Catacombs of Rome
Based on Wikipedia: Catacombs of Rome
Cities of the Dead Beneath the Eternal City
Beneath the streets of Rome lies a hidden city that sprawls for over one hundred fifty kilometers. This underground labyrinth housed millions of the dead for centuries, then vanished from human memory for a thousand years, only to be stumbled upon by accident in 1578.
The Catacombs of Rome are not one place but at least sixty separate networks of tunnels carved into the volcanic rock beneath and around the ancient city. They represent one of the largest burial complexes ever created, and they hold within their dark corridors some of the oldest surviving Christian artwork in existence.
But here's what makes them truly fascinating: almost everything you think you know about them is probably wrong.
The Myth That Won't Die
Popular imagination paints a vivid picture. Persecuted Christians, hunted by Roman soldiers, slip through secret entrances into the catacombs. There, by flickering torchlight, they gather in hidden chambers to celebrate forbidden worship, their hymns echoing through tunnels the authorities could never find.
It's a wonderful story. It's been depicted in countless novels and films. It's also, according to every serious scholar who has studied the evidence, completely false.
The historian L. Michael White puts it plainly: Christians did not use the catacombs as secret hiding places during persecutions. The reasons are straightforward. First, Christians were not actually persecuted on a regular basis by the Roman Empire—the persecutions were sporadic and often localized, not the constant reign of terror that popular culture imagines. Second, and more importantly, everyone in Rome knew exactly where the catacombs were located.
These weren't secret tunnels. They were official cemeteries.
V. Rutgers, another researcher, notes that scholars "have long debunked the myth that Christians used the catacombs as hiding places in times of persecution." Author J. Osbourne goes further, stating that "nothing could be further from the truth" than the idea that Christians inhabited the catacombs during persecution.
So what were people actually doing down there?
Sunday Dinner with the Dead
The answer is both more mundane and more interesting than the persecution myth. Romans—pagan, Jewish, and Christian alike—regularly went down into these underground burial chambers to share meals with their deceased family members.
This wasn't considered morbid. It was normal Roman family practice. You would bring food and wine to the tomb of your grandfather or mother and have a memorial meal in their presence. The larger chambers in the catacombs, the ones with benches along the walls that might look like they were designed for secret worship services, were actually dining rooms for the dead.
White explains that Christians "in their everyday life, regularly went down into the catacombs of Rome, not to hold assemblies or the Eucharist, but to hold memorial meals with dead members of their families, just like their pagan neighbors."
The only specifically religious services that did occur in the catacombs were memorial rites held near the graves of famous Christian martyrs—people who had died for their faith and were venerated by the early church. But these were memorial services, not regular Sunday worship, and they weren't secret.
Why Underground?
If the catacombs weren't hiding places, why build them at all? Why not just bury people in normal cemeteries above ground?
The answer comes down to Roman law, Roman real estate, and Roman theology.
Roman law absolutely forbade burial within city limits. This wasn't unique to Rome—many ancient cities had similar rules, driven by concerns about disease, smell, and the spiritual pollution that the dead were thought to bring. All burials had to take place outside the city walls, along the roads leading out of town.
If you were wealthy, you could afford a grand mausoleum along the Via Appia, the famous road that still stretches south from Rome toward Naples. Walk along the Via Appia today and you'll see the remains of these monuments, lined up like stone billboards advertising the importance of the families who built them.
But such monuments cost a fortune. For ordinary people—which meant most people—underground burial offered a practical alternative. The volcanic rock around Rome, called tuff (from the Italian "tufa"), had a useful property: it was soft enough to dig into easily but hardened after exposure to air. You could carve out extensive networks of tunnels and chambers with relatively simple tools.
Land was expensive. Digging down was cheap.
Cremation Versus Burial: A Theological Divide
There was another factor driving the development of the catacombs: a fundamental disagreement about what should happen to human bodies after death.
Traditional Roman practice was cremation. The body was burned on a funeral pyre, and the ashes were collected and stored in an urn or placed in a columbarium—literally a "dovecote," named for the resemblance between the rows of small niches holding urns and the compartments in a pigeon house.
But Jews and Christians believed something different. They believed in the resurrection of the body. The idea that your physical remains would somehow be reconstituted at the end of time made cremation deeply problematic. How could you be resurrected if your body had been deliberately destroyed?
This theological conviction meant that Jewish and Christian communities needed places to bury intact bodies—lots of them. The underground catacombs provided exactly that: expandable, affordable burial space that could accommodate thousands upon thousands of unburned remains.
By the fourth century, this view had spread beyond the Christian community. Burial had overtaken cremation as the standard Roman practice, and the construction of tombs expanded throughout the empire.
The Architecture of Mass Burial
The catacombs developed their own distinctive architecture, shaped by the practical demands of burying enormous numbers of people in limited space.
The basic unit was the loculus—a horizontal niche carved into the tunnel wall, just big enough to hold a body. These loculi were stacked in vertical rows called pilae, typically from floor or waist level up to the ceiling. Each niche could hold one body, though some were made larger—these double-capacity niches were called bisomi.
Bodies were wrapped in shrouds, sometimes covered in lime to help with the smell of decomposition, and placed into their niches. A stone slab or tiles were then mortared into place to seal the opening, inscribed with the person's name, age, and date of death.
Wealthier families could afford more elaborate arrangements. A cubiculum was a private family burial chamber, a small room off the main tunnel containing loculi reserved exclusively for one family. The most elaborate option was the arcosolium—a curved niche with an arched top, the body placed beneath a carved marble slab that could serve as an altar for memorial services.
As the catacombs filled up over generations, grave diggers (called fossors) would sometimes sell already-occupied loculi to new customers, squeezing more bodies into limited space. When even that wasn't enough, graves were dug into the floors of the corridors themselves—these floor graves were called formae.
The Fossors: Professional Grave Diggers
The people who created and maintained the catacombs were called fossores, from the Latin word for "diggers." These were professional grave diggers who formed a recognized trade within the early Christian community.
Being a fossor required genuine skill. You had to understand the properties of the volcanic rock—where it was stable enough to excavate, where it might collapse. You had to plan the expansion of tunnels to maximize burial space while maintaining structural integrity. And you had to do all of this by lamplight, in cramped underground passages.
Fossors appear in catacomb artwork, depicted with their distinctive tools: picks, lamps, and measuring instruments. They were respected members of the community, though apparently not above a bit of creative salesmanship—the practice of reselling occupied graves suggests the eternal human impulse to maximize profit from limited real estate.
Art in the Darkness
Perhaps the most significant legacy of the catacombs lies in their artwork. The frescoes painted on catacomb walls and ceilings represent the vast majority of surviving Christian art from before approximately 400 CE. For art historians and historians of Christianity, these images are irreplaceable.
The art evolved through distinct phases. The earliest paintings borrowed heavily from standard Roman decorative styles—the same kind of imagery you might find in a wealthy Roman's dining room, with birds, flowers, and geometric patterns. But these familiar motifs were gradually adapted to carry Christian meaning.
The fish became one of the most important symbols. This wasn't arbitrary. In Greek, the word for fish is "ichthys," and early Christians used this as an acrostic: the letters spelled out "Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter"—Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. The fish was also a symbol of baptism and featured in Gospel stories about miraculous catches of fish and the multiplication of loaves and fishes.
Interestingly, fish had both religious and mundane significance for the catacomb communities. Analysis of skeletal remains shows that freshwater fish was a staple of the diet for people buried in the catacombs. One particularly poignant finding involved a two-year-old child whose bone chemistry indicated they were still being breastfed at the time of death—the isotope values hadn't yet begun to shift toward a weaned diet.
Later catacomb art incorporated scenes from the Old Testament: Daniel in the lions' den, Jonah and the whale, the three young men in the fiery furnace. These weren't random choices. Each depicted divine rescue from death—powerful themes for a community decorating the walls of its burial chambers.
Eventually, New Testament imagery became dominant: scenes from the life of Christ, depictions of the apostles, and images of early Christian martyrs. The Catacombs of Commodilla contain one of the earliest known images of Christ depicted with a beard—the familiar bearded Jesus we recognize today developed relatively late in Christian art.
The Geography of Death
The catacombs spread outward from Rome along the major roads: the Via Appia heading south toward Naples, the Via Ostiense leading to the port of Ostia, the Via Labicana going east, the Via Tiburtina toward Tivoli, and the Via Nomentana heading northeast.
Many of these ancient road names survive as the names of modern Roman streets, a reminder that the city has been continuously inhabited for nearly three thousand years.
The Catacomb of Callixtus, near the Caffarella park on the Via Appia, is the most extensive. It takes its name from Pope Callixtus I, who administered it in the early third century before becoming pope. This was the official burial ground for the bishops of Rome, and nine third-century popes are interred there.
The Catacombs of Domitilla, named for Saint Flavia Domitilla (a Roman noblewoman who converted to Christianity and was reportedly martyred), spread over seventeen kilometers of underground passages. Since 2009, they have been administered by the Divine Word Missionaries, a Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers.
The Catacombs of Priscilla, along the Via Salaria, contain some of the oldest and most important catacomb paintings, including what may be the earliest depiction of the Virgin Mary. The Benedictine nuns of Priscilla care for this site today.
The Catacombs of San Sebastiano gave us the word "catacomb" itself. The site was known in Latin as "ad catacumbas"—either "among the tombs" or "near the quarry," depending on which translation you prefer. The second interpretation reflects the fact that the earliest tunnels may have begun as stone quarries, later repurposed for burial.
From Memory to Oblivion
The catacombs were used intensively for burial from the second through the fifth centuries. Then their use declined.
The turning point came in 313 CE, when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, granting tolerance to Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Suddenly, Christians didn't need cheap underground cemeteries—they could build churches and establish churchyard burial grounds like everyone else.
But the catacombs didn't disappear immediately. They had become pilgrimage sites. Christians flocked underground to visit the graves of martyrs, to collect relics, and to be buried alongside those they considered saints. This enthusiasm created its own problems: vandalism became rampant as pilgrims took "souvenirs" from the tombs.
When Christianity became the official state religion in 380 CE, burial near martyrs' remains became even more desirable. Wealthy families paid premium prices for tomb space close to a famous saint's bones.
Through the fifth and sixth centuries, the catacombs transitioned from active burial grounds to memorial sites. Occasional paintings were still added—a fresco of Saint Stephen in the Catacomb of Commodilla dates to the seventh century—but regular burials had ceased.
The invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries dealt further blows. Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Lombards who sacked Rome also violated the catacombs, presumably searching for gold or other valuables buried with the dead.
By the tenth century, church authorities had transferred the relics of martyrs from the catacombs to above-ground basilicas where they could be better protected and more conveniently venerated. With the relics gone, there was little reason to maintain the underground passages.
The catacombs were abandoned. Entrances collapsed or were overgrown. Memory of their locations faded.
Rediscovery
For roughly six hundred years, the catacombs lay forgotten beneath the Roman suburbs.
Then, in 1578, workers excavating along the Via Salaria accidentally broke through into an ancient tunnel. They had stumbled upon the Catacombs of Priscilla.
The discovery sparked intense interest. Antonio Bosio, often called the "Columbus of the Catacombs," spent decades exploring the underground passages, crawling through collapsed tunnels, mapping what he found. His work, published posthumously in 1632 as "Roma Sotterranea" (Underground Rome), established the study of the catacombs as a scholarly discipline.
Professional archaeological investigation came later. Giovanni Battista de Rossi, working in the nineteenth century, published the first extensive scientific studies. His methods—careful documentation, systematic excavation, attention to context—transformed catacomb research from antiquarian curiosity into modern archaeology.
New catacombs were still being discovered well into the twentieth century. Italian authorities found previously unknown sites near Rome in 1956 and 1959. The underground labyrinth was even larger than anyone had realized.
The Catacombs Today
Today, responsibility for the Christian catacombs lies with the Vatican. The Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology directs excavation and restoration, while the Pontifical Academy of Archaeology oversees scholarly research.
Day-to-day management of individual sites falls to various religious orders. The Salesian Fathers administer the Catacombs of San Callisto. The Divine Word Missionaries care for the Catacombs of Domitilla. The Benedictine nuns of Priscilla maintain their namesake site.
Of the approximately sixty catacomb sites in and around Rome, only five are regularly open to the public: San Sebastiano, San Callisto, Priscilla, Domitilla, and Sant'Agnese. Visits require guided tours—you cannot simply wander into the catacombs on your own—and advance booking is often necessary.
The Jewish catacombs, equally important for understanding ancient Jewish culture in Rome, are separate from the Christian sites and present their own challenges for preservation and access.
What the Dead Can Tell Us
The catacombs continue to yield new information. Modern scientific techniques—isotope analysis, DNA studies, examination of skeletal remains—reveal details about ancient Roman life that no written source records.
We know from bone analysis that the communities buried in the catacombs ate substantial amounts of freshwater fish. We can identify nursing mothers and weaned children. We can trace patterns of disease and nutrition across generations.
The inscriptions on tomb slabs, though often brief, provide a wealth of demographic data: names, ages, family relationships, dates. They record professions and social status. They express grief and hope in formulaic phrases that nonetheless convey genuine emotion across two millennia.
And the art—those frescoes surviving in the underground darkness, protected from weather and light—offers our clearest window into how ordinary Christians of the second, third, and fourth centuries understood their faith. Not the theology of church councils and philosophical debates, but the images that people chose to surround their dead: rescued prophets, miraculous fish, the good shepherd carrying his sheep.
The Real Story
The Catacombs of Rome are not what popular imagination makes them. They weren't secret hiding places. They weren't sites of forbidden worship. The Christians who built and used them weren't a constantly persecuted underground movement.
What they were is somehow more remarkable: a massive collective effort by ordinary people to honor their dead according to their beliefs. Families returning year after year to share meals with departed parents and children. Communities expanding their tunnels deeper and deeper into the rock to make room for new generations. Artists painting images of hope on the walls of death.
The catacombs are a testament to what people will do for their dead—and for their hope of resurrection. A hundred fifty kilometers of tunnels, carved by hand, by lamplight, into volcanic stone. Millions of bodies laid in row upon row of niches, sealed behind inscribed slabs, waiting.
For six centuries after they were abandoned, the catacombs kept their vigil in darkness, forgotten by the city above. Then a pickaxe broke through a wall, and the dead received visitors again.
They still do.