NICOMEDES, Cemetery of. - The martyr N. is commemorated in the Passio of the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus, which is devoid of historical value; his burial is indicated there as « iuxta muros Via Nomentana », that is, immediately outside the gate of the same name, situated between the second and third towers to the right of the present Porta Pia, built by Pius IV in 1564. The martyr's tomb is also noted by the itineraries « de locis » and by the so-called Malmesbury itinerary (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, pp. 115 and 144). The Einsiedeln itinerary, from the end of the 8th century, points out St. N. on the right of the Via Nomentana (ibid., p. 185).
On the martyr's tomb, Boniface V (619-25) erected an oratory which was restored between 772-95 by Pope Adrian I (Lib. Pont., I, pp. 321 and 511). The dedication by Boniface V is also recorded in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries and in the Martyrologies (H. Quentin, Les Martyrologes historiques du moyen-âge, Paris 1908, pp. 51, 350, 429, 482, 697-98). But this building ad corpus has nothing to do with the urban titulus of N. to which belonged two presbyters who subscribed to the Roman Synod of 499 and which is recorded in the epitaph of a « Victor praesbiter Tituli Nicome(dis) » reused in the Middle Ages in the Gospel ambo in the basilica of St. Lawrence ad agro Verano (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 3 [1865], p. 50). The cemetery was identified and explored for the first time by A. Bosio (Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, pp. 435-36).
In 1864, in the area of the Villa Patrizi on the Via Nomentana, two stairways leading to Christian hypogea came to light again. The first was then partly explored and later reopened in 1900 and described as the true cemetery of N. It is a long and wide gallery with some cubicula. The second, a short distance away, led into a gallery with loculi in the walls. In the area above ground an extensive burial area was found with formae and remains of an apsidal building. In 1917-20, while laying the foundations for the present Ministry of Transport, on the area of the ancient Villa Patrizi, a series of Christian burial galleries on two different levels was discovered and inscriptions were also recovered; it is more likely that these galleries constitute the true underground cemetery that developed beneath the Christian area above ground where the basilica had later arisen on the martyr's tomb. In the various explorations carried out, notable inscriptions were found: one of a presbyter missionary because he traveled « terra marique pro nomine Christi » (R. Fabretti, Inscritiones quae in oedibus paternis asservantur, Rome 1699, p. 329, n. 484); in a travertine sarcophagus that of an Adeodata who died in the year 388 (G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae, I, Rome 1861, p. 164, n. 372); of an Aurelia Marciana « civis Pannonia » (ibid., p. 164, n. 293); of a soldier of the VI praetorian cohort. But the best known is that of the « monumentum Valeri Mercuri et Iulites Iuliani et Quintile Verecumdes » with the expression « ad religionem pertinentes meam ». Other inscriptions came to light in 1917-20.
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Enrico Josi