Two fossores, or excavators, from a picture in the Cemetery of Callistus.
Pancratius looked over the work in hand and smiled; there was hardly a word rightly spelt, or a part of speech correct; indeed, here it is:
DE BIANOBA
POLLECLA QVE ORDEV BENDET DE BIANOBA[72]
The other son was making a rough design, in which could be distinguished Jonas devoured by the whale, and Lazarus raised from the dead, both most conventionally drawn with charcoal on a board; a sketch evidently for a more permanent painting elsewhere. Further, it was clear that when the knock came to the door, old Diogenes was busy fitting a new handle to an old pick-axe. These varied occupations in one family might have surprised a modern, but they did not at all the youthful visitor; he well knew that the family belonged to the honorable and religious craft of the Fossores, or excavators of the Christian cemeteries. Indeed, Diogenes was the head and director of that confraternity. In conformity with the assertion of an anonymous writer, contemporary with St. Jerome, some modern antiquarians have considered the fossor as forming a lesser ecclesiastical order in the primitive Church, like the lector, or reader. But although this opinion is untenable, it is extremely probable that the duties of this office were in the hands of persons appointed and recognized by ecclesiastical authority. The uniform system pursued in excavating, arranging, and filling up of the numerous cemeteries round Rome, a system too, so complete from the beginning, as not to leave positive signs of improvement or change as time went on, gives us reason to conclude that these wonderful and venerable works were carried on under one direction, and probably by some body associated for that purpose. It was not a cemetery or necropolis company, which made a speculation of burying the dead, but rather a pious and recognized confraternity which was associated for the purpose.
A series of interesting inscriptions, found in the cemetery of St. Agnes, proves that this occupation was continued in particular families; grandfather, father, and sons, having carried it on in the same place.[73] We can thus easily understand the great skill and uniformity of practice observable in the catacombs. But the fossores had evidently a higher office, or even jurisdiction, in that underground world. Though the Church provided space for the burial of all her children, it was natural that some should make compensation for their place of sepulture, if chosen in a favorite spot, such as the vicinity of a martyr’s tomb. These sextons had the management of such transactions, which are often recorded in the ancient cemeteries. The following inscription is preserved in the Capitol:
EMPTV LOCVM AB ARTEMISIVM VISOMVM HOC EST
ET PRAETIVM DATVM FOSSORI HILARO IDEST
FOL NOOD PRAESENTIA SEVERI FOSS ET LAVRENTI
That is—
“This is the grave for two bodies, bought by Artimisius; and the price was given to the Fossor Hilarus,—that is, purses....[74] In the presence of Severus the Fossor and Laurentius.”
Possibly the last named was the witness on the purchaser’s side, and Severus on the seller’s. However this may be, we trust we have laid before our readers all that is known about the profession, as such, of Diogenes and his sons.