Another still more apocryphal inscription is given by Maitland, (page 65.) It is probably of the fifth century. The Pudentiana referred to is said to have spent her patrimony in relieving the poor and burying the martyrs.
HOC EST COEMETERIVM PRISCILLAE
IN QVO EXISTVNT CORPORA TRIVM MILLIVM MARTYRVM
MARTYRIO PER ANTONINUM IMPERATOREM
AFFECTORVM QVOS S. PVDENTIANA
FECIT IN HOC SVO VENERABILI TEMPLO SEPELIRI.
“This is the Cemetery of Priscilla, in which are the bodies of three thousand martyrs, who suffered under the Emperor Antonine, whom St. Pudentiana caused to be buried in this her own place of worship.”—Aicher, Hortus Inscriptionum. More authentic relics of this reign are the large tiles with which part of the Catacomb of Callixtus is paved. They all bear the words, OPVS DOLIARE EX PRAEDIIS DOMINI N ET FIGL NOVIS, which, according to Marini, is the stamp of the imperial manufactory of Marcus Aurelius.
[90] “Hanc dextram ad te Jupiter, tendo, quae nullius unquam sanguinam fudit,” is the form of prayer given by Claudian. Euseb., v, 5.
[91] A. D. 180-193.
[92] See [chap. ii], book iii.
[93] Strom., lib. ii, A. D. 193.
[94] Apol., 37. Sicut sub Hilariano præside, cum de areis sepulturarum nostrarum adclamâssent, areæ non sint.—Ad Scap., c. iii. A. D. 203.
No more pathetic episode is contained in the whole range of the Martyrology than that of the youthful mother, Perpetua, who suffered at Carthage under Severus. Few can read unmoved the acts of her martyrdom, which bear the stamp of authenticity in their perfectly natural and unexaggerated tone, and the absence of miracle. Young—she was only twenty-two—beautiful, of noble family, and dearly loved, her heathen father entreated her to pity his gray hairs, her mother’s tears, her helpless babe. But her faith proved triumphant over even the yearnings of natural affection; and, wan and faint from recent childbirth pangs, she was led, with Felicitas, her companion, into the crowded amphitheatre, and exposed to the cruel horns of infuriate beasts. Amid the agonies of death, more conscious of her wounded modesty than of her pain, with a gesture of dignity she drew her disheveled robe about her person. She seemed rapt in ecstasy till by a merciful stroke of the gladiator she was released from her suffering, and exchanged the dust and blood of the arena, and the shouts of the ribald mob, for the songs of the redeemed, and the beatific vision of the Lord she loved.
[95] Cædit et humanas hostias.—Lamprid., Heliogabalus.