[350:1] Evidently from [Greek: kata], down, and [Greek: kumbos], a cavity. Mr Northcote, in his work on the "Roman Catacombs," published in 1857, calculates that the streets in all, taken together, are 900 miles long!
[350:2] See "Three Introductory Lectures on Ecclesiastical History," by William Lee, D.D., of Trinity College, Dublin, p. 27.
[350:3] It is probable that many were condemned to labour in these mines as a punishment for having embraced Christianity. See Lee's "Three Lectures," p. 28.
[350:4] Maitland's "Church in the Catacombs," p. 24. Dr Maitland visited Rome in 1841, but his inspection of the Lapidarian Gallery seems to have been regarded with extreme jealousy by the authorities there. After having obtained a licence "to make some memoranda in drawing in that part of the Museum," he was officially informed that "his permission did not extend to the inscriptions", and the communication was accompanied by a demand that "the copies already made should be given up." To his refusal to yield to this mandate we are indebted for many important memorials to be found in his interesting volume.
[351:1] See Maitland, pp. 27-29.
[352:1] Maitland, p. 14.
[352:2] Maitland, pp. 33, 41, 43, 170.
[352:3] "Philosophumena," book ix.
[352:4] As Carthage now furnished Rome with marble and granite, it is probable that the quarrymen and sand-diggers of the catacombs came frequently into contact with the Carthaginian sailors; and we may thus see how, in the time of Cyprian, there were such facilities for epistolary intercourse between the Churches of Rome and Carthage. Under favourable circumstances, the mariner could accomplish the voyage between the two ports in two or three days.
[353:1] "Philosophumena," book ix. Tertullian corroborates the charges of Hippolytus. See "De Pudicitia," cap. i.