The Via Salaria Nova
The Via Salaria Nova, like the Via Nomentana, from which it is but a little distant, lies on the north side of the city. Abutting on the road are four cemeteries: S. Felicitas, Thrason and Saturninus, Jordani, and the very important and most ancient Catacomb of S. Priscilla.
The story of S. Felicitas, who with her seven sons was put to death for her religion in the reign of and by the direct commandment of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, circa A.D. 162, is fairly well known. The “Acts” of the martyrdom by many scholars are not reckoned authentic, although the document in question is allowed to be of very high antiquity.
The story is generally very sharply criticized, as a reproduction of a story from the Fourth Book of Maccabees. The high estimation in which the Emperor Marcus universally now is held, no doubt contributes to the severe criticism with which the story of Felicitas and her seven sons is received. Naturally there is considerable reluctance in acknowledging in any way the truth of a story in which the favourite hero of historians and philosophers, the noble Emperor Marcus, plays so sorry a part, and in which the brave constancy and noble endurance of a group of those Christians he so much disliked and tried to despise, is so conspicuously displayed.
But this is one of the many instances, a witness no one can gainsay, of the catacombs to the main truth of a story hitherto largely discredited. The tombs of the heroic mother and her brave sons have been identified. We recapitulate.
In the Catacomb of S. Felicitas the body of the mother was interred and subsequently removed to the basilica built over the cemetery in question. In the ancient Catacomb of Prætextatus, Januarius’ (the eldest of Felicitas’ sons) tomb has been found; nay more—from the numerous prayers and allusions in the graffiti around it, it is evident that the tomb in question was deeply reverenced by generations of pilgrim visitors. In the famous Priscilla Catacomb two out of the seven have been found—Felix and Philip. We know, too, that in the Jordani Cemetery, Martialis, Vitalis, and Alexander lie buried. In the Catacomb of Maximus, a cemetery on the Via Salaria which has not been identified, Silanus, the seventh of the faithful band, was laid. The body of Silanus, the youngest, apparently was carried away, but subsequently restored, and laid in the same catacomb with his mother.
After the Peace of the Church a little basilica was erected over the Cemetery of S. Felicitas, and Pope Damasus wrote in her honour one of his Epistles. At the end of the eighth century Pope Leo III translated the remains of the mother and her son Silanus to the Church of S. Suzanna.[129] There they are still resting.
After the translation of its precious relics, the cemetery of which we are speaking, in common with so many of the catacombs; was deserted by the pilgrim visitors, and its very site was quickly forgotten. De Rossi, in 1858, was enabled to point out its situation, but it was not examined until the year 1884, when some workmen digging the foundations of a house came upon some ancient loculi, with inscriptions, and a number of dim faint pictures. The little basilica of the sixth century thus came to light, and the ruins of what had once been the tomb and shrine of S. Felicitas in the catacomb which bears her name.
On the Via Salaria Nova, between the Cemetery of S. Felicitas and the very important Cemetery of S. Priscilla, there exists what may be termed a network of catacombs only very partially explored. The first is called after Thrason, a wealthy Roman citizen who gave the hospitality of the tomb in a catacomb beneath his gardens to several martyrs to the Diocletian persecution—notably to Saturninus. This portion of the catacombs has as yet been only very little explored; the corridors, etc., are still earthed up.
A little farther on the same road is another cemetery, generally known too under the same name—“Thrason.” Marucchi, however, calls it “Cœmeterium Jordanorum.” It is probable that it was joined originally to that of Thrason. The meaning of the term “Jordani” used in the old Pilgrim Itineraries is uncertain. This is one of the deepest excavated cemeteries. As many as four stories of galleries, one beneath the other, have been found here. Several “Arenaria” or sand-pits intervene between the groups of galleries of this catacomb. All this extensive network of catacombs and arenaria has only been partially excavated as yet. The work is naturally costly to execute, and is accompanied with some danger.