NICOMEDE, CEMETERY of. – The martyr N. is mentioned in the Passio of the martyrs Nereo and Achilleo, which is of no historical value; his burial is there indicated 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 Pio IV in 1564. The martyr’s tomb is also indicated by the itineraries « de locis » and by the so-called Malmesburiense (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 eighth century, points out s. N. on the right of the Via Nomentana (ibid., p. 185).
Over the martyr’s tomb, Bonifacio V (619–25) erected an oratory, which was restored between 772 and 795 by Pope Adriano I (Lib. Pont., I, pp. 321 and 511). The dedication by Bonifacio V is also recalled 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 ad corpus building 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 mentioned in the epitaph of a « Victor praesbiter Tituli Nicome(dis) », reused in the Middle Ages in the Gospel ambo of the basilica of S. Lorenzo
all'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 Villa Patrizi on the Via Nomentana, two stairways leading to Christian hypogea came to light. The first was then partially explored and reopened in 1900, and was presented as the true cemetery of N. It consists of a long, spacious gallery with several cubicula. The second, a short distance away, led into a gallery with loculi in the walls. Above ground, an extensive burial area was found, with formae and the remains of an apsidal building. In 1917–20, while the foundations were being laid for the present Ministry of Transport on the site of the former 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 actual underground cemetery, developed beneath the above-ground Christian area where the basilica was subsequently erected over the martyr’s tomb. The various explorations carried out brought to light noteworthy inscriptions: one of a missionary presbyter, because he travelled « terra marique pro nomine Christi » (R. Fabretti, Inscritiones quae in oedibus paternis asservantur, Rome 1699, p. 329, no. 484); on 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, no. 372); one of an Aurelia Marciana « civis Pannonia » (ibid., p. 164, no. 293); and one 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.