Some features of the catacombs. Story

The second-century Martyrdom of Polycarp records that when, after his execution, Polycarp's body was spitefully burnt, 'we, at last, took up his bones more precious than gold and laid them in a suitable place. There the Lord will permit us to come together in gladness and joy and celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom.' In order that similar practices could take place in the catacombs, some of the more handsome tombs were set in an area which offered ample space in front or at the side, as may be seen, for instance, in the 'Vault of the Flavii' in the Catacomb of Domitilla. Scenes of feasting are quite frequently painted on the plastered walls of catacombs, and in such illustrations realism is not easily separated from symbol. Paintings of this kind could be taken as a graceful allusion to heavenly peace and repose, but they found their everyday counterpart in the refrigerium.

Occasionally benches, even couches, were provided for those who attended and an inscription from North Africa, in honour of a certain Statulenia Julia, records that a table was set up: 'we made it our business to supply a stone table on which food and cups and dishes could be placed when we were commemorating her many admirable deeds.' The optimism of the Christian faith, in its early years, had taken some of the sting out of death, and the feastings by the tomb could, on occasion, follow the form almost of birthday parties, accompanied by much joviality. Nevertheless these excesses were frowned on, and such austere spirits as Tertullian liked to contrast the charitable, disciplined nature of the Christian celebrations with the gluttonous licence of paganism.

Most of the illumination needed in the catacombs was supplied by lamps hanging from the ceiling or placed on brackets, but airshafts were sometimes driven down from ground level and, in the words of the poet Prudentius, allowed 'those beneath the earth to perceive the brightness of the far-off sun and to enjoy light'. The shafts, which were large enough for the martyr St Candida to be hurled down one to her death, might be ingeniously expanded, as in the Cemetery of Marcellinus and Peter, to serve the needs of two burial chambers on opposite sides of a passage.

The effect on an excitable boy of descending into the catacombs is described by St Jerome in these words:

When I was young and being educated in Rome it was my custom every Sunday, along with other boys of my own age and tastes, to visit the tombs of the apostles and martyrs and enter the crypts excavated in the very bowels of the earth. The walls on both sides as you go in are full of dead bodies and the whole place is so murky that one seems almost to find the fulfilment of those words of the prophet 'Let them go down alone into Hell'. Here and there a little light coming in from above is sufficient to give a momentary relief from the horror of darkness; but when you go forward and find yourself once more enveloped in the utter blackness of night, the words of the poet come spontaneously to mind: The very silence fills your soul with dread'.

Between fifty and sixty Christian catacombs in Rome are normally listed as separate units, though a few are so close to one another as to be almost part of the same complex. The most densely packed area is to the south-east of the city, along the Appian and the Ardeatine Ways, near the Catacombs of Praetextatus, Domitilla and Sebastian. Not far off, on the Via Latina, the Cemetery of Trebius Justus marks the centre of an important zone which has only recently come to receive full attention while, rather isolated and a little further north, on the Via Labicana (now Casilina) is to be found the extensive catacomb 'Between the two Bay-trees' which developed around the graves of the martyrs Marcellinus and Peter.

The second great family of catacombs lies to the north of Rome, in the district of the Via Salaria, and includes those of Priscilla and the Jordani as well as the so-called Coemeterium Maius. Then, on the road towards Ostia, at the east end of the city, occurs another group, of which the Catacomb of Commodilla is the most important. The catacombs in the S. Lorenzo district and on the west side of the Tiber have hitherto offered rather less of interest.

It is possible to draw- some distinction between private and public catacombs. The first Christians in Rome, so far as can be discovered, were content with burial in the large cemeteries with persons of any faith, but by the beginning of the third century the Christian community had grown in numbers and confidence, and, as the historian Eusebius puts it, the word of salvation began to lead many a soul out of every race to the pious worship of the God of the universe, so that now many of those who at Rome were famous for wealth and family turned to their own salvation along with all their household and all their kinsfolk.