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Christian Catacombs Beyond Rome

Beyond Rome and its suburbs the most remarkable Christian catacombs are those in the vicinity of Naples. These catacombs differ materially from those of Rome. They were certainly originally stone quarries, and the hardness of the rock has made the construction practicable of wide, lofty corridors and spacious halls, very unlike the narrow galleries and contracted chambers in the Roman cemeteries.

The mode of interment, however, is the same as that practiced in Rome, and the loculi and arcosolia differ by little in the two. The walls and ceilings are covered with fresco paintings of different dates, in some cases lying one over the other. There is an unquestionable example of a church, divided into a nave and chancel, with a rude stone altar and bishop’s seat behind it.

At Syracuse also there are very extensive catacombs known as the Grottos of St John. There is an entire underground city with several stories of larger and smaller streets, squares and cross ways, cut out of the rock; at the intersection of the cross ways are immense circular halls of a bottle shape, like a glass-house furnace, lighted by air shafts. The galleries are generally very narrow, furnished on each side with arched tombs, and communicating with family sepulchral chambers closed originally by locked doors, the marks of the hinges and staples being still visible. The walls are in many places coated with stucco adorned with frescoes, including palms, doves, labara and other Christian symbols.

The ground plans of the catacomb and of one of the circular halls, show how widely this cemetery differs in arrangement from the Roman catacombs. The frequency of blind passages and of circular chambers will be noticed, as well as the very large number of bodies in the cruciform recesses, apparently amounting in one instance to nineteen. This indicates the idea of a work executed with design and leisure, and with means very different from those at command in producing the catacombs of Rome.

Of worth mentioning, are the catacombs at Malta near the ancient capital of the island. The passages were all cut in a close grained stone, and are very narrow, with arched ceilings running very irregularly and ramifying in all directions. The greater part of the tombs stand on either side of the galleries in square recesses (like the table-tombs of the Roman catacombs), and are rudely fashioned to imitate sarcophagi. The interments are not nearly so numerous as in other catacombs, nor are there any vestiges of painting, sculpture or inscriptions.

At Taormina in Sicily is a Saracenic catacomb. The main corridor is 12 ft. wide, having three or more ranges of loculi on either side, running longitudinally into the rock, each originally closed by a stone bearing an inscription.

Passing to Egypt, a small Christian catacomb exists at Alexandria. The loculi here also are set endways to the passage. The walls are abundantly decorated with paintings, one of a liturgical character. But the most extensive catacombs at Alexandria are those of Egypto-Greek origin, from the largest of which the quarter where it is placed had the name of the Necropolis. The plan is remarkable for its regularity. Here the graves run endways into the rock. Other catacombs in the vicinity of the same city exist.

Subterranean cemeteries of the general character of those described are very frequent in all southern and eastern countries. A vast necropolis in the environs of Saida, the ancient Sidon is described in Renan’s Mission en Phenicie, and figured in Thobosis’ plates. It consists of a series of apartments approached by staircases, the sides pierced with sepulchral recesses running lengthwise into the rock.

The rock hewn tombs of Etruria scarcely come under the category of catacombs in the usual sense, being rather in dependent family burial places, grouped together in a necropolis. They are however far too remarkable to be altogether passed over. These sepulchers are usually hollowed out of the face of low cliffs on the side of a hill. They often rise tier above tier, and are sometimes all on the same level facing each other as in streets, branching off laterally into smaller lanes or alleys; and occasionally forming a spacious square or piazza surrounded by tombs instead of houses.

The construction of the tombs commonly keeps up the same analogy between the cities of the living and those of the dead. Their plan is for the most part that of a house with a door of entrance and passage leading into a central chamber or atrium, with others of smaller size opening from it, each having a stone hewn bench or triclinium on three of its sides, on which the dead, frequently a pair of corpses side by side, were laid as if at a banquet. These benches are often hewn in the form of couches with pillows at one end and the legs carved in relief. The ceilings have the representation of beams and rafters cut in the rock. In some instances arm chairs, carved out of the living rock, stand between the doors of the chambers, and the walls above are decorated with the semblance of suspended shields. The walls are often covered with paintings in a very simple archaic style, in red and black.

As a typical example of the Etruscan tombs we give the plan and section of the Grotta della Sedia at Cervetri from Dennis. The tombs in some instances form subterranean groups more analogous to the general idea of a catacomb. Of this nature is the very remarkable cemetery at Poggio Gaiella, near Chiusi, the ancient Clusium, of a portion of the principal story of which the woodcut is a plan. The most remarkable of these sepulchral chambers is a large circular hail about 25 ft. in diameter, supported by a huge cylindrical pillar hewn from the rock. Opening out of this and the other chambers, and connecting them together, are a series of low winding passages or cuniculi, just large enough for a man to creep through on all fours. No plausible suggestion has been offered as to the purpose of these mysterious burrows, which cannot fail to remind us of the labyrinth which was the distinguishing mark of Porsena’s tomb, and which have led some adventurous archaeologists to identify this sepulcher with that of the great king of Etruria.