INTER DUAS LAUROS, CEMETERY OF. - With this topographical designation the Jeronymian Martyrology indicates, at the fourth mile, the place on the Via Labicana where the martyrs Gorgonius, Marcellinus and Peter, Tiburtius and another group of thirty martyrs were buried. As for the name of the cemetery, the same document says of Gorgonius that he was venerated on 9 September (V idus septembres) in cimitero eiusdem, that is, the cemetery of Gorgonius.
But the martyr Gorgonius was already recorded in the 4th century in the Depositio Martyrum (v.) under the same date: Gorgoni in Lavicana. Moreover the itineraries of the 7th century, besides the said martyrs, indicate in the same locality the group of the Four Crowned Martyrs; furthermore the Notitia ecclesiarum indicates a group of 40 martyrs who become milites in the itinerary inserted by William of Malmesbury in the Notitia portarum; likewise the thirty martyrs are milites for the itinerary de locis; the same document also adds the names of the martyrs Geminus and Maximus, the former of whom is given as Geminus in William of Malmesbury.
As for the group of the Four Crowned Martyrs, the aforementioned Depositio Martyrum gives them as venerated in the 4th century in Comitatum. For many archaeologists this expression has been identified as a topographical indication of the locality inter or ad duas lauros, and therefore an imperial property, identical with that of Subaugusta on the Via Labicana.
The cemetery of i. d. l. is very extensive; it consisted of an area above ground, in which the martyr Tiburtius was laid, whose sanctuary Stevenson believed he could identify; furthermore of two underground levels in which the various stairways indicate the different original nuclei or hypogea later connected.
After the abandonment of the cemeteries, following the translation of the relics of the martyrs into the city, the cemetery of i. d. l. also fell into oblivion. The first to venture into some of the underground galleries were Pomponius Laetus and his companions, who left their names written there around the middle of the 15th century. A. Bosio began his explorations there in 1594 and continued them for a long time, discovering many painted cubicula and among them one with a 5th-century fresco on the vault representing in the lower field the Lamb of God on the mount from which the four rivers spring, surrounded by the martyrs Peter, Marcellinus, Tiburtius and Gorgonius indicated with their names. In the upper zone the bearded Savior, with long hair, with a nimbus and the letters A and D, between the apostles Peter and Paul.
In the first half of the 18th century M. Boldetti removed many inscriptions from this cemetery. In 1779 Father G. M. Partenio erected a marble altar in a crypt of a region near the mausoleum of St. Helena. G. B. De Rossi discovered a 4th-century region and gave notice of it in his Bullettino di archeologia cristiana. Methodical studies of the cemetery of i. d. l. were begun by E. Stevenson (v.), to whom is due the discovery of the region in which the martyrs Marcellinus and Peter were buried, laid by a pious Lucilla in two simple loculi of a gallery on the first level of the cemetery; subsequently the opposite wall of the gallery was cut and a small apsidal sanctuary was built, leaving intact the tombs of the two martyrs, decorated by Damasus (366-84), who also composed a poem in their honor; its text was handed down by the Passio; a fragment of it was found at the Ss. Quattro Coronati on the Caelian. On the plastered walls of the sanctuary and of the adjacent galleries numerous pilgrims wrote their names or invocations, such as « Marcelline Petre petite ». Pope Adrian I (772-95) built a special stairway of access to the two venerated tombs. The martyr Gorgonius was buried in another region, probably on the lower level, given the indication « in inferiore antro » of the Notitia ecclesiarum; but his tomb has not yet been found; likewise the place of the tombs of the thirty martyrs recorded by the Jeronymian Martyrology and of the forty martyrs indicated in the Notitia ecclesiarum « in inferiore spelunca », of Geminus or Geminus and of Maximus, of the last of whom nothing is known from other sources, is still unknown. The tomb of the Four Crowned Martyrs was identified in a region partly seen first by Bosio, then by Wilpert, and explored in the period 1911-12. A stairway leads from the surface down to a gallery about 40 m. long on the second level of the cemetery; onto it opened galleries and cubicula, later walled up to allow pilgrims to reach two historical crypts, in the second of which a rough sarcophagus was placed in an arcosolium; on the plastered wall A. Bevignani read the invocation « SCE CLE(mens) », the first of the Four Crowned Martyrs remembered in the Depositio Martyrum. Among the other graffiti names there is also that of Leo, which is found in many sanctuaries of the Roman martyrs. It is known that H. Delehaye, L. Duchesne and P. Franchi de' Cavalieri held that the Four Crowned Martyrs are to be identified with the marble-workers martyred at Sirmium. H. Delehaye, L. Duchesne and P. Styger instead rightly identified in comitatum for that city; the Jeronymian Martyrology indicates the Four Crowned Martyrs as venerated at least until the 6th century not in the cemetery of i. d. l. but in the urban church « in Caelio monte ». The rough sarcophagus, its placement in an arcosolium decorated previously, the character of the itinerary and the late walls built along the whole long gallery that leads into the venerated crypt confirm the translation of the relics of the martyrs of Sirmium not before the 6th century into the cemetery of i. d. l.
As for the frescoes, the cemetery is the richest in all underground Rome: they were published in part by A. Bosio, many by G. Wilpert and by G. P. Kirsch. Worthy of mention are the group with scenes of Agape already seen by Bosio; in the representations of the Epiphany the Magi are for the most part two; the decoration of the vaults of the cubicula offers a scheme with the Good Shepherd in the center, a cycle of Jonah, seasons, which is repeated several times; among the miracles of the Lord there is the unique scene of the healing of the woman who was «inclinata nec poterat sursum respicere» (Lk. 13, 10-13). Among the inscriptions should be remembered those of a member of the «titulus Matthaei» and of a lector of the «titulus» of Eusebius, which allow the identification of the two urban «tituli» on which the cemetery depended. Among the dated epigraphs, the oldest is of 340, the most recent of 506. Noteworthy are two Greek inscriptions with the letter T inserted in the middle of the name (G. Wilpert, La Croce sui monumenti delle Catacombe, in Nuovo bull. di arch. crist., 8 [1902], pl. 7, nos. 3 and 4).
In 1936 a singular cubiculum was found, already recorded by Bosio, with an isolated baldachin tomb, of the type characteristic of use in Sicily and Malta (E. Josi, Cimitero ad duas lauros. Il cubicolo 20 della pianta Bosio, in Riv. di arch. crist., 13 [1936], pp. 220-30). - See pl. IX.
Bibliography22 works
Enrico Josi