Priscilla, Cemetery of

PRISCILLA, Cemetery of. - On the Via Salaria nuova (today the entrance is at Via Salaria 430). It is indicated in the Depositio martyrum and in the Leonine Sacramentary

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for the martyrs Felix
and Philip (10 July) and in the Depositio episcoporum for the popes Marcellinus (16 Jan., the date of the deposition of Marcellus buried in the same cemetery, as is indicated in the Lib. Pont., ed. Duchesne, I, p. 164) and Sylvester (31 Dec.). The Lib. Pont. indicates as buried also in P. the popes Liberius (352-66), whose sepulchral poem G. B. De Rossi vindicated (Bull. arch. crist., 1883, pp. 5-60; Inscr. christ., II, I, Rome 1888, pp. 83-84); Siricius (384-99), pointed out as deposited « ad pedes » of Sylvester (Notitia ecclesiarum in R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, p. 77) and whose metrical elogium is likewise known (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. chr., II, pp. 102, 138); Celestine (422-32) buried in a mausoleum to the right of the Basilica (Notitia eccles. cit., p. 77) in which at the time of Hadrian I (772-95) the decorative frescoes could still be made out and the sepulchral poem was transcribed (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. chr., II, pp. 62, 101); Vigilius (537-55) deposited near St. Marcellus (for the various popes cited cf. Lib. Pont., I, pp. 208, 216, 230, 299).

In the biography of Pope Marcellinus the Lib. Pont. attests that he was deposited in the cemetery near the body of the martyr Crescention in a cubiculum lit by a luminare, still accessible in the 6th century. G. B. De Rossi identified the place by means of a graffito invoking the martyr; confirmation came later from an inscription of two spouses, Felicissimus and Leoparda, who bought a double tomb at (ad) Crescentionis introitum. The pilgrims of the 7th century also point out other tombs of martyrs: the Notitia ecclesiarum signals in the subterranean area Prisca, Potentiana, Praxedes and Fimitis in a cubiculum near the exit; the itinerary de locis and the Notitia portarum add a St. Paul and a St. Simetrius (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, op. cit., pp. 77, 116-17, 144). The cemetery turns out to be composed of a large open-air Christian burial area, in which in 1890 and in 1905 the remains of two Christian basilicas and of a series of mausoleums or oratories were identified, which suffered the damage of the barbarian invasions; the subterranean area is composed on the first level of a series of hypogea, originally independent then connected, and of a second, later level dug with great regularity beneath the area of the first, with a large independent staircase.

One of the oldest regions is that called the cryptoporticus (2nd cent.), with an entrance at ground level from the Via Salaria into the heart of the hill, where a series of cubicula were made, some lined with stuccoes, and in particular the so-called Greek Chapel (from two Greek inscriptions painted in red) which contains the oldest cycle of frescoes, partly of the classical type, such as the personifications of the seasons and the phoenix with the radiant nimbus discovered in Jan. 1952 by the Benedictine Sisters of P.; partly with scenes from the Old Testament (Noah, Sacrifice of Abraham, miracle of the spring, three youths in the furnace, Susanna in two large frescoes, Daniel among the lions) and from the New Testament (Epiphany with three magi, paralytic healed, resurrection of Lazarus). On the back wall is the fractio panis discovered by G. Wilpert: there seven figures are seated around a table, on which rest a chalice with two handles and a dish with fish; the first person on the left breaks the bread; at the two sides of the table are arranged the seven baskets, symbols of the multiplication of the loaves. For G. Wilpert the scene is the act of the Eucharistic supper; for P. Styger and F. X. Dölger a funerary banquet. The room near the chapel was judged by A. Profumo to be a baptistery, by P. Styger a kitchen.

A second region was identified by G. B. De Rossi as the hypogeum of the Acilii Glabriones; it has niches for sarcophagi with decorations of the age of the first Antonines, with later additions and modifications. There in the floor is the Greek inscription notable for its doxology: « O father of all those whom you have created, you have taken to yourself Irene, Zoe and Marcellus, Glory to you in Christ »; another epigraph, also Greek, ends with the wish « for the eternal resurrection ». The inscriptions relating to the gens Acilia recall in Latin a Manius Acilius Verus C(larissimus) v(ir), that is of senatorial rank like his sister P. c(larissima foemina or puella) and an Acilius Glabrio; in Greek a young Claudius Acilius Valerius and an Acilius Rufinus to whom it is wished that he « may live in God ». All are descendants of Manius Acilius Glabrio, consul in 91, mentioned by Suetonius (Domit., 10) and by Dio Cassius (Hist., 67, 13), accused of atheism and together with many others put to death by Domitian. The eponymous founder of the cemetery was therefore identified by G. B. De Rossi as belonging to the gens Acilia, as is attested by the P. sister of Acilius Verus mentioned above, while P. Styger supposes her without proof to have been a freedwoman.

A third region is that called the arenarium, constituted by its own staircase which led on the left to a broad gallery with large burial niches, later cut by the luminare opened for the excavation of the second level; at the end of the gallery is the room with the famous painting of the Madonna. On the vault, in stucco relief, were fashioned two images of the Good Shepherd with sheep among olive trees. In the right-hand corner is represented the Madonna with the Child; to her right a man (Balaam [v.] or Isaiah [v.]) in tunic and pallium holds a scroll in his left hand and with his right points to a star placed above the Virgin's head. Opposite, on the left, of the first tomb above are represented the deceased: a man, a woman and a child. It belongs to the second half of the 2nd century because it is found at the point farthest from the staircase of access to the arenarium itself. Other parallel galleries were then opened; in a later period the galleries had to be consolidated by means of pillars and still later formae were built in the floor and tombs in the walls built to reinforce the sides, which thus sealed off the original tombs and marble sarcophagi later broken; G. B. De Rossi removed some of these walls and found again a series of loculi still intact, one of which contained the inscription painted in red on tiles: VERI CVNDVE with the monogrammatic letter M painted in the lime (perhaps Memmius). To the region of the arenarium also belongs the cubiculum with the image of the Annunciation (v.). Perhaps from one of the formae comes the well-known inscription of Agape, today in the rebuilt hall of the Basilica of St. Sylvester. There the deceased addresses the fratres of the community, so that when they descend into the cemetery they may remember in their common prayers (precibus totis) the dear Agape, so that the Lord almighty may preserve Agape forever.

For the dating of the so-called arenarium it must be borne in mind that not a few stamps borne by the bricks used for the closing of the loculi in that region belong at the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd (CIL, XV, 1, 164; 371 a; 337 b; 408 c, etc.). The later region of the first floor contains a cubiculum called "of the veiled woman" because of the vesting of a sacred virgin, painted on the back wall (considered by A. Mitius to be a marriage scene), with the Good Shepherd in the vault; on the right, the three youths in the furnace, on the left the sacrifice of Abraham; on the entrance wall Jonah cast out by the sea monster (late 3rd century). Another cubiculum is called "of the little barrels" because of the realistic scene of a group of carriers of wine barrels painted on the back wall (4th century).

The idea that Peter had preached and baptized in the P. is also owed to the novel "Quo vadis?" by the Polish writer Sienkiewicz; it arose in O. Marucchi when he was commissioned to write an archaeological preface to the novel itself translated into Italian. There Peter was described as intent on preaching and baptizing in the Ostrianum cemetery, identified at that time with the "Maius" of the Nomentana, near St. Agnes. O. Marucchi instead proposed to recognize the Ostrianum, and therefore the memory of Peter, in the P. But in none of the ancient documents — whether biographical (Lib. Pont.), liturgical (calendars or martyrologies), or topographical (itineraries) — is there ever found any mention of a memory of St. Peter in one of the cemeteries of the Nomentana or the Salaria. The two documents that offer a reference are two apocryphal texts: the Gesta Liberii and the Passio Marcelli, whose value and respective date, not earlier than the end of the 5th century, were established by Profumo and Duchesne. For many years Marucchi sought every indication favorable to his thesis; he took the water reservoirs in the P. for baptisteries, attempted to place in the P. poems relating to baptisteries, and to date some galleries of the cemetery to the 1st century, but he was effectively contradicted by G. Bonavenia, by L. Duchesne and by A. Profumo. In the underground cemetery of the P., none of its most ancient nuclei can go back beyond the middle of the 2nd century. Historically there is no evidence of places within the city where Peter (v.) carried out his apostolate, much less can one point to underground Christian cemeteries in which, as one reads in the novel "Quo vadis?", Peter would have baptized. It does not appear that in the apostolic age Christians had already established burial areas in Rome exclusively for themselves, and much less that these were underground; it is known in fact that the two founders of the Roman Church were both laid in public burial areas under the open sky, Peter (v.) on the Vatican hill and Paul (v.) on the Ostian Way. Tertullian briefly hints that Peter baptized in Tiberi tinxit (De baptismo, 4: PL 1, 1312); but not even when Christians possessed cemeteries of their own, that is, not before the middle of the 2nd century, is it established that they used them as baptisteries; these instead, as emerges from the successful excavations of the American mission at Dura-Europos (v.), formed an integral part of the houses of prayer, established within the city and not outside it like the cemeteries. - See plate I.

Enrico Josi