III
There is a celebrated inscription of Pope Damasus (A.D. 366–84) preserved in one of the collections of the epitaphs he placed in the Catacombs (the Sylloge Palestina), an inscription originally placed in the Papal Crypt of the “Callistus” Cemetery, which speaks especially of “a number of martyrs buried together” near that sacred spot. The epitaph commences as follows:
“Hic congesta jacet quæris si turba piorum
Corpora sanctorum retinent veneranda sepulchra
Sublimes animas rapuit sibi Regia cœli.”118
Prudentius (Perist. i. 73) (end of fourth century) beautifully alludes to the veil of oblivion which has fallen over the hidden graves of these numberless nameless martyrs:
“O vetustatis silentis obsoleta oblivio
Invidentur ista nobis, fama et ipsa extinguitur.”
And again (Perist. ii.):
“Vix Fama nota est, abditis
Quam plena sanctis Roma sit,
Quam dives urbanum solum
Sacri sepulchris floreat.”
The martyrs traditionally interred in the various Catacombs of Rome, and whose graves were reverently and persistently visited by crowds of pilgrims to Rome from foreign lands after the Peace of the Church during the fourth, fifth, and following centuries, represent the victims of the various periods of persecution during the first three centuries.
It is by no means intended to press the traditional statements contained in the Pilgrim Itineraries quoted in this chapter respecting the vast number of martyrs interred in the Catacombs of Rome.
These statements are probably somewhat exaggerated, but the undisputed fact remains that a very great number of these victims of the various persecutions were certainly interred in this hallowed city of the dead; and the unvarying tradition of the number of martyrs so interred must be taken into account, and gravely reckoned with, wherever the question of the number of Christian victims is considered.