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Graves of the Roman Catacombs

The graves or loculi, as they are commonly designated were in the Christian cemeteries with only a few exceptions parallel with the length of the gallery. In the pagan cemeteries on the other hand, the sepulchral recess as a rule entered the rock like an oven at right angles to the corridor, the body being introduced endways. The plan adopted by the Christians saved labor, economized space, and consulted reverence in the deposition of the corpse.

These loculi were usually constructed for a single body only. Some were formed to contain two, three, four or more corpses. Such recesses were known respectively as bisomi, trisomi, quadrisomi, terms which often appear in the sepulchral inscriptions. After the introduction of the body the loculi were closed with the greates care, either with slabs of marble the whole length of the aperture, or with huge tiles, three being generally employed, cemented together with great exactness so as to prevent the escape of the products of decomposition.

Where any epitath was set up, an immense number are destitute of any inscription at all, it is always painted or engraved on these slabs or tiles. In the earlier epitaph it is usually daubed on the slab in red or black paint. In later examples it is incised in the marbles, the letters being rendered clearer by being colored with vermilion. The enclosing slab very often bears one or more Christian symbols, such as the dove, the anchor, the olive branch, or the monogram of Christ. The palm branch, which is also of frequent occurrence, is not an indisputable mark of the last resting place of a martyr, being found in connection with epitaphs of persons dying natural deaths, or those prepared by persons in their lifetime, as well as in those of little children, and even of pagans.

Another frequent concomitant of these catacomb interments, a small glass vessel containing traces of the sediment of a red fluid, embedded in the cement of the loculus has no better claim. The red matter proves to be the remains of wine, not of blood; and the conclusion of the ablest archaeologists is that the vessels were placed where they are found, after the eucharistic celebration or agape on the day of the funeral or its anniversary, and contained remains of the consecrated elements as a kind of religious charm. Not a few of the slabs, it is discovered have done double duty, bearing a pagan inscription on one side and a Christian one on the other. These are known as opisthographs. The bodies were interred wrapped in linen cloths, or swathed in bands, and were frequently preserved by embalming. In the case of poorer interments the destruction of the body was, on the contrary, often accelerated by the use of quicklime.

Interment in the wall recess or loculus, though infinitely the most common, was not the only mode employed in the catacombs. Other forms of very frequent recurrence are the table tomb and arched tomb, or arcosolium. From the annexed woodcuts it will be seen that these only differ in the form of the surmounting recess. In each case the arched tomb was formed by an oblong chest, either hollowed out of the rock, or built of masonry, and closed with a horizontal slab. But in the table tomb the recess above, essential for the introduction of the corpse, is square, while in the arcosolium a form of later date, it is semicircular. Sarcophagi are also found in the catacombs, but are of rare occurrence. They chiefly occur in the earlier cemeteries and the costliness of their construction confined their use to the wealthiest classes (e.g. in the cemetery of St Domitilla, herself a member of the imperial house.) Another infrequent mode of interment was in graves like those of modern times, dug in the floor of the galleries. Table tombs and arcosolia are by no means rare in the corridors of the catacombs, but they belong more generally to the cubicula or family vaults of which we now proceed to speak.

These cubicula are small apartments seldom more than 12 ft. square, usually rectangular, though sometimes circular or polygonal, opening out of the main corridors. They are not infrequently ranged regularly along the sides of the galleries, the doors of entrance following one another in as orderly succession as the bedchamber doors in the passage of a modern house. The roof is sometimes flat, but is more usually vaulted, and sometimes rises into a cupola. Both the roof and the walls are almost universally coated with stucco and covered with fresco paintings; in the earlier works merely decorative, in the later always symbolical or historical. Each side of the cubiculum, except that of the entrance usually contains a recessed tomb, either a table tomb or an arcosolium.

That facing the entrance was the place of greatest honor, where in many instances the remains of a martyr were deposited, whose tomb, according to primitive usage served as an altar for the celebration of the Eucharist. This was sometimes, as in the Papal crypt of St. Cahxtus protected from irreverence by lattice work. The cubiculum was originally designed for the reception of a very limited number of dead. But the natural desire to be buried near one’s relatives caused new tombs to be cut in the walls, above and around and behind the original tombs, the walls being thus completely honeycombed with loculi, sometimes as many as seventy, utterly regardless of the paintings originally depicted on the walls. Another motive for multiplying the number of graves operated when the cubiculum contained the remains of any noted saint or martyr. The Christian antiquary has cause continually to lament the destruction of works of art due to this craving.