Roman Mosaics; Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood

by Hugh Macmillan

The Catacombs were specially excavated for Christian burial,—tombs beneath the tombs of the Appian Way. Unlike the pagans, who burned the bodies of their dead, and deposited, as we have seen, the ashes in cinerary urns which took up but little space, the Christians buried the bodies of their departed friends in rock-hewn sepulchres. They must have derived this custom from the Jewish mode of interment; and they would wish to follow in this the example of their Lord, who was laid in an excavated tomb. Besides, it was abhorrent to their feelings to burn their dead. Their religion had taught them to value the body, which is an integral part of human nature, and has its own share in the redemption of man. Their mode of sepulture therefore required larger space; and as the Christians grew and multiplied, and more burials took place, they extended the subterranean passages and galleries in every direction. It is computed that upwards of six millions of the bodies of the early Christians were deposited in the Catacombs. The name which these rock-hewn sepulchres first received was cemeteries, places of sleep; for the Christians looked upon their dead as only asleep, to be awakened by the trump of the archangel at the resurrection. And being used as burial-places, the Catacombs became the inalienable property of the Christians; for, according to Roman law, land which had once been used for interment became religiosus, and could not be transferred for any other purpose. It was long supposed that the Catacombs were subsequently made use of as places of abode, when persecution drove the Christians to seek the loneliest spots; but this idea has been dispelled by a more careful examination of them. There can be no doubt, however, that they were employed as places of religious meeting. Numerous inscriptions found in them touchingly record that no Christian worship could be performed in the imperial city without the risk of discovery and death; and therefore the members of the Christian flock were obliged to meet for worship in these dreary vaults. The passages in some places were expanded into large chambers, and there divine service was performed; not only for the benefit of those who came to bury their dead, but also for those who resided in the city, and were Christians in secret.

Passing from the roughly-paved road into the vineyard where the Catacombs of St. Calixtus are situated, the first objects that caught my eye were the dark, gaunt ruins of a tomb and a chapel of the third century, now wreathed and garlanded with luxuriant ivy. Beside these ruins I descended into the Catacombs by an ancient staircase, at the foot of which my guide provided me with a long twisted wax taper, calculated to last out my visit. A short distance from the entrance, I came to a vestibule surrounded with loculi or rock-hewn graves. The walls were plastered, and covered with rude inscriptions, scratched with a pointed iron instrument. These were done by pilgrims and devotees in later ages, who had come here—many of them from distant lands—to pay their respects at the graves of the saints and martyrs. Two of these pilgrims, from the diocese of Salzburg, visited these Catacombs in the eighth century, and left behind an account of their visit, which has afforded a valuable clue to Cavaliere de Rossi in his identification of the chambers and graves. Passing from this open space, I soon reached a sepulchral chapel, lined with the graves of the earliest popes—many of them martyrs—who were buried here for about a century, from the year 200 to the year 296 of our era. The gravestones of four of them have been found, with inscriptions in Greek. A beautiful marble tablet by Pope Damasus, who died in 384, stands where the altar of the chapel originally stood, and records the praises of the martyrs whose remains lay in the neighbouring chambers; ending with a wish that he himself might be buried beside them, only he feared that he was unworthy of the honour. This good Pope, like an older "Old Mortality," made it a labour of love, to which he consecrated his life, to rediscover and adorn the tombs which had been hidden under an accumulation of earth and rubbish during the fearful persecution of Diocletian.

From this chapel of the Popes I came through a narrow passage to a wider crypt, where the body of St. Cæcilia was laid after her martyrdom in her own house in Rome, in the year 224. There is a rude painting of this saint on the wall, clothed with rich raiment, and adorned with the jewels befitting a Roman lady of high station. And at the back of a niche, where a lamp used to burn before the shrine of the saint, is painted a large head of our Saviour, with rays of glory around it shaped like a Greek cross. This is said to be the oldest representation of our Lord in existence, and from it all our conventional portraits have been taken. Doubts have, however, been thrown upon this by others, who assert that all the paintings in this chamber are not older than the seventh century. After this, I wandered on after my guide through innumerable narrow galleries hewn out of the soft reddish-brown rock, and opening in all directions; all lined with horizontal cavities for corpses, tier above tier, in which once were crowded together old and young,—soldiers, martyrs, rich and poor mingling their dust together, as in life they had shared all things in common. Here social distinctions were abolished; side by side with the obscure and unknown slave were some of the most illustrious names of ancient Rome. These shelves are now empty, for nearly all the bones and relics of the dead have been removed to different churches throughout Europe. Even the inscriptions that were placed above each grave—on marble tablets—have been taken away, and now line the walls of the museums of St. John Lateran and the Vatican. A few, however, remain in their place; and I know nothing more affecting than the study of these. For the most part, they are very short, containing only the name and date; sometimes only an initial letter or a rudely-drawn cross, indicating that it was a time of sore trial, when such hurried obsequies were all that the imminent danger allowed. Sometimes I came upon a larger record—such as, "Thou sleepest sweetly in God;" "In the sleep of peace."

But the most touching of all the inscriptions were those which were scratched rudely in a few places on the walls by visitors to the tombs of their fellow-Christians. The survivors came often to weep over the relics of the dead. Here a husband records the virtues of a beloved wife; there, a son invokes the precious memory of a pious father or mother; and all of them express their calm resignation and unshaken hope. One inscription especially struck me. It was very rude, and almost obliterated, for seventeen hundred years had passed over it. It was a husband's lamentation over a dead wife: "O Sophronia! dear Sophronia! thou mayest live?—Thou shalt live!" How eloquently did that rough, faded scrawl, over a long-forgotten grave, speak of the human fear that perhaps his wife was lost to him for ever—"Thou mayest live?" and of the noble faith that triumphed over it—"Thou shalt live!" Nothing affects and astonishes one more in these inscriptions than this calm, assured confidence that death was but a profound sleep,—a rest unspeakably grateful after such a weary life of awful suffering,—and that they should see their beloved ones again. It was a literal realisation of the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection." They surrendered all that life holds dear, and life itself, from loyalty to the God of truth, knowing whom they had believed, and persuaded that He would keep that which they had committed to Him against the great day. They made their family ties so loyal and sacred, that their human love, in the higher love of Christ Jesus, endured for evermore. In many of the crypts, the emblems of martyrdom are roughly denoted by a sword, an axe, or by faggots and fire. What sorrowful scenes must have taken place in these dreary passages, as the mangled forms of parent, child, brother, or friend were stealthily brought in from the bloody games in the Flavian amphitheatre, or from the cruel tortures of the prison-house, to their last dark, narrow home along the very path I was now treading!

A number of rude paintings ornament the walls of the chapels, which repeat over and over again the simple symbols of the Christian faith, and the touching stories of the Bible. The ark of Noah; Daniel in the lions' den; the miracle of Cana; the raising of Lazarus—are among the most common of these frescoes. And they are deeply interesting, as showing that down in these dim and dreary vaults, which presented such a remarkable contrast to the lovely violet sky and the grand architectural magnificence above ground, among men who cared little for the things of time and sense, because life itself had not a moment's security, were nevertheless nourished thoughts of ideal beauty and unearthly grandeur, which afterwards yielded such glorious fruit in the Christian art of Italy. The frescoes of the Catacombs are the feeble beginnings of an artistic inspiration which culminated in the "Last Supper" of Leonardo da Vinci, and the "Transfiguration" of Raphael.

The anchor of hope, the olive-branch of peace, and the palm-branch as the sign of victory and martyrdom, were seen everywhere. The fish, whose Greek name is formed by the initial letters of the titles of our Lord, was carved on the marble tablets and sarcophagi as the anagram of the Saviour; and an Orante, or female figure praying, was represented as the symbol of the Church. The most common of all the figures, however, was that of the Good Shepherd carrying the lost sheep on His shoulders, or leaning on His staff while the sheep were feeding around Him. And a most touching figure it is, when we think of the circumstances of those who carved or painted it in these gloomy aisles. It was into no green pastures, and beside no still waters, that the Good Shepherd led His flock in those awful days, but into waste and howling wildernesses, where their feet were bruised by the hard stones, and their flesh torn by the sharp thorns, and all the storms of the world beat fiercely upon them. But still He was their Good Shepherd, and in the wilderness He spread a table for them, and in the valley of the shadow of death they feared no evil, for He was with them, and His rod and staff comforted them.

I wish I could express adequately the emotions which filled my breast while wandering through these Catacombs. Save for the feeble glimmer of my own and the guide's lamp, I was in total darkness,—a darkness that might be felt. Not a sound broke the awful silence except the echo of our footsteps in the hollow passages. Not a trace or a recollection of life recalled me from the thought of absolute impenetrable death around. Each passage seemed so like the other, and the ramifications were so endless and bewildering, that but for the presence of my guide I should inevitably have lost myself. Horrible stories of persons who had gone astray in the inextricable maze, and wandering about in the empty gloom till they perished of exhaustion and starvation, recurred to my mind; and my imagination, intensified by the silence and darkness, vividly realised their sufferings. There is indeed no chill or damp in these labyrinths, and the atmosphere is mild and pleasant, but still the gloom was most oppressive. And yet a deep gratitude fills the soul; for the light there shone in darkness, and it was this very darkness that preserved our religion, when it ran the risk of being extinguished. These fearful subterranean passages were the furrows in which were planted the first germs of the Christian religion,—in which they were long guarded in persecution as the seed-corn under the frost-bound earth in winter, to spring up afterwards when summer smiled upon the world, and yield a glorious harvest to all nations.

On the opposite side of the Appian Way, in a vineyard, is the Catacomb of Pretextatus, which is almost as extensive as that of St. Calixtus, and hardly less interesting. It is especially remarkable for a large square crypt, inlaid with brick and plaster, and covered with very fine frescoes and arabesques of birds and foliage. The bodies of St. Januarius, Agapetus, and Felicissimus, who suffered martyrdom in the year 162, were interred in this Catacomb; and two churches, at a subsequent period, were erected over it in honour of the three saints who suffered martyrdom with St. Cæcilia. Recent explorations have brought to light, in a separate part of this Catacomb, curious paintings and inscriptions which have been referred to the mysteries of Mithras—an Oriental worship of the Sun—introduced into Rome about a century before Christ, and which was celebrated in caves. When Christianity became popular, and was threatening the overthrow of polytheism, an attempt was made to counteract its influence in the reign of Alexander Severus, who himself came from the East, by organising this worship. The two systems of religion became, therefore, mixed up together for a while; and hence it is not uncommon to find in pagan sepulchres symbols and arrangements of a Christian character, and in Christian Catacombs Mithraic features. The funeral monuments of those who were converted to Christianity in the earliest ages of the Church indicated the transition between the two religions. We find upon their tombs pagan symbols, which ceased to be identified with pagan worship, and became mere conventional ornaments. We have other evidences along the Appian Way of the eclectic revival of paganism at this time. When alluding to the classic stream of the Almo, I spoke of the associations of the worship of Cybele. This naturalistic cult was introduced from Phrygia, and its orgiastic rites and nameless infamies had a horrible fascination for an age of decaying faith. And not far from the mounds of the Horatii and Curiatii there is a monument, probably of the age of Trajan, with a bas-relief portrait, dedicated to the memory of one Usia Prima, a priestess of Isis; this worship, with its painful initiations and splendid ritual, being imported from Egypt in the second century. But although this Neo-paganism appealed more to the passions of men than the sunny humanistic worship of older times, and for a time inspired the most frenzied enthusiasm, it failed utterly to resuscitate the decaying corpse of the old religion. Great Pan was hopelessly dead!

At a short distance on the same side of the road is the Catacomb of Sts. Nereus and Achilles, which contained the remains of these saints, and are interesting to us as the most ancient Christian cemetery in the world. The masonry of the vestibule is in the best style of Roman brickwork; and the frescoes on its walls, representing Christ and His apostles, the Good Shepherd, Orpheus, Elijah, etc., indicate a period of high artistic taste. This Catacomb contains the oldest representation extant of the Virgin and Child receiving the homage of the Wise men from the East, supposed to date from the end of the second century, and was often made use of in support of Roman Mariolatry. Several days might be profitably spent by the antiquarian in investigating the contents of the different tiers of galleries; while the geologist would find matter for interesting speculation in the partial intrusion of the older lithoid tufa here and there into the softer and more recent volcanic deposits in which the passages are excavated, and in which numerous decomposing crystals of leucite may be observed. On the same side of the way, farther on, is the Jewish Catacomb, the tombs of which bear Jewish symbols, especially the seven-branched golden candlestick, and are inscribed, not with the secular names and occupations of the occupants, but with their sacred names, as office-bearers of the synagogue, rulers, scribes, etc. The inscriptions are not in Hebrew, but in Greek letters. It is supposed that in this Catacomb were interred the bodies of the Jews who were banished to the valley of Egeria by Domitian.