the pagan epitaph of Elpisius, 'the slave of Augustus,' found in the tomb. It is unfortunate that the massive foundation-wall of the basilica bars the way to the complete excavation of this region; but definitely Christian

epitaphs have come to light on the face of the rock adjacent to the tomb-chambers.

It is thus established that shortly before A.D. 250

Christians and pagans were buried side by side ad catacumbas; but about the middle of the third century a great change took place. The villa' was pulled down, the whole of the depression was filled up with earth, and on the level summit, abutting on the rear wall of the range of columbaria, were built a large open court or atrium with a colonnade, and a partly roofed chamber (see plan, p. 402) with seats running round three of its sides and a fountain. On its walls, which were decorated with fresco with one of the representations of a garden with flowers and animals so common in

Roman villas, are two hundred or more inscriptions scratched in the plaster, written both in Latin and Greek, which contain invocations of the Apostles Peter and Paul, e.g. PAULE ED PETRE PETITE PRO VICTORE,* and frequently refer to the rite of refrigerium; for example, PETRO ET PAULO TOMIVS COELIVS REFRIGERVM FECI or AT PAULO ET PET[ro] (i.e. ad Paulum et Petrum) REFRIGERAVI[mus]. The practice of partaking of 'refreshment,' i.e. wine, at the graves is well known to us owing to the abuses to which it led and the denunciations of the great Churchmen of the fourth century. It was combated by St Ambrose, St Zeno, St Paulinus of Nola, and above all by St Augustine, who speaks of cometeriis ebrietates et luxuriosa convivia with reference to the

* It should be noted that the order of names varies (as is shown in the examples cited above), so that no special pre-eminence is assigned to St Peter. The above diagram reproduces a section of the wall.

Quirinus running round the crypt; and it was at once recognised that this was the memorial referred to in the 'Salzburg Itinerary,' a guide-book for pilgrims, containing an entry which may be thus translated:

'Afterwards you will come by the Appian Way to St Sebastian the Martyr, whose body lies at a lower level, and there are the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul in which they rested forty years. And in the western part of the church you will descend by a stair to the place where St Cyrinus, Pope and martyr, reposes.'

But what was to be said of the double tomb? Was this a memorial of the temporary resting-place of the Apostles?

The excavations of recent years have brought no final solution of the problem, but they have led to startling discoveries. In 1909 there was found in an apsidal chamber adjacent to the Platonia,' the inscription-not earlier in date than the fifth century-DOMVS PETRI; but it was pointed out that the house' might well be a tomb, as in the expression domus martyris Hippolyti found in an epitaph composed after the manner of St Damasus. At length in 1915 a determined effort to discover the site of the Apostolic memorial was made under the auspices of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archæology by Dr Paul Styger, who commenced excavations in the interior of the Church of S. Sebastiano, which were continued in the following year by the Italian Government, and carried on with interruptions until the end of 1919, with the cooperation of Orazio Marucchi, acting for the Pontifical Commission.

The results were remarkable. It appeared that the basilica was built in part on the edge of a tufa cliff, roughly semicircular in outline, which bordered a depression of about eight metres in depth. Hence was evidently derived the name Catacumba, a popular Latinisation of the Greek karà Kúμßaç, 'in the hollows.' On the brow of the cliff stood a row of pagan columbaria, dating from the last quarter of the first century A.D.: in one of them a slave of the Emperor Vespasian had been buried. Immediately to the north of these are the remains of what is apparently a private residence or villa, built about A.D. 120; and it is possible that the Platonia,'

with its paved court-yard, originally formed part of this, as the level is almost the same (see Fig. below). At the foot of the cliff was a level space upon which opened three tombs, each with several chambers, cut in the face of the rock. The first two were originally designed as columbaria, perhaps about A.D. 100, but changed hands in the course of the second century and were converted into burial-vaults. The second came into the possession of a burial-club whose members were known as Innocentii, and the presence of the scratched inscription ITXOYC, which combines the symbols of the fish and the cross, leaves no doubt that some at least of the associates were Christians. Signor Mancini, indeed, sees 'something indefinitely Christian' in the title of the guild, and suggests that Innocentiorum may be the genitive of the comparative Innocentior (which Marucchi more positively asserts). But this is wrong. Innocentius is already known from an inscrip

*

tion found at Milan as a signum, that is, a group-name borne in addition to their personal names by the members of an association, which very often had a common burialplace. The period at which the tomb which we are describing was used by the Innocentii is determined by the fact that their name is coupled with those of the Emperors Balbinus and Pupienius ‡ (A.D. 238) as well as that of Gordian (A.D. 238-244); and that they belonged to the Imperial household may possibly be inferred from

* Dessau, 'Inscriptiones Latinæ Selectæ,' 6730.

There are many examples both in pagan and Christian burial-grounds. It is a curious fact that the signum is always masculine in grammatical gender, even when applied to a woman.

This, and not Pupienus, is doubtless the correct spelling.

tomb of St Cyprian, and of those qui se in memoriis martyrum inebriant, and (what is more to the point) writes: De basilica beati apostoli Petri (i.e. the Vatican basilica) quotidiana vinolentia proferebantur exempla. The Christians were, of course, merely continuing (with the added intention of securing the advocacy of departed saints and martyrs) the practice of pagan families and burial-clubs. The editors of the Graffiti' have failed to draw the interesting parallel afforded by an inscription from Palestrina* which mentions a memoria set up by one Aurelius Vitalio for the association of the Syncratii, whose signum he bore, and adds: 'Et hoc peto ego Syncratius a bobis universis sodalibus ut sine bile refrigeretis: SYNCRATIORVM.' They have, however, borrowed from similar inscriptions the convenient name triclia; this we find (in various forms) applied to the arbours annexed for a similar purpose to pagan burial-places, which, as Lanciani has pointed out, must have been similar in appearance to the osterie which line the roads leading out of modern Rome. Now the graffiti of S. Sebastiano which appear to belong partly to the third and partly to the fourth century, imply the presence hard by of a memoria of SS. Peter and Paul. It has been suggested that this commemorated the residence of the Apostles in this region in their lifetime (in which case habitasse in the lines of St Damasus must be taken literally), or their temporary resting-place after martyrdom; but it is surely far more natural to interpret the facts with reference to the date of A.D. 258 given in the martyrologies, and to suppose that the represssive measures of Valerian (who prohibited Christian worship in the recognised cemeteries) led to a hasty transference of the bodies of the Apostles for fear of worse to follow. It is true that the precise resting-place of the bodies has yet to be identified, and it is much to be hoped that further exploration of the constructions adjacent to the triclia on the north-east will throw further light upon this point. It should be mentioned that from the atrium and triclia a flight of steps led down to a subterranean gallery tunnelled in the rock below the level of the chamber-tombs, which originally ended in a stuccoed

* Dessau, 'Inscriptiones Latina Selectæ,' 8090.