Page:The early Christians in Rome (1911).djvu/357

 Priscilla Cemetery, and many of the bodies of the more famous martyrs were brought up from the subterranean galleries and chambers and buried in conspicuous places in the new Basilica of S. Sylvester; amongst these were the remains of the two sons of Felicitas, SS. Felix and Philip. This is carefully described in the Pilgrim Itineraries or Guides. These two well-known martyrs were deposited under the high altar of S. Sylvester. In the second Salzburg Itinerary, known as "De locis SS. Martyrum," they are thus specially mentioned: "S. Felicis [sic] unus de septem et S. Philippus unus de septem," and in William of Malmesbury, copying from a much older Itinerary, we read, "Basilica S. Silvester ubi jacet marmoreo tumulo co-opertus Martyres  Philippus et Felix." Marucchi thinks he can point out the tomb in the subterranean crypt where the two originally were laid.

The three remaining sons of Felicitas, namely, SS. Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were interred in the cemetery of the Jordani on the Via Salaria Nova. This cemetery, owing to its state of ruin and the difficulty of pursuing the excavating work, has only been very partially explored; but Marucchi believes he has found a broken inscription referring to "Alexander, one of the seven brothers." It is probable that other traces of the loculi of these three will come to light when this large but comparatively little known catacomb, which is in a very ruinous and desolate condition, is carefully examined: at present large portions of it are quite inaccessible.

The second Salzburg Itinerary "De locis SS. Martyrum" specially guides the pilgrim to tombs of these three thus: "propeque ibi" (alluding to the Basilica of S. Chrysanthus and Daria built over a portion of the Cœmeterium Jordani) "S. Alexander et S. Vitalis, sanctusque Martialis qui sunt tres de septem filiis Felicitatis jacent." William of Malmesbury in his transcript of an ancient Itinerary also mentions them, as do other of the Pilgrim Guides.

In the celebrated "Monza" Catalogue and in the "Pittacia," or small labels, belonging to the phials which contained a little of the sacred oils which were burnt before the tombs of the more eminent confessors and martyrs (the phials of oils which were sent by Pope Gregory the Great