SORIANO AL CIMINO, CEMETERY OF. – From the ancient Surrina vetus, destroyed by the Romans, derives the medieval Surrianum at the foothills of the Monti Cimini (province of Viterbo).
S. preserves the fortress, one of the most important in Lazio, built in 1278 by Pope Nicholas III of the Orsini family, who held possession of the town, later passing to the Colonna, to G. Vitelleschi, and to the Church. S. is also famous for the Menicante Stone (mentioned by Roman writers), a trachyte boulder weighing about 170 tons, in oscillating balance atop a vertical crag.
The town had its own bishops until the 7th century, when it was united with the see of Bomarzo. Near S. Ferentum (v.), where a martyr Eutychius is venerated on May 15. A legendary *Passio* exists for this saint (BHL, 2779-80); it has been suggested that he may be identified with the Eutychius venerated in a church of the diocese of Ferentino, mentioned by Gregory the Great (Dialogues, III, 28: PL 77, 316); an inscription, believed to be from Tarquinia, records “an Eutychius confessor deposited on the VIII Kalends of September in peace of Christ” (CIL, XI, 3516); G. B. De Rossi proposed to recognize the martyr in the priest Eutychius of the acts of the martyrs Valentine and Hilary (Bull. di arch. crist., 2ª serie, 5 [1874], pp. 101-18); there is also an Eutychius in the *Passio* of the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus (BHL, 6060, 19-20); but no certain identification can be made. On the hillside a Christian cemetery was discovered, part of which was destroyed to erect a basilica where St. Eutychius is venerated. The cemetery was constructed from a central nucleus, from which galleries branched out, with the characteristic that the tombs, unlike those in Roman cemeteries, are sealed with mortar and stones like masonry, and are not dug into the walls but built against them and covered with lime, where inscriptions were scratched or painted. Among these, a notable one from April 359, “Eusebio et Ypatio cons(ulibus),” stands out. The cemetery was seen by G. Marangoni and M. Boldetti, who drew a plan of the basilica and the galleries. An inscription (8th-9th centuries) from the ancient basilica recalls the decoration of polished marbles placed above the martyr Eutychius’s tomb by Bishop Stephen: “Stephanus vates tibi mar/ur Eutici speciale marmoris dedi.”
