This catacomb is one of the oldest, Sta. Priscilla, from whom it is named, being supposed to have been the mother of Pudens, and a contemporary of the apostles. Her granddaughters, Prassede and Pudenziana, were buried here before the removal of their relics to the church on the Esquiline. With this cemetery is connected the extraordinary history of the manufacture of Sta. Filomena, now one of the most popular saints in Italy, and one towards whom idolatry is carried out with frantic enthusiasm both at Domo d'Ossola and in some of the Neapolitan States. The story of this saint is best told in the words of Mrs. Jameson.
"In the year 1802, while some excavations were going forward in the catacomb of Priscilla, a sepulchre was discovered containing the skeleton of a young female; on the exterior were rudely painted some of the symbols constantly recurring in these chambers of the dead; an anchor, an olive branch (emblems of Hope and Peace), a scourge, two arrows, and a javelin: above them the following inscription, of which the beginning and end were destroyed:—
——LUMENA PAX TE CUM FI——
"The remains, reasonably supposed to be those of one of the early martyrs for the faith, were sealed up and deposited in the treasury of relics in the Lateran; here they remained for some years unthought of. On the return of Pius VII. from France, a Neapolitan prelate was sent to congratulate him. One of the priests in his train, who wished to create a sensation in his district, where the long residence of the French had probably caused some decay of piety, begged for a few relics to carry home, and these recently discovered remains were bestowed on him; the inscription was translated somewhat freely, to signify Santa Philumena, rest in peace. Another priest, whose name is suppressed because of his great humility, was favoured by a vision in the broad noon-day, in which he beheld the glorious virgin Filomena, who was pleased to reveal to him that she had suffered death for preferring the Christian faith and her vow of chastity to the addresses of the emperor, who wished to make her his wife. This vision leaving much of her history obscure, a certain young artist, whose name is also suppressed, perhaps because of his great humility, was informed in a vision that the emperor alluded to was Diocletian, and at the same time the torments and persecutions suffered by the Christian virgin Filomena, as well as her wonderful constancy, were also revealed to him. There were some difficulties in the way of the Emperor Diocletian, which incline the writer of the historical account to incline to the opinion that the young artist in his wisdom may have made a mistake, and that the emperor may have been not Diocletian but Maximian. The facts, however, now admitted of no doubt; the relics were carried by the priest Francesco da Lucia to Naples; they were enclosed in a case of wood resembling in form the human body; this figure was habited in a petticoat of white satin, and over it a crimson tunic after the Greek fashion; the face was painted to represent nature, a garland of flowers was placed on the head, and in the hands a lily and a javelin with the point reversed to express her purity and her martyrdom; then she was laid in a half-sitting posture in a sarcophagus, of which the sides were glass, and, after lying for some time in state in the chapel of the Torres family in the Church of Sant' Angiolo, she was carried in grand procession to Mugnano, a little town about twenty miles from Naples, amid the acclamations of the people, working many and surprising miracles by the way.... Such is the legend of Sta. Filomena, and such the authority on which she has become within the last twenty years one of the most popular saints in Italy."—Sacred and Legendary Art, p. 671.
It is hoped that very interesting relics may still be discovered in this Catacomb.
"In an account preserved by St. Gregory of Tours, we are told that under Numerianus, the martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria were put to death in an arenaria, and that a great number of the faithful having been seen entering a subterranean crypt on the Via Salara, to visit their tombs, the heathen emperor caused the entrance to be hastily built up, and a vast mound of sand and stone to be heaped in front of it, so that they might be all buried alive, even as the martyrs whom they had come to venerate. St. Gregory adds, that when the tombs of these martyrs were re-discovered, after the ages of persecution had ceased, there were found with them, not only the relics of those worshippers who had been thus cruelly put to death, skeletons of men, women, and children lying on the floor, but also the silver cruets (urcei argentei) which they had taken down with them for the celebration of the sacred mysteries. St. Damasus was unwilling to destroy so touching a memorial of past ages. He abstained from making any of those changes by which he usually decorated the martyrs' tombs, but contented himself with setting up one of his invaluable historical inscriptions, and opening a window in the adjacent wall or rock, that all might see, without disturbing, this monument so unique in its kind—this Christian Pompeii in miniature. These things might still be seen in St. Gregory's time, in the sixth century; and De Rossi holds out hopes that some traces of them may be restored even to our own generation, some fragments of the inscription perhaps, or even the window itself through which our ancestors once saw so moving a spectacle, assisting, as it were, at a mass celebrated in the third century."—Roma Sotterranea, p. 88.
Returning to the Porta Salara, and following the walls, we reach the Porta Pia, built, as it is now seen, by Pius IX.—very ugly, but appropriately decorated with statues of St. Agnes and St. Alexander, to whose shrines it leads. The statues lost their heads in the capture of Rome in 1870 by the Italian troops, who entered the city by a breach in the walls close to this. A little to the right was the Porta Nomentana, flanked by round towers, closed by Pius IV. It was by this gate that the oppressed Roman people retreated to the Mons Sacer—and that Nero fled.
"Suivons-le du Grand-Cirque à la porte Nomentane. Quel spectacle! Néron, accoutumé à toutes les recherches de la volupté, s'avance à cheval, les pieds nus, en chemise, couvert d'un vieux manteau dont la couleur était passée, un mouchoir sur le visage. Quatre personnes seulement l'accompagnent; parmi elles est ce Sporus, que dans un jour d'indicible folie il avait publiquement épousé. Il sent la terre trembler, il voit les éclairs au ciel: Néron a peur. Tous ceux qu'il a fait mourir lui apparaissent et semblent se précipiter sur lui. Nous voici à la porte Nomentane, qui touche au Camp des Prétoriens. Néron reconnaît ce lieu où, il y a quinze ans, suivant alors le chemin qu'il vient de suivre, il est venu se faire reconnaître empereur par les prétoriens. En passant sous les murs de leur camp, vers lequel son destin le ramène, il les entend former des vœux pour Galba, et lancer des imprécations contre lui. Un passant lui dit: 'Voilà des gens qui cherchent Néron.' Son cheval se cabre au milieu de la route: c'est qu'il a flairé un cadavre. Le mouchoir qui couvrait son visage tombe; un prétorien qui se trouvait là le ramasse et le rend à l'empereur, qu'il salue par son nom. A chacun de ces incidents son effroi redouble. Enfin il est arrivé à un petit chemin qui s'ouvre à notre gauche, dans la direction de la voie Salara, parallèle à la voie Nomentane. C'est entre ces deux voies qu'était la villa de Phaon, à quatre milles de Rome. Pour l'attendre, Néron, qui a mis pied à terre, s'enfonce à travers un fourré d'épines et un champ de roseaux comme il s'en trouve tant dans la Campagne de Rome; il a peine de s'y frayer un chemin; il arrive ainsi au mur de derrière de la villa. Près de là était un de ces antres creusés pour l'extraction du sable volcanique, appelé pouzzolane, tels qu'on en voit encore de ce côté. Phaon engage le fugitif à s'y cacher; il refuse. On fait un trou dans la muraille de la villa par où il pénètre, marchant quatre pieds, dans l'intérieur. Il entre dans une petite salle et se couche sur un lit formé d'un méchant matelas sur lequel on avait jeté un vieux manteau. Ceux qui l'entourent le pressent de mourir pour échapper aux outrages et au supplice. Il essaye à plusieurs reprises de se donner la mort et n'y peut se résoudre; il pleure. Enfin, en entendant les cavaliers qui venaient le saisir, il cite un vers grec, fait un effort et se tue avec le secours d'un affranchi."—Ampère, Emp. ii. 65.