Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1882 — The Catacombs of Rome. [ARTICLE]

The Catacombs of Rome.

[Scientific American.] Many of the catacombs are es great antiquity, probably having been hewn long before the Rome of Romulus and Remus was founded, and so extended, in course of time, that every one of the seven hills on which the city stood was peforated and honey-combed by passages, dark galleries, low corridors, and vaulted walls. What greatly facilitated the work was the light and soft nature of the material to be quarried, and the workmen were thus enabled to shape the shafts and galleries as they pleased. As the city grew in extent and wealth these quarries were enlarged, or new ones opened, until the decline of the enflpire began, and then old edifices were made to supply the material to build new ones. But little is to be gleaned from the ancient writers as to the uses to which these subterranean recesses were put when they ceased to be quarried. Horace says of the caverns under the Esquiline Hill, that it “was the common sepulcher of the miserable plebians.” The catacombs were crowded with the Christians during the persecutions under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Severus, Maximinns, and Diocletian, who found there retreats which saved them from the tyranny of the Roman royal pagans. It is held by some modem writers that, though the quarries were used to some extent as sepulchers, it is evident that the greater part of the catacombs were originally constructed as places of interment for the dead. Each catacomb forms a network of passages, or galleries, intersecting each other at right angles, but sometimes diverging from a common centre; these galleries, or passages, are usually about eight feet high, and from three to five feet wide. The graves are in tiers on the sides, and when undisturbed are found closed with marble slabs or tiles, on which are often inscriptions or Christian emblems. It bas been estimated that the entire length of the catacombs is not less than 580 miles, and . that they contain about 6,000,000 bodies. From being the refuge of persecuted Christians, they became about the thirteenth century the hiding place of outlaws and assassins, who were, however, finally driven out, or the entrances to their retreats closed. Many interesting and valuable works have been on the subject, and fathers of the Christian church have spent their lives in investigating these wonderful caverns.