CATACOMBS. The Catacombs tell us sub stantially all that we know of early Christian art, and a large part of what we know of the life of that time. The term is of uncertain deri and is used to designate a network of subterranean chambers and galleries excavated in the soft rock, and especially those used pri marily for burial purposes by the early Chris tians, and. in times of persecution, for refuge and for religious services. They were called by contemporaries ca-uceuria. 'cemeteries,' or ts, 'hidden places': the term 'catacomb' (mkt cumba ) is of Medieval origin. The lower classes of Romans were usually cremated, and their ashes put into urns in sepulchral chambers called co lumbaria (q.v.) ; but Christian usage forbade in cineration, so separate burial was resorted to in property belonging to wealthy converts or pur chased by association. Burial in cemeteries above ground was used generally, but where the subsoil consisted of some kind of easily worked, rock-like tufa, the burial was made in underground gal leries. \ \Ilk]] we now call catacombs. Such catacombs exist in various parts of the early Christian world—the Crimea, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt (Alexandria ), Cyrenaica, Malta. Sicily, (Syracuse), Italy (ionic. Naples. Chiusi).
far the most important group is in Rome, and it is by the study of these Roman catacombs that we know anything, of the Christian arts of the first four eenturies, and can better under stand the life and feelings, manners and •us toms of the early Christians. About sixty of these are known. They are all outside the city walls, within a radius of 3 miles, excavated in the tufa wherever it was of the right kind—i.e. granular. The larger ones consist of a confusing maze of galleries, but this was by no means their original condition; rather, the result of gradual evolution. During the First and Second centuries a Christian landowner wouhl establish a small catacomb for the burial of his family, freedmen, and slaves, and would set aside for the purpose a small rectangular patch of ground. or area, measuring, say. 1U0 by ''nn feet, which was registered as a fancily buryiug-gronnd, amid became inviolable under common l'oanan law. A single gallery ran within the outer edge of this rectangle, about S feet high by 3 feet wide, in whose sides were cut /ocidi, one above another, to receive the bodies. The loeulus was low, as long as the body, and its depth varied to con tain from one to three or four members of the same family. Persons of distinction were buried in chambers, or cubieula, which opened out of these galleries, and for these burials carved sar cophagi were often used, placed in arched niches, or arcosolia. Usually SOMC martyr was buried in such chambers, and his tomb served as an altar at which services were celebrated. As Christianity progressed and burials multiplied. the plot of ground was honeycombed with gal leries, parallel and at right angles; and when one story of them was no longer sufficient, stair cases were made and a second line of galleries excavated beneath. This was followed, if neces sary, by a third, fourth, or even fifth story of galleries. Sometimes the extra room was gained by increasing the height of the galleries through lowering the floor-level. as persecutions in creased in virulence, the catacombs became places of refuge and worship, where Christians could avoid arrest, as burial-places had right of asylum by law, and when churches above ground were confiscated and destroyed by imperial orders and religious meetings interdicted, it was always possible to use the catacomb chapels for services.
Such importance did the catacombs, therefore, assume that in the Third Century their admin istration was no longer left in the hands of private persons, but was assumed by the Church. The city was divided into parishes—twenty-five or more—and to each one was assigned a eata eomb outside the walls for the burial of is church members. Above its entrance was a chapel for religious services. The head deacon of the church was their administrator, and under him were the body of fos.sorcs, or exca vators, the artisans who executed the marble slabs with their inscriptions and symbols, the lamps and the symbolic wall-paintings. The chief cemetery then became that of Calixtus. and here the bishops of the Third Century were buried in a special crypt. Passages were cut to connect the neighboring catacombs, but without allowing the burials to extend beyond the ap pointed legal limits. A new period began. how ever, in the middle of the Third Century, when the violence of popular hatred refused any longer to recognize the inviolability of the Christian places of burial, and persecuting mobs and officials invaded them. Christians then destroyed the entrances, with their oratories, feasting-halls, and open staircases, filled up the front galleries, and made other and secret usually from neighboring sand-pits (arenari(r). There was no longer any need to restrict the catacomb limits, as there was no longer any legal protec tion, so all the spaces between the various small catacombs were honeycombed with passages, and one immense eataemnb was made out of many. Thus all regularity of arrangement was lost, and the present intricate type created. All the cata combs in a single high ridge, up to the low parts where excavation had to be stopped for fear of flooding. were thus joined, and a few large groups created around the city. The bloody persecution of Diocletian multiplied burials of Martyr, and made wholesale enlargement neces sary. Then came, with Constantine, the end of persecuthm. Soon Bishop Damasus voiced the universal reverence by his monumental restora tions, clearing passages, identifying tombs of martyrs, and placing commemorating inscrip tions in verse, building or decorating under ground chapels and basilicas at the entrances. During, the whole of the Fourth Century, and until about A.D. 410, burials continued to be numerous in the catacombs, through the desire of the faithful to rest near the martyrs; and then, finally, all burials were transferred to the surface cemeteries connected with churches. The cata combs, however, provided with small basilicas and chapels at their new entrances, remained objects of sacred pilgrimages and anniversary services, not only for Romans, hot for pilgrims from the whole Christian world, and several literary rec ords of such pilgrimages remain, from the poems of Prudentins to the Itinerary of Einsiedeln. Then came the disastrous invasions of the Goths, 'Vandals, Lombards. and Saracens, Which involved the destruction, first or last, of all suburban buildings, the transporting to the city of the relies of the most noted martyrs from the cata combs, the closing of their entrances. and the filling up of their galleries with earth to prevent desecration—especially at the time of the Sara cen invasion in the Ninth Century. From that tinie until the Sixteenth Century the eatacombs were entirely lost sight of. After that they have been gradually reopened, and explored by such men as Bosio (l593-1G210, Boldetti, Marehi, and especially by De Rossi; lint their riches haVC by no means yet been exhausted.