THE ROMAN UNDERGROUND - SECRETS OF THE CATACOMBS

Roman Empire of the Dead - Underneath the streets of Rome lies another Eternal City: one made of a twisting labyrinth of catacombs. Built to hold the bodies of early Christians, these subterranean burial chambers reveal intriguing insights into the church’s development in Rome.

Shortly before his death in Bethlehem in A.D. 420, St. Jerome remembered a childhood episode, when he and his friends snuck beneath the ground to explore the catacombs in Rome: “These are excavated deep in the earth and contain, on either hand as you enter, the bodies of the dead buried in the walls . . . Only occasionally is light let in to mitigate the horror of the gloom, and then not so much through a window as through a hole. You take each step with caution as, surrounded by deep night, you recall the words of Virgil: ‘Everywhere there is horror, at the same time the silence itself terrifies the mind.’ ”

Consisting of winding passages containing thousands of tombs, Rome’s catacombs once housed the remains of early Christians and the relics of bishops and martyrs. Decorated with murals, mosaics, and frescoes, these underground tombs have intrigued people for centuries as a place where the sacred meets the macabre. Nineteenth-century horror author Edgar Allan Poe even set one of his short stories in one: The 1846 tale “The Cask of Amontillado” tells how an Italian nobleman mercilessly walls up his rival in a Roman catacomb, leaving him to die alone in the dark. The origins of these underground cities of the dead are not quite as fantastic as Poe’s imagining but certainly no less fascinating.

Over Their Dead Bodies

The practice of entombing the dead in underground crypts dates far back into Rome’s past. The earliest subterranean galleries date to the first century A.D. and were primarily used by Rome’s Jewish population.

During the very early period of Christianity in the Roman capital, Christian dead intermingled with that of the Jewish and pagan populations. The Christian community began creating their own separate underground burial areas, now known as the catacombs, in the late second or early third century. By the time the practice of using catacombs lost popularity in the fifth century, there were more than 6.5 million burials in these chambers.

A long-standing practice of Greco-Roman societies prohibited the burial of the dead within the city limits, so tombs—whether pagan, Jewish,or later Christian—were typically placed outside the walls.According to tradition,St.Peter, martyred during the persecution unleashed by Nero in A.D. 64, was entombed in a public cemetery outside the city walls on Vatican Hill. A year or two later, St.Paul was believed to have been buried in a cemetery along the Ostian Way following his martyrdom.

Along the Appian Way (the highway that ran south from Rome), soft, volcanic rock known as tuff was perfect for constructing catacombs. It was pliant enough to hollow out niches and chambers yet strong enough to support multiple levels of structures. The fossors, or “buriers,” were specialized workers who built and maintained the catacombs. They are often depicted working with a pick and a lamp or beside a body about to be interred.

Catacombs also became popular for economic reasons. Land was expensive both in central Rome and in the suburban areas where the aristocracy built their villas. Collective burial in areas just outside the city walls not only maximized space by stacking as many tombs as possible below ground, but also lowered the cost. It was one way to guarantee a proper burial for those least able to afford it.

Christian leaders favored the use of catacombs for spiritual reasons as well. The early church frowned on cremation and believed that corpses should be interred in as complete a physical state as possible in anticipation of the resurrection of the body. Death was seen as a rest, as reflected by early Christian writers being the first to describe burial grounds with the word “cemetery,” derived from the Greek koimeterion, meaning “sleeping place.”

Historians are divided as to how the term catacomb evolved. In the literature of the time the common word for such tombs would have been crypta. “Catacomb” may derive from the Greek katàkúmbas (beside the bodies) or from the original place-name for where the third-century martyr St. Sebastian was buried. An underground Christian cemetery had established itself there and was said to have been known as ad Catacumbas, meaning “near the quarry or hollows.” Whatever the origin, the Roman term of catacomb became applied to similar underground Christian burial complexes across Europe, including those in Paris and Malta.

The Catacombs of St. Callixtus

As the Christian community began to expand in the second and third centuries, an organized ecclesiastical structure developed as well. Notions of philanthropy and solidarity strengthened these bonds, which stretched from the cradle to the grave. Christian cemeteries benefited from these strong ties as wealthy donors and other individuals contributed their own funds to support them and their upkeep.

The construction of the catacombs, with their network of linked galleries able to house hundreds, or even thousands, of tombs, was meticulously planned, always leaving open the possibility of future extensions. This feature sets them apart from the pagan hypogea which were designed as closed structures. From the middle of the second century, one of the first communal Christian cemeteries in the city later became one of the largest and most richly decorated of the catacombs: St. Callixtus.

This complex occupies about 90 acres of land, underneath which snakes some 12 miles of tunnels and galleries. Four levels of tombs housed Christians of all kinds, from popes to martyrs to everyday people. These catacombs are named for their superintendent, who despite his slave origins and being found guilty of embezzlement, rose to become Pope Callixtus I in 218, although he wasn’t actually buried in the cemetery that still bears his name.

Several popes and bishops were buried in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus. The area where nine popes were laid to rest is nicknamed “the little Vatican.” These catacombs also held the remains of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, who was martyred in the third century. Her remains and relics rested in her crypt for five centuries but were moved to the district of Trastevere in the ninth century. A statue was erected to honor her original resting place.

A Hierarchy of the Dead

Lying on the Via Salaria is another ancient and extensive Roman complex: the Catacombs of Priscilla, first dug out in the second century A.D., and in use until the fifth. A grave inscription found inside identifies one of the deceased as Priscilla [clarissima femina] (Her Grace Priscilla)— believed to be the very Priscilla who founded the cemetery, which contains a high number of martyrs, and detailed wall art.

The architecture and decoration of the Priscilla Catacombs reveals a great deal about early Christian society. Because catacombs were community cemeteries, it has often been claimed that they championed equality. But the archaeology tells another story, showing clear evidence of a pecking order among the dead. The loculi were simple niches excavated in the walls , one above the other right up to the ceiling. These tombs were generally occupied by poorer Christians and not elaborately decorated. The loculi are mainly anonymous or include brief inscriptions of the names of the deceased.

Larger tombs for rich clients were known as cubicula. The same term used for a bedroom (continuing the theme of death as sleep), a cubiculum was like a tiny chapel with a burial niche protected by an arch (arcosolium). These tombs were often engraved with lengthy epitaphs, frescoes, and sometimes mosaics. They offer insights into the preferred iconography of early Christians; the figure of the Good Shepherd predominates, along with images of paradise and portraits of the deceased, both men and women, in attitudes of prayer.

The Catacombs of Priscilla are also home to the exclusive hypogeum of the aristocratic family of Acilius Glabrio, as well as the so-called “Greek chapel” where tombs of the same family are found with inscriptions in Greek. This chapel is richly decorated with scenes depicting episodes from the Old Testament, such as Moses striking the rock and Daniel in the lions’ den. Other paintings, inspired by the New Testament, show Lazarus coming forth from the tomb, and the adoration of the Magi. Together they make up one of the earliest art collections in the history of Christianity.

From Persecution to Acceptance

The politics of Rome also shaped the development of the catacombs. In the first century, as Christianity spread, the refusal of Roman Christians to sacrifice to pagan deities was seen as subversive, since the gods were believed to protect the empire Many Romans lapped up lurid tales of Christians as cannibals, no doubt misled by garbled accounts of the Communion rite.

In A.D. 64 swaths of Rome were destroyed by a great fire. Casting around for a scapegoat, Emperor Nero launched the first, major persecution of Christians. Describing it later in the first century, the historian Tacitus recounted how Christians “were torn by dogs . . . or doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination.” Not that Tacitus seems to have had much sympathy: Christianity was a “mischievous superstition” that had taken root in Rome, “where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world become popular.” It is believed that Sts. Peter and Paul were martyred in the city during the anti-Christian frenzy of these years.

The persecution was not continuous, and Christians seem to have benefited from lulls in which they practiced their faith and buried their dead in relative peace. But violence could flare at any time, notably spiking under Domitian at the end of the first century. In the mid-third century, a period of relative calm ended when Decius ordered all citizens to make a pagan sacrifice. Many Christians were slaughtered on refusing to do so, including the bishops of Rome, Jerusalem, and Antioch.

The development of the catacombs throughout this period later fed a widespread notion that they doubled as hideouts, where persecuted early Christians could gather underground by the light of flickering torches to celebrate Mass. Although it is recorded that Pope Sixtus II hid out in one of the catacombs during the persecution of the mid-third century, it is unlikely that these cramped galleries could have accommodated the thousands of Roman Christians for the purpose of worship.

Even so, as a reminder of the continuity of the faith during the long, grim years of persecution, the underground cemeteries became a powerful symbol. As the political tide started to turn in favor of the Christian faith, the catacombs began to evolve into memorials. Emperor Constantine, after embracing Christianity in the fourth century, initiated the process of turning key catacombs into monuments. Basilicas were constructed and dedicated to the martyrs laid to rest there; the most important of them is St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

Once Christianity had established itself, the catacombs became pilgrimage sites, a useful asset to the burgeoning ecclesiastical power of Rome. Damasus I, pope from 366 to 384, launched an intensive public relations campaign to encourage veneration of the martyrs and their tombs. The pope created what might today be called a visitor trail (itinera ad sanctos: itinerary of the saints) to orient pilgrims during their travels. Damasus’s publicity campaign helped to cement Rome as the center of Western Christianity.

From A.D. 380, when it became the state religion of the empire, Christianity moved to the heart of Rome. But by the sixth century, catacomb burial had largely ceased, and the church began transferring relics out of the catacombs for safekeeping. During the medieval period, legends proliferated about the lost burial sites of saints,mysterious places that had long been abandoned.

By the 16th century only a few were still known for the basilicas that commemorated them. During this period, the Counter-Reformation’s efforts to resist the rise of Protestantism led to a revival of the Catholic Church’s interest in early Christianity,a period exalted for its faith and piety. The research of an erudite 16th-century Augustinian Onofrio Panvinio,and the excavations carried out a century later by the scholar Antonio Bosio, led to there discovery of these sacred places,for which fascination has never fully waned.

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Catacombs Lost and Found

First Century

Martyred during the Christian persecution under Emperor Nero, the Apostle Peter is said to be interred in the public necropolis on Vatican Hill.

Second Century

Still a persecuted minority in Rome, Christians begin to bury their dead in communal underground burial sites, later known as the catacombs.

Fourth Century

Constantine the Great is the first Roman emperor to profess Christianity. Pope Damasus I attracts pilgrims to the catacombs.

Sixth Century

Following the transfer of saintly relics to Catholic churches, knowledge of many of the catacombs’ locations becomes forgotten.

16th Century

Rome’s fight against Protestantism reawakens interest in the early church. The catacombs are the subject of a study by the scholar Onofrio Panvinio.

1632

'Roma Sotterranea' (Subterranean Rome) is published three years after the death of author Antonio Bosio, the “Columbus of the Catacombs,” who pioneered the rediscovery of lost sites.

1849

Archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi discovers the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, on the Appian Way.

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THE JEWISH CATACOMBS

Most of Rome's catacombs are of Christian origin, but six are exclusively Jewish. The Monteverde Catacomb was rediscovered in the early 1600s, and the rest were identified in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The most recent was found in 1918 to the northeast of Rome on the Nomentan Way: the Catacombs of Villa Torlonia, a complex of galleries richly decorated with Jewish symbols, including representations of a menorah. Cubicle C of the Jewish Catacombs of Vigna Randanini on the Appian Way is adorned with colorful vegetable and bird motifs. Discovered in 1859, it was in use from the second to the fourth centuries. The tombs used by Rome’s Jews are known in Hebrew as kochim, and similar structures have been found in and near Jerusalem.

Written by Mar Marcos in "National Geographic History", USA, May/June 2017, vol.3 n.2, excerpts pp.52-65. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

(MAR MARCOS IS A SPECIALIST IN THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.  ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CANTABRIA, SPAIN.)