[144] From the Catacomb of St. Agnes. The ancient Martyrology records the conversion of a Roman nobleman of this name in the time of Julian, together with that of his wife and fifty-three members of his household, and his subsequent martyrdom and burial in the Catacombs. It is probable that Theophila had learned in Gaul to write Latin, though only in those singular Greek characters which, as Julius Cæsar informs us, were used in that country, and that, after the death of the whole family, she employed some equally unlettered stone-mason to engrave this remarkable inscription.
[145] De Rossi gives several dated inscriptions of the reign of Diocletian, (Nos. 16 to 28,) thus absolutely identifying the age of those portions of the Catacombs.
[146] In Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun” there is a fantastic legend of “The Spectre of the Catacombs,” the ghost of an apostate betrayer of the Christians, which still haunts the scene of its hateful perfidy.
[147] See plan of this arenarium and stairway in chap. v, [fig. 26].
[148] In A. D. 359 Liberius, bishop of Rome, lay hid for a year in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, till the death of the Arian Constantius; and in A. D. 418 Boniface I. in the Catacomb of St. Felicitas, during the usurpation of the antipope Eulalius.
[149] The similar excavations of Quesnel, in France, were long inhabited by both human beings and cattle.
[150] Latebrosa et lucifugax natio.—Minuc. Felix.
[151] Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:
“La terre avait gémi sous le fer des tyrans;
Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,