"Give her an honoured place among the holy dead," said the Empress, amid her sobs, to the venerable Primitius.
"I have given orders," said the Lady Marcella, "that she, with her father and brother, shall sleep side by side in the chamber prepared as the last resting-place for my own family. We shall count it a precious privilege, in God's own good time, to be laid to rest near the dust of His holy confessors and martyrs."
"Aurelius shall share the tomb," said Hilarus, the fossor, "which he made for himself while yet alive, beside his noble wife, Aurelia Theudosia."
"Be it mine to honour with a memorial tablet the remains of my good master Adauctus," said Faustus, the freedman, with deep emotion.[54]
"It shall be my privilege," said the Empress, "to provide for my beloved handmaiden, as a mark of the great love I bore her, a memorial of her saintly virtues; and let her bear my name in death as in life, so that those who read her epitaph may know she was the freedwoman and friend of an unhappy Empress."
The Empress Valeria now retired, and with her trusty escort, returned to the city.
With psalms and hymns, and the solemn chanting of such versicles as: "Convertere anima mea, in requiem tuam"—"Return unto thy rest, O my soul;" and "Si ambulavero in medio umbræ mortis, non timebo mala"—"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil," the funeral procession wound its way, by gleaming torchlight, through the cypress glades of the garden to the entrance of the Catacomb of Callixtus. Here additional torches and tapers were lighted, and carefully the sacred burdens were carried down the long and narrow stair, and through the intricate passages to the family vault of the Lady Marcella.
Subterranean Oratory, Catacomb Of Callixtus.
This vault was one of unusual size and loftiness, and had been especially prepared for holding religious service during the outbreak of persecution. Marcella held the office of deaconess in the Christian Church, and when even the privacy of her own house was not a sufficient safeguard against the prying of pagan spies, she was wont to retire to the deeper seclusion of this subterranean place of prayer. On each side of the door were seats hewn in the solid rock, one for the deaconess, the other for the female catechist who shared her pious labours. Around the wall was a low stone seat for the female catechumens, for the most part members of her own household, who here received religious instruction. The accompanying engraving indicates the appearance of this ancient oratory or class-room, its main features unchanged, although the lapse of centuries has somewhat marred its structure and defaced its beauty.