CATACOMBS

From Agepedia

CATACOMBS (caverns, grottoes, subterraneous caves, destined for the sepulture of the dead). The respect felt for the dead, by all nations, naturally led them to some outward manifestation of regard, such as the pomp of funeral solemnities, or the consecration of a particular spot for sepulture, or the erection of monuments, to transmit to posterity the remembrance of the services or virtues of the deceased. Some nations, as the Egyptians, constructed pyramids and labyrinths to contain their mortal remains. Others, as the Phoenicians, and, after them, the Greeks, hollowed out the rocks for tombs, surrounding their towns with vast magazines, containing the bones of their fathers. Asia Minor, the coast of Africa, and Cyrenais, afford instances of these singular and gigantic works. The Romans, not so bold, but still more magnificent, embellished their roads with superb mausoleums and sarcophagi of marble, consecrated to their distinguished families. At a later period, when the change of their religion made it necessary to conceal these last marks of regard, they consecrated vast subterraneous caverns to the purpose of tombs. The discovery of these monuments has always excited the curiosity of travellers and the attention of artists. The latter have applied themselves to learn from them the character of architecture and painting at different epochs; and, though they have often found only coarse representations, the productions of art in its infancy or decline, they have occasionally met with types of perfection. Many monuments of this description have been preserved to our clays, and still contain traces of the painting and architecture with which they were decorated. There are catacombs existing in Syria, Persia, and among the most ancient Oriental nations. But the revolutions in these countries, and the changes which they have occasioned, have deprived us of the documents which would have given us exact information regarding them. The description of the catacombs in Upper Egypt gives us an idea of those whose existence is still unknown to us. They contain the history of the country, and the customs and manners of the people, painted or sculptured in many monuments of the most admirable preservation. The subterraneous caves of these countries, like almost all of the kind, have their origin in quarries. From the depths of the mountains which contain them, stone was taken, which served for the building of the neighboring towns, and also of the great edifices and pyramids which ornament the land. They are dug in a mountain situated in the neighborhood of the Nile, and furnished the Romans with materials for the construction of buildings in their colonial establishments. The excavations in these mountains are found throughout a space of 15 to 20 leagues, and form subterraneous caverns, which appear to be the work of art; but there is neither order nor symmetry in them. They contain vast and obscure apartments, low and irregular vaults, supported, in different parts, with piles, left purposely by the workmen. Some holes, of about six feet in length and two feet in width, give rise to the conjecture, that they were destined for sepulchres. Cells of very small dimensions, formed in the hollows of these obscure caverns, prove them to have been the abode of recluses. In Sicily and asia Minor, a prodigious number of grottoes and excavations have been discovered, containing sepulchres. Some appear to have served as retreats to the victims of despotism: the greater part are the work of the waters which traverse the mountains of these regions, as, for instance, the great cave of Noto, which passes for one of the wonders of Sicily. This cave, the height, length and breadth of which are equal, has been formed by the river Cassibili, which runs at the bottom, and traverses it for the length of 100 fathoms. In the interior of this cave are a number of houses and tombs. In the ancient Hybla, there is a grotto containing many sepulchres, near which is the tomb of iEschyius. At Yela are abodes for the living and sepulchres for the dead, cut in the rocks; at Agrigentum, subterraneous caves, labyrinths and tombs, arranged with great order and symmetry. There are also caverns in the environs of Syracuse, which may be ranked with the principal monuments of this description, from their extent and depth, their architectural ornaments, and from some historical recollections attached to them. In the catacombs of Rome, coffins are sometimes found, and it is supposed that the bones in them belonged to Christians. Inscriptions are also seen on the .vails of the apartments. But, though they may not have been used by the Christians as tombs, it is certain that they served for places of assembling for secret exercises of devotion. (See Artaud's Voyage dans les Catacombes de Rome, Paris, 1810.) The catacombs in the tufa mountains of Capo di Monte, near Naples, consist of subterraneous galleries, halls, rooms, basilicas, and rotundos, which extend to tho distance of two Italian miles. Throughout there are seen niches for coffins (locidi) and bones. A description of them was given by Celano, in 1643. They probably owe their origin to the quarries which afforded tufa for the walls of the cities Palseopolis and Neapolis, and afterwards served as sepulchres for the Christian congregations. The catacombs of Paris are extensive subterraneous galleries, to which you descend from the buildings on the western side of the barriere oVtnfer. The name itself, which has been given to this labyrinth of caverns and galleries, from its resemblance to the asylums and places of refuge of the persecuted Christians under Naples and Rome, informs us of the purpose to which it has been applied since 1786. These galleries were originally the quarries from which materials were excavated for constructing the edifices of the capital. The weight of the superincumbent houses rendered it necessary to prop them; and when the cemeteries of the demolished churches and the burying grounds were cleared in 1786, the government resolved to deposit the bones in these quarries, which were consecrated for that purpose. The relics of ten generations were here united in the repose of the grave. Eight times as great as the living tide that rolls over this spot is its subterraneous population. By the light of wax tapers you descend 90 feet to a world of silence, over which the Parisian police keeps watch as strictly as over the world of noise and confusion above. You enter a gallery, where two can just go abreast. A black streak on tne stones, or which the walls consist, points out the way, which, from the great number of intersecting bypassages, it would be difficult to retrace without this aid, or without guides. The plain of Montrouge and the great suburb St. Jacques, as well as St. Germain, and, according to some, the channel of the Seine, are thus undermined. Among the curiosities of this part of that lower world is a plan of the harbor of Mahon, which, in his hours of leisure, an ingenious soldier faithfully copied, from memory, in the material of Jhe quarries. You finally enter the hall, whence you are ushered into the realms of death by the inscription which once stood over the entrance to the churchyard of St. Sulpice:Has ultra metas requiescunt beatam spem exspectantes. Narrow passages between walls of skeletons; chambers in which mausoleums, altars, candelabras, constructed of human bones, with festoons of skulls and thighbones, interspersed, occasionally, with inscriptions, not always the most happily selected, from ancient and modern authors, excite the gloomy impression which is always produced, even in the most lightminded, by the sight of the dissolution of the human frame. Fatigued with these horrible embellishments, you enter a simple chapel, without bones, and containing an altar of granite. The inscription D. M. II et III Septembi\ MDCCXCII. recalls to memory the victims of those mournful days, whose remains are here united. It is the only spot in the whole labyrinth, that speaks immediately to the heart of every body. On leaving these rooms, consecrated to death, where, however, the air is always preserved pure by means of secret passages, you may visit a geological cabinet, formed by Mr. Hericourt de Thury, the director of the cameres sous Paris, who has also published a description of them (Paris, 1815). Specimens of the minerals furnished by the regions you have traversed, and a collection of diseased bones, in a contiguous hall, scientifically arranged, are the last curiosities which these excavations offer. 300 toises east of the road to Orleans you finally return to the light of day. We understand that it has lately been prohibited to visit this remarkable spot, because a person had lost himself in this labyrinth, and had never been heard of again. In Rome, there is a Franciscan church, under which, for centuries, the bones of the monks of the convent, and of many persons, who think their eternal happiness will be promoted by their burial there, have been preserved, ingeniously arranged in columns, altars, arches, garlands, festoons and architectural ornaments. Every year, mass is read there.