Pagan and Christian Rome | Page 5

the servants and
freedmen of the house, as shown by the noble sarcophagi and the
humbler loculi found in such numbers in the crypt of the Catacombs of
Priscilla. The small oratory at the southern end of the crypt seems to
have been consecrated exclusively to the memory of its first occupant,
the ex-consul. The date and the circumstances connected with the
translation of his relics from the place of banishment to Rome are not
known.
Both the chapel and the crypt were found in a state of devastation
hardly credible, as though the plunderers had taken pleasure in
satisfying their vandalic instincts to the utmost. Each of the sarcophagi
was broken into a hundred pieces; the mosaics of the walls and ceiling
had been wrenched from their sockets, cube by cube, the marble
incrustations torn off, the altar dismantled, the bones dispersed.
When did this wholesale destruction take place? In times much nearer
ours than the reader may imagine. I have been able to ascertain the date,
with the help of an anecdote related by Pietro Sante Bartoli in § 144 of
his archæological memoirs: "Excavations were made under Innocent X.
(1634-1655), and Clement IX. (1667-1670), in the Monte delle Gioie,
on the Via Salaria, with the hope of discovering a certain hidden
treasure. The hope was frustrated; but, deep in the bowels of the mound,
some crypts were found, encrusted with white stucco, and remarkable
for their neatness and preservation. I have heard from trustworthy men
that the place is haunted by spirits, as is proved by what happened to

them not many months ago. While assembled on the Monte delle Gioie
for a picnic, the conversation turned upon the ghosts who haunted the
crypt below, when suddenly the carriage which had brought them there,
pushed by invisible hands, began to roll down the slope of the hill, and
was ultimately precipitated into the river Anio at its base. Several oxen
had to be used to haul the vehicle out of the stream. This happened to
Tabarrino, butcher at S. Eustachio, and to his brothers living in the Via
Due Macelli, whose faces still bear marks of the great terror
experienced that day."
There is no doubt that the anecdote refers to the tomb of the Acilii
Glabriones, which is cut under the Monte delle Gioie, and is the only
one in the Catacombs of Priscilla remarkable for a coating of white
stucco. Its destruction, therefore, took place under Clement IX., and
was the work of treasure-hunters. And the very nature of clandestine
excavations, which are the work of malicious, ignorant, and suspicious
persons, explains the reason why no mention of the discovery was
made to contemporary archæologists, and the pleasure of
re-discovering the secret of the Acilii Glabriones was reserved for us.
These are by no means the only patricians of high standing whose
names have come to light from the depths of the catacombs. Tacitus
(Annal. xiii. 32) tells how Pomponia Græcina, wife of Plautius, the
conqueror of Britain, was accused of "foreign superstition," tried by her
husband, and acquitted. These words long since gave rise to a
conjecture that Pomponia Græcina was a Christian, and recent
discoveries put it beyond doubt. An inscription bearing the name of
[Greek: POMPONIOS GRÊKEINOS] has been found in the Cemetery
of Callixtus, together with other records of the Pomponii Attici and
Bassi. Some scholars think that Græcina, the wife of the conqueror of
Britain, is no other than Lucina, the Christian matron who interred her
brethren in Christ in her own property, at the second milestone of the
Appian Way.
Other evidence of the conquests made by the gospel among the
patricians is given by an inscription discovered in March, 1866, in the
Catacombs of Prætextatus, near the monument of Quirinus the martyr.

It is a memorial raised to the memory of his departed wife by
Postumius Quietus, consul A. D. 272. Here also was found the name of
Urania, daughter of Herodes Atticus, by his second wife, Vibullia
Alcia,[4] while on the other side of the road, near S. Sebastiano, a
mausoleum has been found, on the architrave of which the name
URANIOR[UM] is engraved.
In chapter vii. I shall have occasion to refer to many Christian relatives
of the emperors Vespasian and Domitian. Eusebius, in speaking of
these Flavians, and particularly of Domitilla the younger, niece of
Domitian, quotes the authority of the historian Bruttius. He evidently
means Bruttius Præsens, the illustrious friend of Pliny the younger, and
the grandfather of Crispina, the empress of Commodus. In 1854, near
the entrance to the crypt of the Flavians, at Torre Marancia (Via
Ardeatina), a fragment of a sarcophagus was found, with the name of
Bruttius Crispinus. If, therefore, the history of Domitilla's martyrdom
was written by the grandfather of Bruttia