Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/224

Rh 212 CATACOMBS ranean chambers contain armed seats and benches cut out of the tufa rock. These are supposed by Marchi and others to indicate school-rooms, where the catechumens were instructed by the bishop or presbyters. But this theory FIG. 15. Baptistery of St Pontianus. From Ferret. wants verification. It is impossible not to be struck with the remarkable analogy between these rock-hewn chairs and those discovered in the Etruscan tombs (vide infra], of the purpose of which no satisfactory explanation has been given. Very exaggerated statements have been made as to the employment of the Catacombs as dwelling-places by the Christians in times of persecution. We have, however, sufficient evidence that they were used as places of refuge from the fury of the heathen, in which the believers especi ally the bishops and clergy, who would naturally be the first objects of attack might secrete themselves until the storm had blown over. This was a purpose for which they were admirably adapted both by the intricacy of their labyrinthine passages, in which any one not possessing the clue would be inevitably lost, and the numerous small chambers and hiding places at different levels which might be passed unperceived in the dark by the pursuers. As a rule also the Catacombs had more than one entrance, and frequently communicated with an arenaria or sand-quarry; so that while one entrance was carefully watched, the pursued might escape in a totally different direction by another. But to quote again Mr J. H. Parker, &quot; the Catacombs were never intended, nor fit for, dwelling-places, and the stories of persons living in them for months are probably fabulous. According to modern physicians it is impossible to live many days in the caves of pozzolana in which many of the Catacombs are excavated.&quot; Equally exaggerated are the statements as to the linear and lateral extent of the Catacombs, and their intercommunication with one another. Without resorting to this exaggeration, Mommsen can speak with perfect truth of the &quot; enormous space occupied by the burial vaults of Christian Rome, not surpassed even by the cloacce or sewers of Republican Rome,&quot; but the data are too vague to warrant any attempt to define their dimensions. Padre Marchi has estimated the united length of the galleries at from 800 to 900 miles, and the number of interments at between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000; Martigny s estimate is 587 miles ; and North- cote s, lower still, at &quot; not less than 350 miles.&quot; The idea of general intercommunication is negatived by the fact that the chief cemeteries are separated by low-ground or valleys, where any subterranean galleries would be at once filled with water. It now remains for us to speak of the history of these subterranean burial places, together with the reasons for, and mode of, their construction. From the period of the rediscovery of the Catacombs, towards the end of the 16th century, almost to our ov/n day, a gigantic fallacy prevailed, repeated by writer after writer, identifying the Christian burial-places with disused sand pits. It was accepted as an unquestionable fact by every one who undertook tu describe the Catacombs, that the Christians of Rome, finding in the labyrinthine mazes of the exhausted arenarice, which abounded in the environs of the city, whence the sand used in building had been extracted, a suitable place for the interment of their martyred brethren, where also the sacred rites accompanying the interment might be celebrated without fear of interruption, took possession of them and used them as cemeteries. It only needed a comparison of the theory with the visible facts to refute it at once. But the search after truth is trouble some, and to controvert received doctrines is always unpopular, and it was found easier to accept the traditional view than to investigate for one s self, and so nearly three centuries elapsed before the independence of the arenaricB and the Catacombs was established. The discovery of this independence is due to Padre Marchi, whose name has been already so often mentioned. Starting with the firmest belief in the old traditional view, his own researches by degrees opened his eyes to its utter baselessness, and led him to the truth, now universally recognized by men of learning, that the Catacombs were exclusively the work of the Christians, and were constructed for the purpose with which their name is universally connected the interment of the dead. It is true that a catacomb is often connected with the earlier sand-quarry, and starts from it as a com mencement, but the two are excavated in different strata, suitable to their respective purposes, and their plan and construction are so completely unlike as to render any confusion between them impossible. The igneous formation of which the greater part of the Roman Campagna is, in its superior portion, composed, contains three strata known under the common name of tufa, the &quot; stony,&quot; &quot; granular,&quot; and &quot;sandy&quot; tufa, the last being commonly known as pozzolana. 1 The poz- zolana is the material required for building purposes, for admixture with mortar ; and the sandpits are natur ally excavated in the stratum which supplies it. The stony tufa (tufa litoide) is quarried as building-stone. The granular tufa is useless for either purpose, containing too much earth to be employed in making mortar, and being far too soft to be used as stone for building. Yet it is in this stratum, and in this alone, that the Catacombs are constructed ; their engineers avoiding with equal care the solid stone of the tufa litoide and the friable pozzolana, and selecting the strata of medium hardness, which enabled them to form the vertical walls of their galleries, and to excavate the loculi and cubicula without severe labour and also without fear of their falling in. 1 In Rome the three strata are known to geologists as In/a litoide, tufa, granolare, and pozzolana.