E-text prepared by Anne Soulard, Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. II.—JULY, 1858.—NO. IX.
THE CATACOMBS OF ROME.
[Concluded.]
—fessoque Sacrandum Supponato capiti lapidem, Curistoque quiescam. PAULINUS OF NOLL
Et factus est in pace locus ejus et halitatio in Sion.
Ps. LXXV. 2
V.
Rome is preëminently the city of monuments and inscriptions, and the lapidary style is the one most familiar to her. The Republic, the Empire, the Papacy, the Heathens, and the Christians have written their record upon marble. But gravestones are proverbially dull reading, and inscriptions are often as cold as the stone upon which they are engraved.