CATACOMBS, caves or subterranean places for the burial of the dead, the bodies being placed in graves or recesses hollowed out in the sides of the cave. Caves of this kind were common among the Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, and many Oriental nations. In Sicily and Asia Minor numerous excavations have been discovered containing sepulchers, and the catacombs near Naples are re markably extensive. Those of Rome, however, are the most important. The term catacumbte is said to have been originally applied to the district near Rome which contains the chapel of St. Sebastian, in the vaults of which, ac cording to tradition, the body of St. Peter was first deposited; but (besides its gen eral application) it is now applied in a special way to all the extensive subter ranean burial-places in the neighborhood of Rome, which extend underneath the town itself as well as the neighboring Country, and are said to contain not less than 6,000,000 tombs. They consist of long, narrow galleries usually about 8 feet high and 5 feet wide, which branch off in all directions, forming a perfect maze of corridors. Different stories of galleries lie one below the other. Ver tical shafts run up to the outer air, thus introducing light and air, though in small quantity. The graves or loculi lie longwise in the galleries. They are closed laterally by a slab. The earliest that can be dated with any certainty be longs to the year 111 A. D.
In early times rich Christians con structed underground burying-places for themselves and their brethren, which they held as private property under the protection of the law. But in course of
time, partly by their coming under the control of the Church and partly by acci dents of proprietorship, these private burying-grounds were connected with each other, and became the property, not of particular individuals, but of the Christian community. In the 3d century A. D. there were already several such common burying-places belonging to the Christian congregations, and their num ber went on increasing till the time of Constantine, when the catacombs ceased to be used as burying-places.
From the time of Constantine down to the 8th century they were used only as places of devotion and worship. During the siege of Rome by the Lombards in the 8th century the catacombs were in part destroyed, and soon became entirely inaccessible, so that they were forgotten, and only the careful and laborious in vestigations of moderns, among whom De Rossi (Roma Sotterranea) and Par ker (The Catacombs) may be mentioned, have thrown anything like a complete light on the origin and history of the catacombs. There are extensive cata combs at Paris, consisting of old quar ries from which has been obtained much of the material for the building of the city. In them are accumulated bones re moved from cemeteries now built over.