Catacombs of Rome

list for any future visits. But the story of the Roman Catacombs is one that's always been really interesting to me because it is so very different from the story we've told on the show before about the catacombs of Paris. Romes are much older, they were created for very different reasons. So we're going to talk about them today. I want to give you a heads up if you are a person that knows about them and loves them. We're not

getting into the art. There's a lot of cool art in the Roman Catacombs that could be its own whole party train, and I would love for it to be. But today we're really talking about like more of the mechanics of how these came to be, why they came to be, et cetera. We're going to talk about the circumstances that led to their creation, their rediscovery after centuries

of abandonment, and their status today. A description of the Roman Catacombs, published in eighteen fifty seven opens this way quote.

The Roman Catacombs may be briefly described as labyrinths of subterranean galleries, crossing one another in every direction, and here and there opening into chambers more or less lofty and spacious, the whole hewn with the most exacting regularity out of the living rock, whose entire walls present a series of narrow shelves, one above the other, evidently excavated for the purpose of receiving the bodies of the dead, and afterward closed with facings of tile or marble, on which there

were often inscribed the names of the persons buried within. So from that passage already some key differences between the catacombs of Rome and those of Paris, which we've talked about on the show. Before we reared that episode, I think in October of twenty twenty three, the Parisian Catacombs were a solution to a public health crisis that was caused by the city's cemeteries being woefully overfilled was causing

a number of problems. So the dead were moved into limestone quarries under the outskirts of the city, turning those quarries into catacombs. This happened in the eighteenth century, but Rome was creating catacombs well before that, all the way back to the first century.

at this time was pagan. The standard practice was to cremate the dead. We'll talk a little bit about shifting trends in how the dead were treated, but cremation was not a practice that was part of Jewish and Christian traditions. Burial of the dead in the city of Rome was forbidden by law at the time we'll talk more about that law. This is the very simple version to kind

of get us into the intro. But to really look at the context of the Catacombs, we have to talk a little bit about Jewish and Christian religion in Rome and how people who identified as Jewish or Christian were treated and how they lived alongside other Romans. So the early centuries of Rome's Jewish population, which of course that goes back to before the development of Christianity, those early centuries are complicated. They feature cycles of conflict and relative peace.

There are accounts of Jewish people living in Rome as far back as the second century BCE. Rome expelled its Jewish population on several occasions, including in one thirty nine BCE amid accusations that they were attempting to convert Romans, then again in nineteen CE for an assortment of accusations ranging from fraud to disorderly conduct, and then in the

year forty nine when Claudius banished the Jewish population. That last one is described in the works of Suetonius as Claudius expelling them quote as the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Christus whether or not Christus was Gaesus Christ does a matter that biblical scholars continue to examine, and that's way outside the scope of this episode. But after each of these expulsions, there was always a reversal of the policy, and often that was quite soon

after it had been issued. During the reigns of Julius Caesar and Augustus, so in the time from the middle of the first century BCE to the early first century CE, there was legislation put in place that protected the practice of the Jewish religion. So this was a period of just constantly shifting sands of at least somewhat acceptance and

expulsion for Rome's Jewish population. Another text that gives us insight into the Jewish population of Rome in the first century is the account of Josephus, who was born in Jerusalem in thirty six or thirty seven CE and wrote autobiographical accounts of his life, which include the story of the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation of Judea in the year sixty six. That revolt is often referred to as the Great Revolt and also the First Jewish Roman War, and Josephus was a general in the revolt.

Jewish people living in Rome. Christianity began in Judea in the first century and then quickly spread throughout the Roman Empire, reaching Rome by the middle of the first century, although in small numbers, and it was viewed with deep suspicion by the existing Roman population, which remained polytheistic at time.

Rome's Jewish residents had gained kind of a grudging tolerance by the Romans because the Jewish religion was considered to be ancient, but Christianity was really an upstart, and its followers were considered to be very aggressive in their desire to convert other people, which Rome's eye is a big problem. The Great Fire of Rome which started on July eighteenth of the year sixty nine and lasted for six days,

was blamed on Christians. By the end of the first century, it was a crime to be Christian in Rome, and that crime was punishable by death. Over the following centuries, Christians, as the Jews before them, faced this roller coaster of persecution and kind of a fragile acceptance in the city. Coming up, we're going to circle back to how all of this resulted in Catacomb's being created to bury the dead. But first we are going to take a quick sponsor break.

Both Jewish and Christian practices regarding burials specified that the body was to be kept intact, but as we mentioned, this was in conflict with Roman law, at least in terms of anything that could be done within the city. That law was part of what were known as the Twelve Tables. These are regarded as the beginning of Rome's legal system, and the Twelve Tables were composed by a commission of ten men in four fifty one and four fifty BCE. Once they were ratified, they were engraved onto

twelve bronze tables and displayed in the forum. Those bronzes are unfortunately lost to time, and we don't have all of the text of the Twelve Tables today. What we have our fragments that were found in written references to them, so instances where they were quoted while someone was often discussing something else. What we know of the laws regarding burials include the edict that states quote a dead person

shall not be buried or burned in the city. Additionally, there are some other rules about limiting the degree of public mourning, not having more than one funeral for a given person, not wasting resources by burying gold, spices, incense, etc. With remains, and where funeral pyres and burning mounds could

be erected in relation to other buildings. So for religions that called for the burial of an intact body, this meant that that burial was going to have to happen outside the city, which is how the catacombs came to be. Jewish residents of the city are believed to have been the first to use catacombs to lay their dead to rest. An important aspect of Rome's catacombs is how important they

are to Jewish history. According to Leonard Victor Rutger's writing and Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies in nineteen eighty nine quote. The Jewish catacombs of Ancient Rome form the largest coherent body of archaeological material from late

Antiquity pertaining to Jewish life outside Israel. Though there had been written information about the Jewish community of ancient Rome, the catacombs offer a unique opportunity to compare physical evidence with those accounts to gain a clearer picture of that

community and its rituals. One thing that Rutger's points out in this writing is that there's no way to know if there were any quote Jewish Christians i e. Jews that accepted Jesus Christ as the Son of God and raised from the dead and at the same time continued

to observe mosaic law buried in the Jewish catacombs. Identifying which catacombs had been used for Jewish burial was done based on the funerary inscriptions on the tombs there, which had Greek and Latin writing, in combination with the identification of Jewish motifs in the surrounding wall art and sometimes small motifs that were carved into those stones that close the catacombs. Those catacombs were also identified by just the

lack of Christian or Pagan symbology within them. But this also gives an incomplete picture because there are catacomb sites in the area around Rome that are unreachable or that have been destroyed or have carved in, so the written

record and the archaeological record don't entirely match up. The written record establishes a Jewish community in Rome as early as the first century BCE, or perhaps even earlier, so it has long been assumed that the Jewish catacombs were in use sometimes shortly thereafter, but the archaeological record only has evidence of them that begins in the early third century.

The Rutger's paper analyzes things like brickwork, painting styles, bricks, stamps, et cetera to be able to conclude with confidence that Jewish catacombs weren't actively used for sure in the third to fifth centuries, but that the beginning and end of their use cannot be conclusively identified on the time line. He also makes the case that the practice of burial being adopted instead of cremation was probably taking place simultaneously

among the Jewish population, Christians, and even some Pagans. We do know that Christians also adopted the use of catacombs. This started, according to the Vatican, under the direction of Pope Zafarin, who was pope from one ninety nine to two seventeen. He wanted to have an underground cemetery prepared so that pontiffs could be laid to rest there.

both for cremated and non cremated bodies. Cremation had become the most popular method of handling corpses in the fifth century BCE, but there were still people practicing full body burials throughout the time periods that were talking about. They still had to be interred outside the city, but families of wealth and even a lot of the middle class had private mausoleums built on land outside the walls of Rome.

That land was extremely expensive, so there were also shared burial spaces that families with less money could buy into to inter their dead, both intact and cremated, without having to own land and build a private mausoleum. Jewish and Christian communities, though needed to bury all of their dead because of their religious beliefs, there was no option to switch to cremation to try to mitigate overcrowding and lack

of land resources in a growing metropolis. Mausoleums were simply not realistic, which is why large shared underground spaces were create, And this was also not a new idea in the region. The Etruscan civilization, which flourished from the eighth to the third century BCE, had elaborate underground facilities. There are no Etruscan underground burial sites in or immediately adjacent to Rome, at least not that anybody has found.

early fourth century. At the beginning of the fourth century, in the year three oh three, Emperor Diocletian initiated an intense persecution of Christians. This is always described as the worst persecution of all of them in Rome and resulted in the torture and deaths of a lot of people. This went on for eight years, during which, despite that danger,

the numbers of Christians in the city continued to rise. Finally, in three eleven, Emperor Galerius, who had ascended to the role of emperor in three oh five and who was by the way deeply against Christianity, surprisingly issued an edict of tolerance that was the Edict of Certica to end that long persecution. By the time Galerius was emperor, he was one of two under a system established by Diocletian

in two ninety three known as the tetrarchy. The the Roman Empire was jointly ruled by two emperors, one to manage the East and one to manage the West, and each of them had their own designated successors who worked under them. This was intended to create stability for the empire,

but unsurprisingly there were often problems. The time of Constantine the First, who ruled the west starting in July of three oh six, and Licinius, who became an emperor in November three oh eight, was one in which there was a lot of conflict between the two emperors. So much conflict there are just reams and reams of papers written about this conflict. But one thing that they did agree

on was the Edict of Milan in three thirteen. This was an alliance in which they agreed to grant freedom of religion to everyone, but they specifically called out Christians. A translation of the first section of this edict reads quote, when I Constantine Augustus as well as I Licinius Augustus, had fortunately met near Mediolanum, Milan, and we're considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security. We thought that, among other things which we saw would be for the

good of many. Those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and to all others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred, whence any divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who

are placed under our rule. And thus, by this wholesome council and most upright provision, we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, or of that religion which he should think best for himself, so that the Supreme Deity to whose worship we freely yield our hearts, may show in all things his usual

favor and benevolence. Therefore, your worship should know that it has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever which were in the rescripts formerly given to you officially concerning the Christians, And now any one of these who wishes to observe the Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without any disturbance or molestation. We thought it fit to commend these things most fully to your care, that you may know that we have given to those Christians free and

unrestricted opportunity of religious worship. When you see that this has been granted to them by us, your worship, will know that we have also conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship, for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases. This regulation is made that we may not seem to

detract aught from any dignity or any religion. I kind of love that there's a little bit of a bet hedge in there of like whatever God is the one, be cool or cool with whoever you, whoever follows you. This edict also called for the return of all goods and wealth that had been seized to be given back to the Christians. So from that point on, Christians were able to establish churches and cemeteries, meaning they could conduct

their burial rituals in the city proper. But even though burial was allowed in the city and a large number of churches were built and included cemeteries or even places within the buildings for the dead. The catacombs did not instantly fall out of use. They were actively part of Christian burials for more than one hundred more years, even after Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius with the Edict of Thessalonica in

three point eighty. Over the next several centuries, as burials in the catacombs became less frequent, a different activity was on the rise in them, and that was looting. There were also religious services performed there on occasion, but looting became a real problem. Reading different accounts of the Catacomb's history, a lot of different groups have been blamed for that looting. Mostly it was holy relics that were being taken from burial sites. In reality, it was probably a lot of

different people over time. There's no one perpetrator. It's sometimes said to have started with Christians removing relics since they no longer had to literally keep their sacred items underground, and other accounts point fingers at the various groups who have invaded Rome since the fourth century, including the Visigoths,

the Vandals, the Byzantines, and the Lombards. This eventually led the Vaticans to initiate a move of the relics from the catacombs to churches around the city where they could be carefully watched and safeguarded. With the removal of the relics, the church also removed the reason that people had still been visiting the catacombs, and over time they were more

or less abandoned and forgotten. Additionally, while they were out the city's original walls, as the city grew and expanded past those old boundaries, new neighborhoods were built on top of the catacolums, and people just sort of lost track of where they were until they were rediscovered by a man named Antonio Bosio. And we'll talk about him after we hear from the sponsors that keeps stuff you missed in history class going. Antonio Bosio was born in fifteen

seventy five or fifteen seventy six in Malta. He is recorded by historian Bartolomeo dal Pozzo as having been the child of Baligionotto, a knight of the Order of Saint John, who had taken a vow of chastity that would have made his existence a little bit problematic, and that was compounded by the fact that his mother was either a servant or an enslaved woman. The way it's written in the old record, it's unclear what they mean when they

refer to her. When Antonio was twelve, he was adopted and he was raised by his uncle, Jacomo Bosio, who lived in Rome, and over time any mentions of Antonio's parentage seemed to have been left out of his life story, so his uncle Jacomo became essentially his parent. Antonio Bosio was apparently a bit wild in his youth, but as

he matured he became a serious scholar. He got a law degree and practiced for several years, but he was also a history buff and was specifically fascinated with early Christian history, so he started exploring any places that held traces of the religion's earliest days, and that led him to the underground cemeteries of the city. He explored them in a very meticulous and careful manner, cataloging as much

as he could about everything that he saw there. He started working on a book detailing the catacombs that he had explored, but he died on September sixth, sixteen twenty nine before it was ready to go to print.

He thought the catacombs had been hiding places where Christians hold up during times of persecution, was not what they were used for, but he captivated readers with his descriptions of these underground cities. He had also commissioned artists to create imagery of many of the things he had described to be included in the book, and he had studied early Christianity and was able to historical contextualize a lot

of the areas that he explored. This writing was also a boon to the Catholic Church and the decades after Martin Luther's kickoff of the Protestant Reformation in fifteen seventeen, support for the papacy had fallen off very steeply, but Bozzio's writings about martyrs laid to rest in subterranean Roman cities sparked a new interest in Catholicism and in religious

relics that might also be there. Some of these, including skeletons of martyrs, many of them clad in armor, became important symbols of the Catholic Church's fight against the Protestants. A lot of these, so called corfy santi or catacomb saints, were sent to Catholic churches around Europe to try to bolster interest in and devotion to the Church. I know he said earlier that the relics were taken out of the catacombs by the church, but they did not purge everything,

because at that point some catacombs were completely lost. If you're wondering how he even found these or knew about them, in truth, Antonio Bosio was not the first person to have come upon the catacombs after they had been abandoned.

According to another book, which is also titled Romo Sotarana, which was published in eighteen sixty nine based on the work of Giovanni Battista d Rossi, laborers digging in a vineyard had found a subterranean cemetery at the end of fifteen seventy eight, when Antonio Bosio was just a toddler. The discovery quote at once attracted universal attention, and persons of all classes flocked to see it. More than a century before that, a vineyard on the other side of

the city had yielded a similar discovery. But apparently the scholars of the day, according to this book quote, never have felt sufficient interest to excite them, to investigate their history, or to publish anything at all about them. Derosi is the next person who represented another huge step forward in terms of our understanding of the Roman Catacombs. While public fascination with the catacombs had been sparked with the publication of Bosio's work, that interest kind of faded off outside

of religious and academic circles. It took a couple more centuries for another dedicated archaeologist to expand that work. Giovanni Battista de Rossi was born in Rome on February twenty third, eighteen twenty two. His father was military officer Camilla Luigi de Rossi, and his mother was Marianna Marqueza Brutti. Giovanni was raised Catholic and went to a Jesuit school before moving on to study law at Sapienza University of Rome. But from the time he was a child, do Rosi,

like Bosio, had been fascinated with antiquity. He actually read Bosio's book for the first time when he was eleven. He had gotten it as a birthday gift from his father, and when he was still a teenager, he managed to convince a priest to go into the catacombs with him. This was apparently considered to be somewhat dangerous because they had not really been maintained, and that priest, Jesuit father

Joseppe Marki, became a long term collaborator with Derosi. After completing school, Derosie got a job at the Vatican Library as a scriptor. That was a job that encompassed a lot of library tasks, including cataloging, and he worked there as his primary job for the rest of his life. But in his off hours he followed his passion for Christian archaeology, something that made good use of his occupation since he had access to a wealth of rare and

important manuscripts. Derosi became incredibly knowledgeable about the Catacombs as well as other important Christian religious sites, and he was able to develop a network of associates who shared his passion. He traveled around Europe as well as throughout Italy in his quest to learn all that he could about religious antiquities, and through his friends he often received rare materials from

around the world to study. His repute earned him a great deal of admiration in the Vatican, and he is said to have been very well liked by Pope's Pious the ninth and Leo the thirteenth, and he explored the Catacombs at great length, including discovering the Catacombs of Callixtus, that's the catacomb that was created by Pope Zephyrenius to be a resting place for pontiffs. He often went on his expeditions in underground Rome with his brother Michel Stefano

by his side. Michelle was a scholar in his own right, but his work focused on natural science. He wrote papers that analyzed the Catacombs from the point of view of a geologist, examining the earth that was excavated to create them. Derosi, like Bosio, sought to contextualize Christian archaeological finds by studying the literature of the times they came from. But unlike Bosio, he had access to almost anything he could have wished for in studying that context. Remember he's sitting in the

Vatican library all day every day. He wrote a lot about the early history of the religion, how its hierarchy developed, how theological writing had developed and evolved over time, and an array of other topics.

in the papal palace there. Outside of his writing, because of de Rosie's good standing with the Vatican, he was able to catalyze the creation of a new division within the Catholic Church that would carry on his work. When

Pius the ninth was on the Holy See. Derosi made the case to the Pope that it would be in the best interest of the Vatican to ensure that important archaeolie logical finds could be studied and protected, and in eighteen fifty two the Commission for Sacred Archaeology was formed.

It still operates today and it's in charge of the maintenance and preservation of the Christian Catacombs of Rome, and it keeps an eye on quote cemeteries and ancient Christian buildings of Rome and its suburbs, for the systematic and scientific excavation and exploration of the same cemeteries, and for the preservation and upkeep of what was found or brought

to light again by the excavations. But even as de Rosi's work on the Catacombs was becoming more widely known, it seemed like the way the information was disseminated in circles outside of religious scholarship could be a little odd, and it was often romanticized. In the first half of eighteen eighty eight, the London periodical The Architect, a weekly illustrated journal of art, civil engineering, and building, ran a write up describing a recent lecture given by a professor

Stokes of Dublin. I could not figure out more information on who Professor Stokes was. The Stokes that I could find that was around the same time was in a different field and a little too late, so I never

identified him. But according to the architect, regarding the Roman catacombs, Stokes had discussed quote, his own idea before he studied the subject was that the city of Rome was built over them, that the catacombs had furnished the building material for the city thus erected, and that their early Christians, having discovered those excavations under their houses, made secret entrances into them, so that when any danger threatened them, or

when they desired to worship in secret, they just retired into those vast and gloomy recesses. That was obviously wrong, but Stokes's lecture went on to say that quote. The catacombs of Rome, however, were of a quite different character, and he shared how he had discovered they were created outside of the city and in some cases in the

hills surrounding the city. Stokes had learned that they were not places of worship as Christians had those before the catacombs were created, although there were sometimes services held there as we've mentioned this whole write up is kind of quaint, and it seems a little bit behind the times, sharing things that had been known for quite a while as though they were sort of mind blowing and utterly new.

Thirty years before that lecture, in eighteen fifty eight, The Atlantic ran an article simply titled the Catacombs of Rome, which opened with Roma Saturnia, the underground Rome of the Dead, the buried city of graves. Sacred is the dust of its narrow streets. Blessed were those who, having died for their faith, were laid to rest in its chambers. Full as the upper city is of great and precious memories, it possesses none greater and more precious than those which

belonged to the city underground. Republican Rome had no greater heroes than Christian Rome. This article name checks de Rossi and Marchie and the creation of the Commission of Sacred Archaeology, and it's also very much a combination of Romantic fascination and pro Christian ideology, and has some jumps in logic that convey inaccurate information, such as this explanation for the

catacomb's creation quote. The Christians would naturally desire to separate themselves in burial from the heathen and to avoid everything having the semblance of pagan rites yick. Even though they have learned about the works of people who have studied and explained them, they just make up this thing of like Christians thought burying their dead next to pagans was icky, and it's like, well, that's not really why these happened, but okay. Today there are five catacombs that are currently

open to the public. The Catacombs of San Sebastiano is named for a soldier who converted to Christianity and became a martyr. This particular catacomb stretches about twelve kilometers it's roughly seven and a half miles, so it's enormous, but it's not nearly as big.

lead to rest there. The catacombs of Priscilla are filled with frescoes, including one that is believed to contain the first representation of the Virgin Mary. The catacombs of Domatila run for seventeen kilometers that include an underground basilica, and the catacombs of Santa Agnesa are named for the martyr Saint Agnes who is buried there. This one has no art of significance, but contains a number of significant engravings.

Of the six Jewish catacombs that are known to have existed in the area around Rome, there could be more. That's how many we noah For sure. Only two of them remain though, Villa Randanani and Villa Torlonia. In addition to the ones we've named here, there are more than fifty additional known catacombs that are not open to visitors. We don't really know the extent of the Roman catacombs, and this is in part because of issues we've mentioned

earlier in the episode regarding things like Caven's. There was a quote I found while I was researching this, which was by a scholar named Estelle Shoat Bruttmann, who started this entire field of archaeological research, particularly into some of the Jewish catacombs. But in her writings she had included this one thing that felt almost relieving as I was researching this, because like you're putting together a puzzle where we don't have all the pieces, and the pieces we

do have I don't always match up exactly right. But I read this and felt better.

to which they do not belong. They spent the entire school year delving deep into their chosen research topic, reviewing existing literature, scholarly articles, primary sources, etc. I wish we had done something like this when I was in high school. After writing their final paper, they presented their findings to

the entire school. My ears perked up when I heard your episode on Emperor Meiji and the Meiji Shrine because my son's research was about the role of Shinto religious practices in the political transition at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. I'm the editor in chief for most of his school papers, so I had the pleasure of reading this incredibly in depth academic paper, despite having a master's degree in education with very little background knowledge about this

part of Japanese history. Myself, I was feeling more than a little lost. At least I could help him edit for grammar and clarity. I was thrilled to listen to your episode to get a broader picture and more historical context for this topic, which put my son's research into perspective for me. I played a portion of the episode for him, and when we got to the part in which you explained Kami, my son exclaimed that sounded like

they nearly quoted my paper. I couldn't help but agree, as that is exactly why I played that part of the podcast for him. Thank you for the years of highest quality infotainment. I have a PhD in SYMHC. And you have kept me company through household chores, long drives, and many many hours of sewing, both for pleasure and my second job. Attached is a bit of pet tax our pedigree Bengal cat raven Paw, who like her Raven

Claw namesake, is incredibly clever. She knows many tricks including sit, come, give hugs, and give kisses, and she uses the pet talking buttons to request to play with her various toys. She's also super talkative, meowing in conversational turns with you, to the point that our family accidentally mews at each other because we are so used to mewing with the cat. My eleven year old has inadvertently mewed at me as a greeting more times than I can count. Thank you

again for all you do Erin. I love all of this. I'm so glad that that offered up like a supplement to the work that you had been reading of your sons and kind of you know, helped add a bit of context. I also love this meowing thing because my husband and I will spen entire days where I think all we do is reality because we too have had miaowi kiddies.

at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also read all the show notes on mistinhistory dot com. Each episode has our list of research items that we use, so if you want to reference any of those, there they are. You can also subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuffy mist in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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