The Roman Catacombs

The famous Catacombs of Rome have a strange and mysterious history. Long before the founding of Rome, the Etruscans used to bury their dead in a similar fashion, in large underground chambers. Later, during the early Roman era, cremation was the preferred practice of funeral. This continued up until roughly the second century when, for some unknown reason, the Romans began actually burying their dead instead. They did not use catacombs, however, but preferred large family tombs.

It wasn’t until later that the Jews and Christians began using catacombs. Because of their common belief in bodily resurrection, they did not want to cremate their dead. And being that Roman law forbade burial places within city limits, a suitable location near the city had to be found. As of today, forty such locations have been found near and around Rome. They were all built along Roman roads like the famous Via Appia (the Appian Way) or the Via Tiburina.

The actual term “catacomb” was not even used by those who constructed them back then. The Romans coined the phrase “near the hollow”, using this word of Greek origin to describe what was an area with caves near the Appian Way from which blocks of tuff, a compressed form of volcanic ash, were extracted. It found its way into everyday language, with the meaning that it does today, at a much later point in time.

The catacombs are basically long and narrow passageways filled with galleries and cross-galleries, two or more stories in depth. They are of course filled with tombs, small compartments called loculi, which were cut out of the soft limestone and which give the appearance of being perpendicular shelves. Larger chambers called cubicula were also used for families or religious dignitaries and martyrs. These small tombs were usually sealed with tile or a narrow slab of marble. The loculi usually left just enough room for a single person and one is impressed with how small these final resting places are.

Nothing remains of those who were once buried here, however. The high humidity and passage of time has destroyed all traces of the dead.

Part of the reason for building the catacombs had to do with economy, of course. An economy of space as well as of that of money was necessary. The areas of land owned by the Christians above ground were very limited and since they did not reuse their tombs, the space available for burial was quickly exhausted. The catacombs were a solution to this problem.

And the early Christians were not merely impoverished in terms of space, and money, of course. They also had a strong sense of community in life as in death and the catacombs reflected this communal spirit, as well. Christians wished to be together even during this “sleep of death” and the reclusive nature of the catacombs, when keeping the early persecution in mind, was an appropriate place for meetings or the display of Christian symbols. And their long galleries of tombs, although small originally, with time, eventually extended to an extraordinary combined length of hundreds of miles.

Christianity became a state religion in Rome in the year 380 and this was to eventually bring an end to the catacombs. The dead could now be buried in church cemeteries and this soon became the common practice. Up until the 6th century, the catacombs were still occasionally used for certain memorial services but later, when the invasion of Rome through the Vandals and others began in earnest, the catacombs were sacked, abandoned and soon forgotten.

Centuries later, in 1578, by accident, the catacombs were rediscovered. Extensive studies about the catacombs were first undertaken by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in the mid-nineteenth century. New discoveries were also made in the 1950s.

At present, there are only five catacombs that are actually open to the public: They are the catacombs of St. Agnes, Priscilla, Domitilla, St. Sebastian and the famous St. Callixtus. They are open all year round (closed on Christmas Day, New Year’s and Easter) and guided tours are always available. They are maintained by the Pontifical Commision of Sacred Archeology. For more information, please see the links below.