortuos et eos qui hic siti non mortuos sed sonno consopitos (In coemeterii appellationem: PG 49, 393).

In Africa the expression area is often found used instead as equivalent to c. The remains of St. Cyprian were brought ad areas Macrobii Candidiani (Acta proconsularia s. Cypriani, 5: PL 3, 1498). Likewise in the well-known inscription of Cherchell (CIL, VIII, 9585). Or also accubitorium (ibid., 9586).

The designation c. is found for the first time in Christian literature in the time of Tertullian (Apol., 37 and De an., 51) and of Hippolytus (Apostolica traditio, 34; Philosophumena, IX, 11). The Roman State too knew this designation because it is expressly used in the 3rd century by Aemilianus, governor of Alexandria, later emperor, addressing Bishop Dionysius: it will never be permitted to you to hold meetings or to enter those which are called c.: εἰς τὰ καλούμενα κοιμητήρια (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 11; cf. Acta Cypriani). The proconsul Aspasius Paternus also repeated in 257 the imperial precept to St. Cyprian: ne conciliabula faciant nec coemeteria ingrediantur (Acta proconsularia s. Cypriani, 3: PL 3, 1498). In the year 260, moreover, the emperor Gallienus permitted certain bishops to recover the places called c.: τὰ τῶν καλούμενων κοιμητήριων ἀπολαμβάνειν ἐπιτρέπων χωρία (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 13).

In Rome and in common usage the word coemeterium meant the entire burial area. In Greece, on the other hand, and in Asia Minor it meant the individual tomb or the family tomb (CIG, IV, 9298, 9304-9306, 9310-16; C. Bayet, De titulis Atticis christianis antiquissimis, Paris 1878, passim; F. Cumont, Les inscriptions chrétiennes de l'Asie Mineure, in Mél. d'arch. et d'hist., 15 [1895], pp. 366-89; W. Ramsay, The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia, I, II, London 1897, pp. 530, 539, 559 ff., 719 ff., 733); as an individual tomb there is an example also at Florence (CIL, XI, 1700).

Generally today the subterranean c. are called by the designation catacombs. This term, however (κατὰ κύμβας = ad specus, near the hollow, near the valley bottom), was given originally to that zone of the Appian Way which is comprised between the Circus of Maxentius and the present basilica of St. Sebastian. It is therefore solely a topographical designation, and as such it came to be used from the 4th century onward to indicate that locality of the Appian Way.

Only in the 9th century, according to G. B. De Rossi (Roma sotterranea, I, Rome 1864, p. 87), is this expression found used for the first time in Naples to indicate in the modern sense the subterranean c. (C. Ducange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, II, Paris 1842, p. 232).

The chief characteristic of the Christian c. is indicated by the well-known passage of Tertullian in the Apologeticum in which it is declared that in every community the brethren contribute monthly egenis alendis humandisque (39,6). Hippolytus then in the Apostolica traditio recommends that no heavy fee be imposed for burying in the c. since it belongs to all the poor; but that the wage be paid to the workman who digs the grave and the price of the bricks; let the bishop maintain those who have care of this place so that they may not be a burden on those who are deposited there (cap. 34). The subterranean Christian c. then document at every turn, with the enormous percentage of closed anepigraphic tombs, how much care the Christians took to bury the poor even unknown, following the example of Tobias. Above all, what strikes one is the great number of small tombs, arranged for the most part at the corners of the underground galleries for structural reasons, demonstrating how, against the shameful pagan practice of exposing children in places of refuse, Christians daily set that praetereuntium misericordia recalled by Tertullian (Apol., 9, 17).

2. Origins

The most ancient Christian tombs of Rome, that is, those of the founders of its Church, the apostles Peter and Paul, were in pagan burial areas at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way. It is difficult today to determine in what year cemeteries separate from pagan or Jewish tombs were established. Only with Tertullian, that is, at the end of the 2nd century, is there express mention of areae sepulturarum nostrarum (Ad Scapulam, 3: PL 1, 701); and it is from the same Tertullian that the expression comes: vivere licet cum ethnicis, commori non licet (De idololatria, 4). In the middle of the 3rd century St. Cyprian deplores the bishop Martial, who had buried his children apud profana sepulcra depositos et alienigenis consepultos (Ep., 67, 6). It is, however, quite difficult to conclude that such a separation was always observed, because many examples show how, in tombs originally pagan, transformations and adaptations for Christian burials took place. Highly significant in this regard is the mausoleum of Marcus Clodius Hermes in catacumbas; there, at a later time, motifs of exclusively Christian meaning were painted above the entrance door (Good Shepherd, Banquet of the multitudes after the multiplication of the loaves, Miracle of the demoniac of Gerasa). Christian tombs are also found in the Roman burial ground of the Isola Sacra (near Porto); typical is the tomb of a Telesphorus with the symbols of the anchor, the sheep and the dove with the olive branch (3rd century). Recently three further examples have been offered by the excavations in the Vatican grottoes, namely the Christian tomb of Aemilia Gorgonia in the burial cell of the Caetennii; the likewise Christian tomb of a deceased woman with the indication of her deposition, with the palm and the dove, placed in an arcosolium of the mausoleum that originally belonged, it seems, to an Egyptian family; the small mausoleum, at first pagan, with the rite of cremation, later transformed into a Christian inhumation tomb with the mosaic representations of the Fisherman with the hook, of Jonah cast into the sea and of the Good Shepherd. Moreover, sometimes pagan cubicula, albeit earlier, are found inserted within the same cemeteries. Finally, it should be borne in mind that St. Ambrose in 392 found the bodies of the martyrs Vitalis and Agricola in a Jewish cemetery (Exhort. virg., 1, 7: PL 16, 338).

As for the places chosen by Christians for their cemeteries, it must be observed that they adhered to the Roman legal norms in force and therefore the cemeteries were always established extra pomerium, either in the ager publicus or in private areas, following the Roman custom of family or hereditary tombs. Roman law recognized the right of the tomb (ius sepulchri) to all without distinction; even the slave was authorized to gather the means necessary for the purchase of his tomb and post mortem regained his civil rights. The right of the tomb was granted to the remains of the condemned man, which the judge could hand over to whoever requested them for burial (Dig., XLVIII, 24, 1, 2, 3; Cod. Iustin., III, 44, 2). The Jews attempted at Smyrna to prevent the Roman authority from handing over the body of the bishop Polycarp for burial (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IV, 15). Christians have always taken the greatest care to bury the dead: Tertullian, as has been seen, recalls how it was the concern of the Christian community to gather the means egenis alendis humandisque (Apol., 39). St. Cyprian admonishes his clergy that maximum est, corpora martyrum aut ceterorum si non sepeliantur, grande periculum imminet eis quibus incumbit hoc opus (Ep., 8: CSEL, III, p. 488). St. Ambrose declared that to meet the expenses necessary humandis fidelium reliquiis it is lawful vasa ecclesiae, etiam initiata, confringere, conflare, vendere (De officiis, II, 28, 142). Every tomb was protected by Roman law: at the moment of burial it became a res religiosa and as such a res extra commercium. Not the whole area, therefore, even if destined for burial, was bound by legal protection even though it was indicated in the titulus both in fronte and in agro, but progressively insofar as it was occupied by actual tombs.

Christian burial areas were not always respected. Tertullian indeed repeats the cry: areae non sint of the Carthaginian plebs (Ad Scapul., 3); and that deeds matched the cry is shown by what Tertullian himself writes: that in his time « not even the Christian dead are spared; even corpses already decomposed are removed from this kind of asylum of death and cut up, reduced to pieces » (Apol., 37, 2).

Christians have always followed the rite of inhumation, as Caecilius already observed: exsecrantur rogos et damnant ignium sepulturas (Octavius, 11), and Octavius replied: we Christians veterem et meliorem consuetudinem humandi frequentamus (ibid., 34). Unfortunately, however, many times Christians were condemned to vivi comburium, as is recalled in the same Octavius: non dexteram solum, sed totum corpus uri, cremari (ibid., 37).

The open-air cemetery areas were enclosed by a wall: the tombs could be either in simple pits (formae) for one or more burials placed one above the other, separated either by tiles or by marble slabs; in that case the tomb was called biscandens (v. BISOMUS), tercandens, or for many bodies poliandron; or they could be under a portico (sub teglata) or in terracotta, stone, or marble sarcophagi, or in masonry chests, or even in simple amphorae. Sometimes leaden chests were also used (the locellus plumbeus was indispensable for translations) and wooden chests, as has been found in Spain and North Africa.

It must be kept clearly in mind that underground Christian burial is necessarily limited to those places where the geological configuration permitted it; it responded to a logical principle of economy of space, being a matter of exploiting in depth an area limited in surface, both in fronte and in agro.

It is to Father Marchi that the merit belongs of having demonstrated definitively that the underground cemeteries were not simple pozzolana quarries reused for burial by the Christians, but galleries dug expressly by the fossores for the burial of the fratres (G. Marchi, Monumenti delle arti cristiane primitive nella necropoli del cristianesimo, Rome 1844, p. 7 ff.). Only in some cases are zones of sandstone found reused, as in Priscilla (v.), in Commodilla (v.), in the cemetery known as that of St. Januarius of the poor in Naples (v.), in that known as that of St. John in Syracuse (v.).

One of the most inveterate legends is that the Church hid itself in the first three centuries within the subterranean cemeteries. But one must ask where and how the Christians of all those cities of the Roman Empire could possibly have hidden themselves, cities in which, according to literary and monumental evidence, Christian communities flourished throughout the Mediterranean basin and where, however, subterranean excavation was not possible. Moreover, in Rome itself in the middle of the 3rd century there were no grandiose subterranean cemeteries, but only limited burial nuclei, just then developing around the demarcated family areas. The very cemetery of the Christian community on the Appian Way, the cemetery called that of Callistus, had a very limited extent, such that it certainly could not have aroused concern on the part of the Roman police. The very massacre of Pope Sixtus II (6 Aug. 258), the martyr par excellence of the cemeteries, occurred, together with that of his 4 deacons (Cyprian, Ep., 80, 1), in the area above the cemetery of Callistus and not in the subterranean crypt where his predecessors Pontian, Anterus, Fabian, Lucius, and Stephen already rested; while it is known from Damasus that the Pope was not in that place only with 4 deacons, but was presiding over a liturgical assembly of the Roman community, which at that time numbered over 25,000 souls.

Even the legend of dwelling in the subterranean cemeteries is not earlier than the 6th century. It certainly derives from the Passiones — the phrase read in the biography of Pope Caius (283-96): fugiens persecutionem Diocletiani in cryptis habitando (Lib. Pont., I, p. 161). Still in the 6th century it is said that John III (561-74) retenuit se in cimiterio ss. Tiburtii et Valeriani et habitavit ibi multum temporis ut etiam episcopos ibidem consecraret (ibid., I, p. 305). But the tombs of the martyrs Tiburtius and Valerianus were not subterranean but above ground.

A further legend is that all the martyrs

Romans would have been buried in underground cemeteries. The fact is, instead, that the two founders of the Roman Church were buried above ground: Peter, in the Vatican, and Paul, on the Ostian Way; above ground were the martyrs: Valentine on the Via Flaminia; Diogenes and Bonifacianus on the Via Salaria vetus; on the Via Salaria nova: Felicitas, Saturninus, Felix, Philip; on the Via Nomentana, St. Emerentiana; Tiburtius on the Via Labicana; Gordian, Epimachus, Quintus, Quartus, Eugenia on the Via Latina; Zephyrinus, Tarsicius, Soter, Tiburtius, Valerian, Maximus on the Via Appia; Mark and Marcellinus on the Via Ardeatina; and on the Via Portuensis, above ground were Sts. Felix, Alexander, Candida, Polion, Abdon, Sennen; on the Via Aurelia, Pancras and Lucina.

3. Development

The names of the Christian cemeteries of Rome can in part be determined by means of a singular document of the 4th century known as the Chronographer of the year 354 (v.), which contains the Depositio episcoporum (v.) and the Depositio martyrum (v.). Therein are indicated certain names of owners of cemeteries. They are: Balbina, Bassilla, Callistus, the Jordani, Maximus, Pontianus, Praetextatus, Priscilla, Thraso. These names suggest that these were burial areas originally private, then placed at the disposal of the brethren. In the same document other burial areas are indicated either by their characteristic topographical designation, as in catacumbas, or by the name of the consular road on which they were located. Other names are offered by the Hieronymian Martyrology, such as, for example, the major cemetery on the Via Nomentana, the cemetery of Apronianus, etc.; still others in the Lib. Pont., which however does not always give the primitive names, but those current at the time when the biography was composed, that is, not before the 6th century: thus the cemetery of Maximus is called that of Felicitas, and that of Callistus on the Via Aurelia bears the name of Calepodius. Such changes depend directly on the Passiones, which likewise provide other names of cemeteries.

Styger put forward the theory that the origins of the Christian cemeteries of Rome are to be sought among the faithful de Caesaris domo mentioned by St. Paul (Phil. 4:22). But apart from the fact that none of the Roman cemeteries so far known allows us to reach such remote antiquity, the very names recalled above of the most ancient cemeteries do not reveal names of imperial freedmen to whom Styger wished to limit the Christian community of Rome in the time of St. Paul.

The development of every underground cemetery is connected with the burial area sub divo; indeed, above the underground cemeteries of Callistus, of Domitilla, of Praetextatus, of Pontianus, of Pamphilus, of St. Agnes, of the major cemetery and of Bassilla, burial areas or monuments in the open air have been found. Moreover, the development of an underground area served by stairs and aeration shafts is inconceivable without ownership of the burial area above ground, which in Roman law was indivisible.

These burial areas were called indiscriminately those of Callistus, of Praetextatus, of Priscilla, etc., whether the above-ground or the underground was meant. Archaeological explorations, from the time of De Rossi onward, have shown that the great underground cemeteries and even the less extensive ones were not all excavated at one and the same time, but originated from small, well-defined family nuclei with their own stairway and were then enlarged subsequently, from the time when the individual owner had placed his area at the disposal of the community. The first and necessary element of every underground burial area is, as has been said, the stairway; this could be replaced by an entrance on a slope cut into the living rock of the hill, as, for example, in the tombs of the Scipios or in the cemetery of Priscilla in the region of the cryptoporticus, or in the chamber tombs both Jewish and Etruscan, because the system of burial in underground chambers is of very ancient use, prior to Christianity, both in the East and in the West (Etruscans). Moreover, in 1938, near Anzio, a hypogeum was discovered which is dated to approximately the 4th century B.C.: cf. L. Morpurgo, Un sepol-

pre-Christian decree of Anzio and the problem of the origin of the Christian catacombs, in Rendiconti della Pont. accad. rom. di archeol., 3rd series, 22 (1948), pp. 155-66. Recently G. B. Frey has maintained the priority of the Jewish underground cemeteries over the Christian ones, basing himself on the criterion of dating brick stamps; but this element is anything but probative because it can constitute only a terminus ante quem non; while the epigraphic and decorative elements of these Jewish cemeteries (v.) do not at all permit such a remote dating as Frey would have wanted (L'ancienneté des catacombes juives à Rome, in Rendiconti della Pontificia accademia romana di archeologia, 3rd series, 12 [1936], pp. 185-98). One must therefore conclude that those who excavated underground Christian cemeteries, that is, the fossores (v.), developed and perfected a well-known system, as P. Styger rightly observed (Heidnische und christliche Katakomben: Pisciculi, Studien zur Religion und Kultur des Altertums, Münster in W. 1939, pp. 266-75).

From the small independent regions constituted by a hypogaeum provided with one or more cubicles and one or more galleries, one passes in the 3rd century to a greater development, as can be observed in the region called that of the Flavi Aureli in Domitilla (v.), in that of the two parallel staircases in Callistus (v.), or in the other of the same cemetery called that of the crypts of Lucina. In all these three areas the fossores resorted to the expedient of lowering the levels of the said three areas delimited at the surface, and thus obtained in Domitilla that the primitive cubicles remained above, or else they lowered them; in Callistus, in the region of the two parallel staircases, they were able, by means of the lowering, to obtain deeper galleries and to excavate the cubicles where the popes of the 3rd century were deposited and the other of Orpheus; in the region called that of Lucina, deepened cubicles and galleries, in one of which was deposited the pope Cornelius (d. in 253), transferred there some years later from Civitavecchia. Meanwhile, in the course of this 3rd century, the Christian community of Rome, increasing in number, had need of greater cemetery development. In the Catalogue of the Popes, called the Liberian, inserted in the Chronographer of 354, one reads that pope Fabian (236-50) multas fabricas per cimiteria fieri iussit; it is therefore from this epoch that a greater extension of the cemetery networks dates. Styger put forward the theory that the underground cemeteries were enlarged by the fossores with a system of branching either palm-shaped or grid-shaped; it is much simpler to think that the fossores developed the excavation according to the configuration of the surface and the quality of the underground tufa. One observes in fact a great variety in the excavation of the individual cemeteries, and while, in broad outline, the observations already made by Bonavenia concerning the theory of levels in the underground galleries are correct, one must bear in mind that no constant rule can be established for recognizing, for example, the priority of the different levels to which the fossores had to resort, given the limitation of space. In some cemeteries, for example in Priscilla, the level immediately below the surface is the oldest, while the deeper one is later; in Pamphilus, on the other hand, the opposite occurs. In some cemeteries a depth of about 20 m. is reached in only two levels, in others one descends, with three levels, to about 25 m.

The gallery or ambulatory was called crypta, as a graffito on the second floor of Priscilla indicates: undecima crypta, secunda pila (O. Marucchi, Di alcune iscrizioni recentemente scoperte nel c. di Priscilla, in Nuovo bull. di archeol. crist., 10 [1904], p. 207); many times it has the value of a simple subterranean space, for example: descendentibus in crypta (O. Marucchi, Di una iscrizione recentemente scoperta, ove è ricordata la tomba del martire s. Lorenzo, ibid., 6 [1900], p. 127). Pila was the space of vertical wall that contained a series of superimposed tombs; each tomb hollowed out in the wall was called locus (today generally loculus): it was a rectangular opening, on average six feet long, a foot and a half deep and a foot high; the depth was greater in the space intended for the head and less for the extremities. The tomb could be for a single body (monosomus), for two (bisomus; v.), for three (trisomus), for four (quadrisomus), for several tombs (poliandron). The closing was generally done either by means of tiles joined to one another with lime or with one or more slabs of marble; sometimes a layer of plaster is applied over the tiles; it is not infrequent to use the strip of lime for the hermetic closing in order to scratch the sepulchral inscription or to insert a mark of recognition that can vary from the simple potsherd to ivory, to a small bronze, to gilded glass, to glass paste, to one or more coins, to rings, necklaces, glass or metal cups, of terracotta or marble, statuettes, small lamps, bells. In some cases, before proceeding to the excavation of the loculi, the fossores traced the individual pilae in white, in which they then dug as many as twelve tombs one beneath the other. A tomb of greater luxury was the arcosolium (v.). Family tombs were those dug in a room or cubiculum, which could be double (duplex); in some cases one arrives at three and even four cubicula connected with one another (Callistus; v.). Sometimes the gallery and the cubiculum (or the latter alone) were illuminated by a skylight (luminare), especially in cases in which the cubicula were open on the two sides of the gallery. Necessity of burial could cause tombs called formae to be dug in the floor; only in the c. of Pamphilus (v.) has the case been found of having also used the back wall of the gallery for the burial of children. A type of mass burial altogether exceptional is that offered by the series of shafts in Commodilla in which in a single shaft one can count ca. 50 tombs all anepigraphic, which suggest an epidemic. The architectural forms of the cubicula vary with the development of the cemetery network, and to the regular, more ancient ones, of quadrilateral shape

Later, those of polygonal or circular form were added to them, in imitation of the open-air mausoleums.

It is not possible to have an exact statistic of the persons buried in a gallery or in a cubiculum, because it has been established that the tombs were used more than once; indeed, slabs of marble or of tiles with inscriptions are often found reused; often too ossuaries are found arranged either in the gallery itself (Pamphilus; v.) or in large polyandria (Praetextatus; v.) or even in a large ossuary such as the one discovered beneath the crypt of St. Cecilia in Callistus (G. Wilpert, La cripta dei Papi e la cappella di S. Cecilia nel c. di Callisto, Rome 1910, p. 75). Nor can it be established with exactness whether the fossores, having begun burial in a gallery, continued in the same one until its exhaustion, because in the so-called cemetery of Novatian on the Tiburtine road intact tombs are found with painted inscriptions of the years 266 and 270 in different galleries; just as in a small gallery of Pamphilus there is found at the beginning a tomb of the year 348 and at the end one of 361, with an interval of 13 years.

The great development of the cemetery networks occurred only in the period of the Constantinian peace, that is, of the great conversions, and it diminishes progressively until the excavation ends with the first decades of the 5th century.

Burial took place in the evening, according to Roman custom; people returned to the cemetery on the third, seventh and thirtieth day and for the anniversary of the death, no longer of the birth, as was the custom among the pagans; already at the beginning of the 3rd century Tertullian attests several times: oblationes pro defunctis pro nataliciis annua die facimus (De corona, 3; De exhortatione castitatis, 11; De monogamia, 10); St. Cyprian recalls the sacrificium pro dormitionem (Ep., 66). St. Augustine, describing the funeral rites of his mother Monica, writes: cum afferretur sacrificium pretii nostri, iam iuxta sepulcrum posito cadavere, priusquam deponeretur, sicut illic fieri solet (Confess., IX, 12). The bishop Evodius writes to the same Augustine that for the burial of a lector for triduum hymnis Deum collaudavimus super sepulcrum. G. B. De Rossi, bearing in mind the size of the cemetery cubicula of the 4th century, considers it probable that in them the oblationes pro dormitionem were celebrated for the deceased deposited there, not only at the act of deposition, but also in the commemorations of the third, seventh and thirtieth days and for the anniversaries. Certainly even more ancient and used for such a rite is the so-called Greek chapel in Priscilla (v.). A Christian inscription of 373 concerning the psalmody ad sepulcrum says: sanctique tui Manes nobis petentibus adsint ut semper libenterque psalmos tibique dicamus (CIL, XI, 4629).

II. PROPERTY AND ADMINISTRATION

Concerning the administration of the cemeteries, the oldest notice is provided by the Philosophumena (IX, 11): Zephyrinus (199-217) placed the deacon Callistus in charge of the administration of the cemetery of the Appian Way. This cemetery always retained the name of Callistus, although he was not buried there, since he was interred at the third milestone of the Via Aurelia in another cemetery also named after him. The cemetery of the Appian Way is, still at the end of the 3rd century, under the direct dependence of the pope, as is shown by the double cubiculum excavated by the deacon Severus for the burial of his family iussu papae sui Marcellini. Between 236 and 20 January 250 the pope Fabian regiones divisit diaconibus et multas fabricas per coemeteria fieri iussit. Seven were the deacons for the 14 regions, assisted by seven subdeacons mentioned in the letter of pope Cornelius to Fabius of Antioch. It is difficult, however, to establish whether the cemeteries were at that time administered by the deacons or already by the presbyters, as appears instead around the middle of the 4th century, when, that is, from the inscriptions found in the individual cemeteries one can see the dependence of these on their respective tituli and consequently one can rightly recognize the direct jurisdiction of the presbyters over the cemeteries; thus, for example, the cemetery in catacumbas was under the dependence of the presbyters of the titulus of Byzans, later Sts. John and Paul, the cemetery of Domitilla of the presbyters of the titulus de fasciola, later Sts. Nereus and Achilleus. Even the purchases of tombs sometimes take place sub praesentia or sub conscientia of a presbyter of the titulus.

An entirely new period opens with the establishment of the veneration of the tombs of the martyrs and their annual commemorations. From the time of Tertullian altars for oblationes were erected over these tombs, since he recalls the martyrs sub altari quiescentes (De resurrectione carnis, 28: PL 2, 848). St. Cyprian exhorts his clergy to note diligently the day on which the martyrs were immolated so that oblationes ac sacrificia ob commemorationes eorum might be worthily celebrated (Ep., 12: PL 4, 328; cf. H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, pp. 24-99).

Let it not be believed that in the Christian cemeteries the witnesses of the faith originally had a special tomb. In simple open-air tombs were deposited, as has been seen, at the Vatican St. Peter and on the Ostian Way St. Paul and the martyrs Valentine, Saturninus, Felix and Philip, Emerentiana, Tiburtius, Abdon and Sennen, etc. In simple loculi in the walls the popes of the 3rd century: Pontian, Anterus, Fabian, Lucius, Stephen, Sixtus II, Dionysius, Felix, Eutychian; in simple loculi: Lawrence, Sebastian, Protus and Hyacinth, Marcellinus and Peter, etc. Only with veneration were their tombs held in honor; around them the faithful eagerly sought, even at the price of gold, to be deposited: ad sanctos or retro sanctos. St. Paulinus of Nola addressed to St. Augustine the question utrum prosit cuique post mortem quod corpus eius apud sancti alicuius memoriam sepelitur; the answer was given by Augustine with the treatise De cura pro mortuis gerenda; he concludes: such proximity hoc tantum mihi videtur prodesse defuncto, ut commendans eum etiam martyrum patrocinio, affectus pro illo supplicationis augentur. The archdeacon Sabinus, who preferred with his tomb to be considered almost the doorkeeper of the basilica of St. Lawrence (ianitor esse loci), warned the faithful that nihil iuvat imo gravat tumulis haerere piorum... corpore non opus est animo tendamus ad illos (G. B. De Rossi, Scoperte nell'Agro Verano e nel sotterraneo c. di Ciriaca, in Bull. di arch. crist., 4th series, 4 [1886], pp. 16-26). Thus arose adaptations and enlargements of the spaces that contained the venerated tombs, up to the construction of true and proper cemeterial basilicas to worthily honor the witnesses of the faith. For the construction of these buildings, even the oldest regions were demolished in order to obtain sufficient space for the attendance of the faithful and of pilgrims. Thus, in the Constantinian age, basilicas were built over the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul, and of the martyrs Lawrence, Agnes, Marcellinus and Peter. Pope Julius built basilicas at the third mile of the Via Portuensis, at the second of the Via Flaminia (St. Valentine), at the third of the Via Aurelia (St. Callixtus). Beneath the floors of these sacred buildings tombs accumulated, while mausoleums, even sumptuous ones, surrounded them, as can still be seen around the basilica Apostolorum on the Appian Way, erected at the beginning of the 4th century to contain the tomb of the martyr Sebastian and the Memoria of the apostles Peter and Paul venerated there since 258. The pope who more than any other multa corpora sanctorum martyrum requisivit et invenit, quorum etiam versibus declaravit was Pope Damasus (366-84; v.). The administration of the cemeterial basilicas of the apostles Peter and Paul, and of the martyrs Lawrence and Pancras was entrusted to praepositi; that of St. Agnes to the priests of the titulus of Vestina, the others to mansionarii. Pope Simplicius (468-83) established the weekly obligation for the cemeterial basilicas of St. Peter (assigning to it the priests of the sixth and seventh ecclesiastical region), of St. Paul (the priests of the first ecclesiastical region), of St. Lawrence (the priests of the third ecclesiastical region: Lib. Pont., I, p. 240).

But with the Gothic siege and occupation the cemeterial buildings and the tombs of the martyrs were devastated (536-37). The damages were repaired by Pope Vigilius and his successors: John III (561-74) restauravit coemeteria SS. Martyrum et institutit ut oblationes et amulae vel luminaria per eadem coemeteria omni die dominico de Lateranis ministrarentur (Lib. Pont., I, p. 305). The cemeterial basilicas were also restored by the popes Pelagius II and Honorius. Pilgrims from the center and the north of Europe succeeded one another at the tombs of the martyrs, transcribed the inscriptions in their honor, and compiled guides to facilitate the visit to the venerated sanctuaries (Itineraries: v.).

Later Gregory III (731-41) disposuit ut in cymiteriis circumquae positis Romae in die natalizorum eorum luminaria ad vigilias faciendum et oblationes de patriarchio per oblationarium deportentur (ibid., p. 421).

The first translation of the bodies of martyrs was that of Sts. Primus and Felicianus, translated by Pope Theodore from the cemetery ad arcus Nomentanos to the basilica of St. Stephen on the Caelian Hill.

The abandonment of the Christian cemeteries of Rome began especially in the Lombard period. Pope Paul I (757-

767) after having built on his own house the basilica dedicated to Sts. Stephen and Sylvester, he transported there innumerabilium sanctorum corpora quae de prefatis demolitis abstulit cymiteriis (Lib. Pont., I, pp. 464-65). Later Paschal I (817-24) multa corpora sanctorum dirutis in cymiteriis iacentia, pia sollicitudine ne remanerent neglecta querens atque inventa colligens magno venerationis affectu, in... S. Christi Martyris Praxedis ecclesiam deportans condidit (ibid., II, p. 54).

The Index coemeteriorum (v.) must be placed no earlier than the 9th century, indeed already after the translations; it is incomplete, without topographical order, probably derived from the designations of the Hieronymian Martyrology, of the Lib. Pont. and of the Passiones. Thus the cemeteries, stripped of their precious relics, fell into abandonment, their designations were altered, their memorial sites were shifted; all those of the Appian Way were concentrated in St. Sebastian's, those of the Aurelian Way in St. Pancras's, the only ones among the ancient sanctuaries, together with St. Agnes's, St. Lawrence's and St. Valentine's, still visited.

So it remained until 1578, when a crew of pozzolana diggers came upon a group of cemetery galleries on the Via Salaria, with tombs still intact and adorned with paintings. "On that day," writes De Rossi, "the science and the name of subterranean Rome were born" (Roma sotterranea, I, Rome 1864, p. 12). From that time, in fact, the study of Christian antiquities began with O. Panvinio (v.), A. Ciacono (v.), P. Ugonio (v.), and above all with A. Bosio (v.), his disciple, who rediscovered many ancient subterranean cemeteries and understood the importance of studying ancient documents for the work of topographical reconstruction; his Roma sotterranea was published after his death by A. Severano in 1634 (the title page bears the date 1632). The work was translated into Latin by Avinghi and had a wide circulation. But Bosio's studies were not continued, and the subterranean cemeteries were explored with the aim of recovering holy bodies, removing marbles and sarcophagi as well. With Monsignor M. Boldetti (v.) they also began to detach the frescoes, not always with success happy. Thus it continued throughout the 18th century down to Fr. G. Marchi (v.), who, appointed by Gregory XVI in 1842 "conservator of the sacred cemeteries," put an end to the abuses of those employed in extracting the bodies of saints, discovered in 1845 the intact tomb of the martyr Hyacinth in the cemetery of Bassilla (v.), and promoted the renewal of Christian archaeological studies that led to the founding of the Lateran Christian Museum and to the establishment of the Commission of Sacred Archaeology charged with the exploration and preservation of the ancient Christian cemeteries (R. Fausti, Il p. G. Marchi S. I. (1795-1860) e il rinnovamento dell'archeologia cristiana, auspici Gregorio XVI e Pio IX, in Xenia Piana (Miscellanea historiae pontificiae, 7 [Rome 1943], pp. 445-514). His disciple was G. B. De Rossi (v.), the true founder of the science of Christian archaeology through the comparative method between documents and monuments. From 1852 onward he used the former to reconstruct the topography of the ancient Christian cemeteries, thus arriving at the discovery of a distinguished series of martyrs' tombs (historical crypts) together with the identification of the cemeteries that contained them. His discoveries and his publications drew around him, especially with the establishment of the Society of Students of Christian Archaeology (v.), a nucleus of Italian and foreign disciples who handed down his tradition, applying his method in the exploration not only of the cemeteries of Rome and Italy, but also in the other regions of the West and the East.

III. THEOLOGICAL VALUE OF EARLY CHRISTIAN FUNERARY MONUMENTS

The importance of the contribution made by the study of the ancient Christian cemeteries to our knowledge of the ethnic and social composition of the early Christian communities, of their hierarchy, and of their organization, is such that, together with the whole body of their architectural and artistic monuments, it constitutes for the Church as a whole, as it were, an archive of the faith of these first generations. Pope Leo XIII, addressing G. B. De Rossi, declared that studies on the ancient Christian cemeteries Ecclesiae incunabula illustrantur; lapides ipsi quodammodo et monumenta causam religionis suscipiunt, Romanaeque fidei et auctoritatis diuturnitatem et constantiam testantur (Leonis XIII Acta, I, p. 153). Pope Pius XI, in the motu proprio of 11 Dec. 1925, thus defined the value of the ancient Christian cemeteries of Rome: "The primitive cemeteries of Christian Rome, with the crypts and the tombs of the popes and martyrs and the sanctuaries erected over those glorious sepulchres... the countless series of inscriptions, the paintings and sculptures, the cemeterial and liturgical furnishings, constitute for the Holy Roman Church a sacred patrimony of matchless worth and importance. These witnesses are indeed as venerable as they are authentic to the faith and the religious life of antiquity, and at the same time sources of the very first order for the study of Christian institutions and culture, from the times closest to the apostles onward... The Roman Church... from the discoveries of its most ancient cemeteries and of the sanctuaries of the martyrs, has recovered a most notable part of its most ancient patrimony, has seen whole pages of its history reassembled and documents and monuments of the highest historical value brought to light to demonstrate the antiquity of its dogmas, of its faith, of its venerable traditions."

IV. ANCIENT CHRISTIAN CEMETERIES OF ROME

Topographical list of the cemeteries of Rome. - Hypogeum of the Aurelii (v.). Via Flaminia: cemetery called of St. Valentine (v.). - Via Salaria vetus: cemetery called ad septem palumbas (v.); cemetery of Bassilla (v.) and cemetery of St. Pamphilus (v.). - Via Salaria nova: cemetery of Maximus (v.), later called of St. Felicity; cemetery of Thraso (v.); cemetery of the Jordani (v.); cemetery of Priscilla (v.). - Via Nomentana: cemetery called of St. Nicomedes (v.); cemetery called of St. Agnes (v.); Greater Cemetery (Maius: v.). - Via Tiburtina: anonymous cemetery at the entrance of the viale Regina Margherita; cemetery called of St. Hippolytus (v.); cemetery of St. Lawrence or of Cyriaca (v.). - Via Labicana: cemetery called of St. Castulus (v.); cemetery ad duas lauros (v.). - Via Latina: cemetery called of Sts. Gordian and Epimachus (v.); cemetery called of Tertullinus, a martyr known only from the Passio and from two Itineraries (E. Josi, C. c. sulla via Latina, in Riv. di arch. crist., 16 [1939], pp. 12-15), not identified; cemetery of Apronianus (v.): to it perhaps belongs the region called the hypogeum of Trebius Justus (O. Marucchi, op. cit., p. 308). - Via Appia: hypogeum near the tomb of the Scipios, earlier than the Aurelian enclosure (272); anonymous hypogeum between the Appia and the Latina within the same enclosure, with paintings and inscriptions (O. Marucchi, Le catacombe romane, Rome 1933, p. 672); hypogeum called of the Hunters (P. Styger, Die römischen Katakomben, Berlin 1933, p. 307); cemetery of Callistus (v.); cemetery of Praetextatus (v.); cemetery in catacumbas (v.). - Via Ardeatina: cemetery of Balbina (v.); cemetery called of Basileus (?) or of Sts. Mark, Marcellinus (v.) and Damasus (v.); cemetery called of Domitilla (v.). - Via Ostiensis: cemetery called of Commodilla (v.): tomb of St. Paul; hypogeum called of Timothy (from the name of the martyr commemorated on 22 Aug. in the Depositio martyrum) near the cliff north of the basilica of St. Paul: cemetery called of St. Thecla (v.). - Via Portuensis: cemetery of Pontian (v.); cemetery called of St. Felix (at the third milestone the basilica is indicated in the Catalogue called Liberian). - Trastevere: St. Onuphrius on the Janiculum (P. Crostaro, C. anonimo a S. Onofrio al Gianicolo, in Nuovo bull. di arch. crist., 4 [1898], p. 231; O. Marucchi, Scoperta di altre gallerie cimiteriali cristiane sotto il Gianicolo, ibid., 8 [1902], pp. 954-58). - Via Aurelia vetus: cemetery called of St. Pancras (v.); cemetery called of Sts. Processus and Martinian (v.); cemetery called of the two Felices (v.); cemetery of Callistus, called of Calepodius (v.). - Via Aurelia nova or Cornelia: Tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican (v.).

List of the cemeteries called suburban. - Via Aurelia: at the ninth mile: tomb of Sts. Rufina and Seconda; at the twelfth mile: tombs of Sts. Marius, Martha, Audiface and Habakkuk (G. P. Kirsch, Le memorie dei martiri sulle vie Aurelia e Cornelia, in Miscellanea Ebrle, II, Rome 1924, pp. 63-100). — Via Trionfale: c. at Monte Mario (G. B. De Rossi, C. sotterraneo di ignoto nome sul monte Mario, in Bull. di arch. crist., 3rd series, 4 [1894], p. 133). — Via Aurelia: at the twelfth mile: c. of Basilides (v.). — Via Portuense: c. of Generosa (v.), of Porto (v.). — Via Ostiense: at the seventh mile c. called of St. Cyriacus (v.). — Decima, at the fifteenth km., locality Malpasso: burial cell with sarcophagi (A. L. Pietrogrande, Ruderi e sarcofagi scoperti sulla via di Decima, in Notizie degli scavi, 1934, pp. 155-68). — Via Ardeatina: at the fourth mile, locality Nunziatella: subterranean hypogeum (G. B. De Rossi, Scoperta di un piccolo c. cristiano adorno di pitture assai antiche presso la chiesa della Nunziatella al IV miglio della via Ardeatina, in Bull. di arch. crist., 3rd series, 2 [1877], p. 136; 3 [1879], p. 27; 4th series, 1 [1882], pp. 168-70; 3rd series, 3 [1892], p. 28; Wilpert, Pitture, p. 501); at the seventh mile: Felicola, mentioned in the Martirologio geronimiano on 13 June and in the Passio of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus (BHL, 6061; cf. M. Armellini, I c. c. di Roma e d'Italia, Rome 1893, p. 596). — Via Appia: Albano (v.); Velletri (v.). — Via Latina; at the fifth mile: Christian hypogeum (G. B. De Rossi, Ipogeo cristiano al V miglio della via Latina, in Bull. d'arch. crist., 3rd series, 1 [1876], pp. 32-153); locality Tavolato (R. Kanzler, Di un nuovo c. anonimo sulla via Latina, in Nuovo bull. d'arch. crist., 9 [1903], pp. 173-86; O. Marucchi, ibid., pp. 23-282, 301); at the tenth mile, near the villa Senni (O. Marucchi, La scoperta of an ancient Christian cemetery, ibid., 19 [1913], pp. 230-37; F. Grossi-Gondi, Conclusione degli scavi ad decimum della via Latina, presso Grottaferrata, ibid., 24 [1918-19], pp. 87-94; id., Catacombe tuscolane, scoperta di un'importante iscrizione greca, Grottaferrata 1914); at the thirtieth milestone: the cemetery known as that of St. Hilary ad bivium. Devastated; inscriptions in the Palazzo Doria at Valmontone. - Via Labicana: at the seventh milestone the sarcophagus of Proses, a freedman of Caracalla, of 217 was found (G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae, I, Rome 1857-61, no. 5); at the tenth milestone: the cemetery known as that of Zoticus (v.). - Via Prenestina: near Gabii: the cemetery known as that of St. Primitivus (O. Marucchi, Le catacombe romane, Rome 1933, p. 661). - Palestrina (v.), near Paliano: a Christian cemetery with graffiti inscriptions from the year 341 to 420 (O. Marucchi, Scoperta di un antico c. c. al miglio XXXVI della via Prenestina, in Nuovo bull. d'arch. crist., 20 [1914], pp. 131-46). - Via Tiburtina: at the ninth milestone (E. Stevenson, La basilica doppia di S. Sinforosa e dei sette suoi figlioli scoperta al nono miglio della via Tiburtina, in Bull. d'arch. crist., 3rd series, 3 [1878], pp. 75-81); at the eighteenth milestone: the cemetery basilica of St. Vincent recorded under 23 July in the Hieronymian Martyrology (C. Piccolini and G. Mancini, Gli scavi della basilica di S. Vincenzo in territorio di monte Celio, Tivoli 1926). - Via Nomentana: at the fifteenth milestone: the cemetery known as that of Sts. Primus and Felicianus ad arcus nomentanos (O. Marucchi, Le catacombe romane, Rome 1933, p. 664). - Via Salaria: near ancient Fidenae: an anonymous cemetery (O. Marucchi, ibid., p. 664); near the twentieth milestone: the cemetery known as that of St. Anthimus (cf. loc. cit.). - Via Flaminia: 8 km from Morlupo in the territory of Leprignano: a Christian cemetery with inscriptions dated between the years 344-350 (cf. ibid., p. 665). - Rignano Flaminio (v.). - Via Cassia: Baccano (v.), Sutri (v.), Nepi (v.).

V. ANCIENT CHRISTIAN CEMETERIES OF ITALY

Agrigento (v.); Albenga
(N. Lamboglia, Scoperta di un sarcofago paleocristiano, in Riv. Inguana e Intemelia, 3 [1937-38], pp. 58-61); Amiterno (v.); Anzio (v.); Aquileia; Atripalda (G. A. Galante, Il c. di S. Ipolisto, martire di Atripalda, Napoli
1893; CIL, X, 1188, 1191-95); Avellino (v.); Bazzano
(v.); Bolsena (v.); Cagliari (v.); Calvi e Teano (v.); Castelvecchio Subequo (Abruzzi): underground cemetery currently being explored; Castellammare di Stabia (v.); Catania (v.);
Chinsi (v.); Civitacastellana (v.); Concordia (v.); Cuma
(v.); Ferento (Germano di S. Stanslao, Gli atti ed il c.
di S. Eutizio di Ferento, Roma 1886); Masus Martana:
underground cemetery (G. Sordini, Di un c. cristiano sotterraneo
nell'Umbria, in Atti del II Congresso internaz. di archeol.
crist., Roma 1902, pp. 109-21); Milano (v.); Modena (v.);
Napoli (v.); Nola (v.); Pozzuoli (v.); Siracusa (v.); Salerno (v.); Sutri (v.); Tropea (v.); Terni (v.); Venosa (v.);
Vercelli (v.); Malta (v.).

VI. C. ANTICHI NELLE ALTRE REGIONI D'OCCIDENTE E

D'ORCENTE

GALLIA (v. FRANCIA): Arles (v.); La Gayole,
cella sepolcrale a sarcofagi (A. Chaillan, in Bulletin archéo-
logique du Comité, 1913, pp. 308-14); Marsiglia (v.);
Narbona (v.); St-Bertrand de Comminges: basilica ciimiteriale del sec. IV (R. Lizop, Histoire de deux cités
gallo-romaines: Les Convenne et les Consoranni, Tolosa
1931; F. Benoit, Cimetières paléochrétiens de Provence,
in Cahiers archéologiques, 2 [1947], pp. 7-15; L. Bréhier,
Cimetières d'époque mérovingienne et chapelle funéraire
à Coudes [Puy de Dôme], in Comptes rendus de l'Acad.
des inscript. et belles lettres, 1941, pp. 322-32).

SPAGNA: Cordova (v.); Gerona (v.); Saragozza (v.);
Tarragona (v.).

GERMANIA: Bonn, Colonia, Magonza (v.); Treviri
(v.); Xanten (v.).

PANNONIA: Cinque Chiese (v.); Sirmio (v.).
GRECIA: Atene (v.); Corinto: c. cristiano (F. J. De
Waele, The fountain of Lerna and the early christian
cemetery of Corinth, in The American Journal of Archeology [1935], pp. 325-50).

ILLIRICO: Dalmazia (v.); Salona (v.); Stobi (v.).
Per l'ASIA MINORE (cfr. W. Schultze, Altchristliche
Städte und Landschaften, Gütersloh 1922, I, Aegai,
p. 119; Amasea, p. 119; Andrapa, p. 141; Cizico, pp. 367-
369; Madrianon, pp. 341-42; Proconneso, p. 396; II. Kleinasien: Amastris, p. 214; Ankara, p. 207; Apamea, pp. 456-
460 e W. H. Bukler, W. M. Calder, Monuments and
documents from Phrygia and Caria [Monumenta Asiae mi-noris antiqua, 4], Manchester 1939); Caria, Schultze,
p. 165; Claudiopoli, pp. 223-24; Eumencio, pp. 463-67;
Frigia (P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, Note agiografiche [Studi
e testi, 49] Roma, 1928, pp. 241-43); Licaonio: c. all'a-
perto (W. Ramsay, Luke the physician, Londra 1908, pas-sim); Mirapoli, Schultze, pp. 415-17, 427-33; Nicea,
pp. 322-25; Nicomedia, pp. 300-302; Pompeipoli, p. 210;
Prusia e Miplo, pp. 234-35; Soria, 217; Tiesio, p. 230.

AFRICA (v.) DEL NORD: Adrumeto (v.); Benion (S.
Gsell, Fouilles de Benian, Parigi 1899); Cartagine (v.);
Cherchell (v.); Cirta o Costantina (v.); Djemila (v.); Lambesis (v.); Mactar (v.); Mechera Sfa (S. Gsell, Monuments
antiques de l'Algérie, I, Parigi 1901, pp. 34-35); Morvott
(id., ibid., II, p. 234); Mauzaiaville (id., ibid., p. 235);
Setif (v.); Sufetula o Sbeitla (v.); Tabarca (v.); Tenes
Carterina (S. Gsell, Monuments antiques de l'Algérie, II,
Parigi 1901, p. 408); Thaenae, Henchir Thina (G.-L.
Feuille, Les nécropoles de Thaenae, in Bulletin archéol. du
Comité, 1938-40 [1942], pp. 641-53); Timgad (v.); Tipasa (v.).

EGITTO: al-Baqawāt (v.); Alessandria (v.).
LIBIA (v.): Ain Zara (v.); Tripoli (v.).
MESOPOTAMIA (v.).
PALESTINA: Gerusalemme (v.); Gerasa (v.).

Per l'epigrafia e l'iconografia v. le rispettive voci.
- Vedi Tavv. CIV-CV.

Enrico Josi