Landslip in the Cemetery of Cyriaca.
One of the tombs, discovered during the following January, seems to have belonged to a lady of rank. A gold necklace and a pair of opal earrings were found in the earth which filled the grave. Relatives or friends of the occupants of the cubiculum had written on the plaster words of affection and devotion, such as "Gaianus, live in Christ with Procula;" "Semplicius, live in Christ."
Inscription from the tombstone of a dentist.
It is to be regretted that, in order to make room for the daily victims of death, the municipality of Rome should be obliged to turn out of their graves the faithful of the third and fourth centuries who were buried in the neighborhood of S. Lorenzo. In 1876 I witnessed the discovery of a section of the old cemetery at the foot of the hill of Cyriaca. The tombs were mostly sarcophagi, with reliefs, the subjects of which are taken from the Bible. One of them, carved in the rude but pathetic style of the fifth century, represents the crossing of the Red Sea, and the Egyptian hosts, led by Pharaoh, following closely on the Jews. The waves are closing over the persecutors, just as the last of the fugitives emerges safely on the land. The "column of fire" is represented, according to the Vitruvian rules, with base and capital; and the costumes of the warriors of the Nile are those of Roman gregarii, or privates, under Constantine. Another sarcophagus shows the Virgin Mary, with the infant Saviour in her arms, receiving the offering of the Eastern kings. A third represents a sort of pageant of court dignitaries of one of the Valentinians. Besides these and many other pieces of sculpture seventy-two inscriptions or fragments of inscriptions were dug up, mostly from the pavement of a ruined chapel, one of the seven by which the basilica of S. Lorenzo was surrounded in ancient times.
Inscription from the grave of Alexander, a dentist.