About three miles from Rome on this road, in the Vigna del Fiscale, is the Catacomb of i Santi Quatro, or Quatuor Coronati, the Four Crowned Ones, as they are called. They are said to have been Christian sculptors, who, for refusing to exercise their art in the service of idolatry, suffered martyrdom under Diocletian. Iron crowns, set with spikes, were forced upon their heads, and they were then scourged to death with plumbatæ. Ten miles from Rome in this same road is the Catacomb of St. Zoticus, also honoured as one of the primitive martyrs.
On the Via Tiburtina, about ten minutes’ walk from the Porta di San Lorenzo, is the Catacomb of St. Cyriaca, named after a Christian matron of noble family, who founded it in her own land in the year A. D. 258. During
the thirty-two years of her widowhood she employed her vast wealth in ministering to the necessities of the saints, and finally herself received the crown of martyrdom. Here it is said the body of St. Lawrence was first interred, and afterward removed to the neighbouring church, where it is still revered with devout superstition. The excavations made to insulate the ancient basilica of San Lorenzo, and to enlarge the cemetery at present in use, have laid open a number of galleries of this Catacomb, exposing the long hidden loculi and paintings to the light of day. The style of the ancient inscriptions and those of the modern necropolis, which, in accordance with a decree of the pope, are all in Latin, may be compared; not greatly to the advantage of the latter, notwithstanding the rigorous censorship they must first undergo. This Catacomb, with others, was explored and described by Bosio two centuries and a half ago. On the opposite side of the road is the cemetery of Hippolytus, commemorated in the verses of Prudentius in the fourth century.
About a mile and a quarter from the Porta Pia, on the Via Nomentana, is situated the Catacomb of St. Agnes. The legend of this saint is one of the most beautiful in the martyrology, and has been preserved with peculiar fulness of detail by St. Ambrose in his treatise de Virginibus. The youthful martyr was the daughter of rich and noble Roman parents, and is described in the Acts that bear her name as being of a sweet and tender beauty. Being sought in marriage by the son of the prefect of the city, she rejected his suit; declaring in a strain of impassioned eloquence her espousals to a bridegroom nobler, richer, and more beautiful far than any of earth, who had betrothed her by the ring of his faith, and would crown her with jewels to which earthly gifts
were dross—a bridegroom so fair that the sun and moon were ravished by his beauty, and so mighty that the angels were his servants.[315] She thus betrayed her attachment to the cause of Christ, and was forthwith put to the torture in order to compel her recantation of the faith. With touching naiveté the Acts relate that no fetters could be found small enough for her wrists. As the crowning ignominy to which her maiden modesty could be exposed, she was sent to the place of shame—ad locum turpitudinis; but her unshorn hair flowed in golden waves to her feet, forming a perfect veil, and the eyes of the gazers on her degradation were smitten with blindness. Having been first cast into the flames, which, it is said, played harmlessly about her, she was publicly beheaded in the amphitheatre, and overcoming the feebleness of her age and sex, thus received the crown of martyrdom at the tender age of thirteen, A. D. 303.[316]
She is frequently represented in art; sometimes, in allusion to her name, with a lamb as her attribute. Indeed, after Christ and the Apostles, no figure is more common.[317] The den of infamy in which she was exposed to shame became changed to the Christian sanctuary of S. Agnese in Piazza Navone, one of the most beautiful churches in Rome. A subterranean cell of peculiar sanctity is said to have been the scene of her degradation and deliverance. She was buried in a garden a mile from the city, and Constantia, the daughter of Constantine, having been healed at her tomb of a dangerous malady, that prince erected over her body the church of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, which is one of the least altered and most beautiful examples of the imperial basilicas. A long flight of stairs, whose walls are covered with inscriptions from the adjacent Catacombs, leads down to the church, which was constructed on a level with the reputed tomb of the saint.[318]
Many noble Roman families chose the place of their sepulture near the tomb of so illustrious a martyr. Constantia
herself was there interred, and soon after two other daughters of Constantine, Helena, the wife of Julian, and Constantina, the wife of Gallus. Having died, the former at Vienne in Gaul, the latter at the extremity of Bithynia, they were brought from the west and the east to rejoin their sister sleeping near this celebrated saint. This region became, in fact, the fashionable cemetery of the great during the fourth century; as is still evident from the superior regularity and spaciousness of the corridors, and the more laboured execution although inferior style of the paintings. Thus was formed in course of time the vast Catacomb of St. Agnes.
