Part of the palace of the titular cardinal of S. Cesareo remains in the adjoining garden, with an interesting loggia of _c._ 1200.

In this neighbourhood was the _Piscina Publica_, which gave a name to the twelfth Region of the city. It was used for learning to swim, but all trace of it had disappeared before the time of Festus, whose date is uncertain, but who lived before the end of the fourth century--

"In thermas fugio: sonas ad aurem, Piscinam peto: non licet natare."

_Martial_, iii. _Ep._ 44.

Here a lane turns on the left, towards the ancient _Porta Latina_ (through which the Via Latina led to Capua), now closed.

In front of the gate is a little chapel, of the sixteenth century, called _S. Giovanni in Oleo_, decorated with indifferent frescoes, on the spot where St. John is said to have been thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil (under Domitian), from which "he came forth as from a refreshing bath." It is the suffering in the burning oil which gave St.

John the palm of a martyr, with which he is often represented in art.

The festival of "St. John ante Port. Lat." (May 6) is preserved in the English Church Calendar.

On the left, is the _Church of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina_, built in 1190 by Celestine III.

In spite of many modernizations, the last by Cardinal Rasponi in 1685, this building retains externally more of its ancient character than most Roman churches, in its fine campanile and the old brick walls of the nave and apse, decorated with terra-cotta friezes. The portico is entered by a narrow arch resting on two granite columns. The entrance-door and the altar have the peculiar mosaic ribbon decoration of the Cosmati, of 1190. The frescoes are all modern; in the tribune, are the deluge and the baptism of Christ,--the type and antitype. Of the ten columns, eight are simple and of granite, two are fluted and of porta-santa, showing that they were not made for the church, but removed from some pagan building--probably from the temple of Ceres and Proserpine. Near the entrance is a very picturesque marble _Well_, like those so common at Venice and Padua, decorated with an intricate pattern of rich carving.

In the opposite vineyard, behind the chapel of the Oleo, very picturesquely situated under the Aurelian Wall, is the _Columbarium of the Freedmen of Octavia_. A columbarium was a tomb containing a number of cinerary urns in niches like pigeon-holes, whence the name. Many columbaria were held in common by a great number of persons, and the niches could be obtained by purchase or inheritance; in other cases, the heads of the great houses possessed whole columbaria for their families and their slaves. In the present instance the columbarium is more than usually decorated, and, though much smaller, it is far more worth seeing than the columbaria which it is the custom to visit immediately upon the Appian Way. One of the cippi, above the staircase, is beautifully decorated with shells and mosaic. Below, is a chamber, whose vault is delicately painted with vines and little Bacchi gathering in the vintage. Round the walls are arranged the urns, some of them in the form of temples, and very beautifully designed, others merely pots sunk into the wall, with conical lids, like pipkins let into a kitchen-range. A beautiful vase of lapis-lazuli found here has been transferred to the Vatican.

Proceeding along the Via Appia, on the left by a tall cypress (No. 13) is the entrance to _the Tomb of the Scipios_, a small catacomb in the tufa rock, discovered in 1780, from which the famous sarcophagus of L.

Scipio Barbatus, and a bust of the poet Ennius,[195] were removed to the Vatican by Pius VII.

"The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers."

_Childe Harold._

The contadino at the neighbouring farmhouse provides lights, with which one can visit a labyrinth of steep narrow passages, some of which still retain inscribed sepulchral slabs. Among the Scipios whose tombs have been discovered here were Lucius Scipio Barbatus and his son, the conqueror of Corsica; Aula Cornelia wife of Cneius Scipio Hispanis; a son of Scipio Africanus; Lucius Cornelius son of Scipio Asiaticus; Cornelius Scipio Hispanis and his son Lucius Cornelius. At the further end of these passages, and now, like them, subterranean, may be seen the pediment and arched entrance of the tomb towards the Via Latina. "It is uncertain whether Scipio Africanus was buried at Liternum or in the family tomb. In the time of Livy monuments to him were extant in both places."[196]

There is a beautiful view towards Rome from the vineyard above the tomb.

A little further on, left (No. 14), is the entrance of the _Vigna Codini_ (a private garden with an extortionate custode), containing three interesting _Columbaria_. Two of these are large square vaults, supported by a central pillar, which, as well as the walls, is perforated by niches for urns. The third has three vaulted passages.

We now reach the _Arch of Drusus_. On its summit are the remains of the aqueduct by which Caracalla carried water to his baths. The arch once supported an equestrian statue of Drusus, two trophies, and a seated female figure representing Germany.

The Arch of Drusus was decreed by the senate in honour of the second son of the empress Livia, by her first husband, Tiberius Nero. He was father of Germanicus and the emperor Claudius, and brother of Tiberius. He died during a campaign on the Rhine, B.C. 9, and was brought back to be buried by his step-father Augustus in his own mausoleum. His virtues are attested in a poem ascribed to Pedo Albinovanus.

"This arch, 'Marmoreum arcum cum tropaeo Appia Via' (Suet. I), is, with the exception of the Pantheon, the most perfect existing monument of Augustan architecture. It is heavy, plain, and narrow, with all the dignified but stern simplicity which belongs to the character of its age."--_Merivale._

"It is hard for one who loves the very stones of Rome, to pass over all the thoughts which arise in his mind, as he thinks of the great Apostle treading the rude and massive pavement of the Appian Way, and passing under that Arch of Drusus at the Porta S. Sebastiano, toiling up the Capitoline Hill past the Tabularium of the Capitol, dwelling in his hired house in the Via Lata or elsewhere, imprisoned in those painted caves in the Praetorian Camp, and at last pouring out his blood for Christ at the Tre Fontane, on the road to Ostia."--_Dean Alford's Study of the New Testament_, p.

335.

_The Porta San Sebastiano_ has two fine semicircular towers of the Aurelian wall, resting on a basement of marble blocks, probably plundered from the tombs on the Via Appia. Under the arch is a gothic inscription relating to the repulse of some unknown invaders.

It was here that the senate and people of Rome received in state the last triumphant procession which has entered the city by the Via Appia, that of Marc-Antonio Colonna, after the victory of Lepanto in 1571. As in the processions of the old Roman generals, the children of the conquered prince were forced to adorn the triumph of the victor, who rode into Rome attended by all the Roman nobles, "in abito di grande formalita,"[197] preceded by the standard of the fleet.

From the gate, the _Clivus Martis_ (crossed by the railway to Civita Vecchia) descends into the valley of the Almo, where antiquaries formerly placed the Porta Capena. On the hillside stood a Temple of Mars, vowed in the Gallic war, and dedicated by T. Quinctius the "duumvir sacris faciundis," in B.C. 387. No remains exist of this temple. It was "approached from the Via Capena by a portico, which must have rivalled in length the celebrated portico at Bologna extending to the church of the Madonna di S. Luca."[198] Near this, a temple was erected to Tempestas in B.C. 260, by L. Cornelius Scipio, to commemorate the narrow escape of his fleet from shipwreck off the coast of Sardinia.[199] Near this, also, the poet Terence owned a small estate of twenty acres, presented to him by his friend Scipio Emilianus.[200]

After crossing the brook, we pass between two conspicuous tombs. That on the left is the _Tomb of Geta_, son of Septimius Severus, the murdered brother of Caracalla; that on the right is the _Tomb of Priscilla_, wife of Abascantius, a favourite freedman of Domitian.

"Est locus, ante urbem, qua primum nascitur ingens Appia, quaque Italo gemitus Almone Cybele Ponit, et Idaeos jam non reminiscitur amnes.

Hic te Sidonio velatam molliter ostro Eximius conjux (nec enim fumantia busta Clamoremque rogi potuit perferre), beato Composuit, Priscilla, toro."

_Statius_, lib. v. _Sylv._ i. 222.

Just beyond this, the _Via Ardeatina_ branches off on the right, passing, after about two miles, the picturesque _Vigna Marancia_, a pleasant spot, with fine old pines and cypresses.

Where the roads divide, is the _Church of Domine Quo Vadis_, containing a copy of the celebrated footprint said to have been left here by Our Saviour: the original being removed to S. Sebastiano.

"After the burning of Rome, Nero threw upon the Christians the accusation of having fired the city. This was the origin of the first persecution, in which many perished by terrible and hitherto unheard-of deaths. The Christian converts besought Peter not to expose his life. As he fled along the Appian Way, about two miles from the gates, he was met by a vision of our Saviour travelling towards the city. Struck with amazement, he exclaimed, 'Lord, whither goest thou?' to which the Saviour, looking upon him with a mild sadness, replied, 'I go to Rome to be crucified a second time,' and vanished. Peter, taking this as a sign that he was to submit himself to the sufferings prepared for him, immediately turned back to the city.[201] Michael Angelo's famous statue, now in the Church of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, is supposed to represent Christ as he appeared to St. Peter on this occasion. A cast or copy of it is in the little church of 'Domine, quo vadis?'

"It is surprising that this most beautiful, picturesque, and, to my fancy, sublime legend, has been so seldom treated; and never, as it seems to me, in a manner worthy of its capabilities and high significance. It is seldom that a story can be told by two figures, and these two figures placed in such grand and dramatic contrast;--Christ in His serene majesty, and radiant with all the joy of beatitude, yet with an expression of gentle reproach; the Apostle at his feet arrested in his flight, amazed, and yet filled with a trembling joy; and for the background the wide Campagna, or towering walls of imperial Rome."--_Mrs. Jameson._[202]

Beyond the church is a second "Bivium," or cross-ways, where a lane on the left leads up the Valle Caffarelle. Here, feeling an uncertainty _which_ was the crossing where Our Saviour appeared to St. Peter, the English Cardinal Pole erected a second tiny chapel of "Domine Quo Vadis," which remains to this day.

On the left, is the _Columbarium of the Freedmen of Augustus and Livia_, divided into three chambers, but despoiled of its adornments. Other Columbaria near this are assigned to the Volusii, and the Caecilii.

Over the wall on the left of the Via Appia now hangs in profusion the rare yellow-berried ivy. Many curious plants are to be found on these old Roman walls. Their commonest parasite, the Pellitory--"_herba parietina_," calls to mind the nickname given to the Emperor Trajan in derision of his passion for inscribing his name upon the walls of Roman buildings which he had merely restored, as if he were their founder;[203] a passion in which the popes have since largely participated.

We now reach (on the right) the entrance of the _Catacombs of St.

Calixtus_.

(The Catacombs (except those at S. Sebastiano) can only be visited in company of a guide. For most of the Catacombs it is necessary to obtain a _permesso_ at the office of the Cardinal-Vicar, 70 Via della Scrofa, before 12 A.M.; upon which a day (generally Sunday) is fixed, which must be adhered to. The Catacombs of St. Calixtus are sometimes superficially shown without a special _permesso_. It may be well for the visitor to provide himself with tapers--_cerini._)

All descriptions of dangers attending a visit to the Catacombs, if accompanied by a guide, and provided with "cerini," are quite imaginary.

Neither does the visitor ever suffer from cold; the temperature of the Catacombs is mild and warm; the vaults are almost always dry, and the air pure.

"The Roman Catacombs--a name consecrated by long usage, but having no etymological meaning, and not a very determinate geographical one--are a vast labyrinth of galleries excavated in the bowels of the earth in the hills around the Eternal City; not in the hills on which the city itself was built, but in those beyond the walls.

Their extent is enormous; not as to the amount of superficial soil which they underlie, for they rarely, if ever, pass beyond the third mile-stone from the city, but in the actual length of their galleries; for these are often excavated on various levels, or _piani_, three, four, or even five--one above the other; and they cross and recross one another, sometimes at short intervals, on each of these levels; so that, on the whole, there are certainly not less than 350 miles of them; that is to say, if stretched out in one continuous line, they would extend the whole length of Italy itself. The galleries are from two to four feet in width, and vary in height according to the nature of the rock in which they are dug. The walls on both sides are pierced with horizontal niches, like shelves in a bookcase or berths in a steamer, and every niche once contained one or more dead bodies. At various intervals this succession of shelves is interrupted for a moment, that room may be made for a doorway opening into a small chamber; and the walls of these chambers are generally pierced with graves in the same way as the galleries.

"These vast excavations once formed the ancient Christian cemeteries of Rome; they were begun in apostolic times, and continued to be used as burial-places of the faithful till the capture of the city by Alaric in the year 410. In the third century, the Roman Church numbered twenty-five or twenty-six of them, corresponding to the number of her titles, or parishes, within the city; and besides these, there are about twenty others, of smaller dimensions, isolated monuments of special martyrs, or belonging to this or that private family. Originally they all belonged to private families or individuals, the villas or gardens in which they were dug being the property of wealthy citizens who had embraced the faith of Christ, and devoted of their substance to His service. Hence their most ancient titles were taken merely from the names of their lawful owners, many of which still survive.

Lucina, for example, who lived in the days of the Apostles, and others of the same family, or at least of the same name, who lived at various periods in the next two centuries; Priscilla, also a contemporary of the Apostles; Flavia Domitilla, niece of Vespasian; Commodilla, whose property lay on the Via Ostiensis; Cyriaca, on the Via Tiburtina; Pretextatus, on the Via Appia; Pontiano, on the Via Portuensis; and the Jordani, Maximus and Thraso, all on the Via Salaria Nova. These names are still attached to the various catacombs, because they were originally begun upon the land of those who bore them. Other catacombs are known by the names of those who presided over their formation, as that of St. Calixtus, on the Via Appia; or St. Mark, on the Via Ardeatina; or of the principal martyrs who were buried in them, as SS. Hermes, Basilla, Protus, and Hyacinthus, on the Via Salaria Vetus; or, lastly, by some peculiarity of their position, as _ad Catacumbas_ on the Via Appia, and _ad duas Lauros_ on the Via Labicana.

"It has always been agreed among men of learning who have had an opportunity of examining these excavations, that they were used exclusively by the Christians as places of burial and of holding religious assemblies. Modern research has now placed it beyond a doubt, that they were also originally designed for this purpose and for no other: that they were not deserted sand-pits (_arenariae_) or quarries, adapted to Christian uses, but a development, with important modifications, of a form of sepulchre not altogether unknown even among the heathen families of Rome, and in common use among the Jews both in Rome and elsewhere.

"At first, the work of making the Catacombs was done openly, without let or hindrance, by the Christians; the entrances to them were public on the high-road or on the hill-side, and the galleries and chambers were freely decorated with paintings of a sacred character. But early in the third century, it became necessary to withdraw them as much as possible from the public eye; new and often difficult entrances were now effected in the recesses of deserted _arenariae_, and even the liberty of Christian art was cramped and fettered, lest what was holy should fall under the profane gaze of the unbaptized.

"Each of these burial-places was called in ancient times either _hypogaeum_, i. e. generically, a subterranean place, or _cmeterium_, a sleeping-place, a new name of Christian origin which the pagans could only repeat, probably without understanding; sometimes also _martyrium_, or _confessio_ (its Latin equivalent), to signify that it was the burial-place of martyrs or confessors of the faith. An ordinary grave was called _locus_ or _loculus_, if it contained a single body; or _bisomum_, _trisomum_, or _quadrisomum_, if it contained two, three, or four. The graves were dug by _fossores_, and burial in them was called _depositio_. The galleries do not seem to have had any specific name; but the chambers were called _cubicula_. In most of these chambers, and sometimes also in the galleries themselves, one or more tombs are to be seen of a more elaborate kind; a long oblong _chasse_, like a sarcophagus, either hollowed out in the rock or built up of masonry, and closed by a heavy slab of marble lying horizontally on the top. The niche over tombs of this kind was of the same length as the grave, and generally vaulted in a semicircular form, whence they were called _arcosolia_. Sometimes, however, the niche retained the rectangular form, in which case there was no special name for it, but for distinction's sake we may be allowed to call it a table-tomb. Those of the _arcosolia_, which were also the tomb of martyrs, were used on the anniversaries of their deaths (_Natalitia_, or birthdays) as altars whereon the holy mysteries were celebrated; hence, whilst some of the _cubicula_ were only family-vaults, others were chapels, or places of public assembly.

It is probable that the holy mysteries were celebrated also in the private vaults, on the anniversaries of the deaths of their occupants; and each one was sufficiently large in itself for use on these private occasions; but in order that as many as possible might assist at the public celebrations, two, three, or even four of the _cubicula_ were often made close together, all receiving light and air through one shaft or air-hole (_luminare_), pierced through the superincumbent soil up to the open air. In this way as many as a hundred persons might be collected in some parts of the catacombs to assist at the same act of public worship; whilst a still larger number might have been dispersed in the _cubicula_ of neighbouring galleries, and received there the bread of life brought to them by the assistant priests and deacons. Indications of this arrangement are not only to be found in ancient ecclesiastical writings; they may still be seen in the very walls of the catacombs themselves, episcopal chairs, chairs for the presiding deacon or deaconess, and benches for the faithful, having formed part of the original design when the chambers were hewn out of the living rock, and still remaining where they were first made."--_Roma Sotterranea, Northcote and Brownlow._

"To our classic associations, Rome was still, under Trajan and the Antonines, the city of the Caesars, the metropolis of pagan idolatry--in the pages of her poets and historians we still linger among the triumphs of the Capitol, the shows of the Coliseum; or if we read of a Christian being dragged before the tribunal, or exposed to the beasts, we think of him as one of a scattered community, few in number, spiritless in action, and politically insignificant. But all this while there was living beneath the visible an invisible Rome--a population unheeded, unreckoned--thought of vaguely, vaguely spoken of, and with the familiarity and indifference that men feel who live on a volcano--yet a population strong-hearted, of quick impulses, nerved alike to suffer or to die, and in number, resolution, and physical force sufficient to have hurled their oppressors from the throne of the world, had they not deemed it their duty to kiss the rod, to love their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and to submit, for their Redeemer's sake, to the 'powers that be.' Here, in these 'dens and caves of the earth,' they lived; here they died--a 'spectacle' in their lifetime 'to men and angels,' and in their death a 'triumph' to mankind--a triumph of which the echoes still float around the walls of Rome, and over the desolate Campagna, while those that once thrilled the Capitol are silenced, and the walls that returned them have long since crumbled into dust."--_Lord Lindsay' s Christian Art_, i. 4.

The name Catacombs is modern, having originally been only applied to S.

Sebastiano "ad catacumbas." The early Christians called their burial-places by the Greek name _Cmeteria_, sleeping-places. Almost all the catacombs are between the first and third mile-stones from the Aurelian wall, to which point the city extended before the wall itself was built. This was in obedience to the Roman law which forbade burial within the precincts of the city.

The fact that the Christians were always anxious not to burn their dead, but to bury them, in these rock-hewn sepulchres, was probably owing to the remembrance that our Lord was himself laid "in a new tomb hewn out of the rock," and perhaps also for this reason the bodies were wrapt in fine linen cloths, and buried with precious spices, of which remains have been found in the tombs.