This is now in St Peter's, but was probably originally behind the apse
of this basilica, for there is a fresco of her in an arcosolium, with a
matron named Veneranda. The original entrance to the cemetery leads
directly into a spacious corridor with no _loculi_, but recesses for
sarcophagi, and decorations of the classical style of the 2nd century.
From this a wide staircase leads directly down to a chamber, discovered
in March 1881, of a very early date. Within an arcosolium is a tablet
set up by "Aurelius Ampliatus and his son Gordian, to Aurelia Bonifatia,
his incomparable wife, a woman of true chastity, who lived 25 years, 2
months, 4 days, and 2 hours." The letters are of the 2nd century; but
above the arcosolium was found a stone with great letters, 5 or 6 in.
high: "AMPLIATI, the tomb of Ampliatus." Now Ampliatus is a servile
name: how comes it to be set up with such distinction in the sepulchre
of the Flavii? Romans xvi. 8 supplies the answer: "Salute Ampliatus,
most beloved to me in the Lord." De Rossi thinks the identification
well grounded (_Bullettino_, 1881, p. 74). Epitaphs of members of the
Flavian family have been found here, and others stating that they are
put up "EX INDULGENTIA FLAVIAE DOMITILLAE VESPASIANI NEPTIS." So that De
Rossi did not hesitate to complete an inscription on a broken stone
thus:--
-----
Sepulc / RVM |
Flavi / ORVM |
/ | |
--v------
De Rossi began his excavations in the cemetery of Santa Priscilla in
1851, but for thirty years nothing but what had been described by Bosio
came to light. In 1880 he unearthed a portion near the Cappella Greca,
and found galleries that had not been touched since they were filled in
during the Diocletian persecution. The _loculi_ were intact and the
epitaphs still in their places, so that "they form a kind of museum, in
which the development, the formulae, and the symbolic figures of
Christian epigraphy, from its origin to the end of the 3rd or 4th
century, can be notified and contemplated, not in artificial specimens
as in the Lateran, but in the genuine and living reality of their
original condition." (_Bullett._, 1884, p. 68). Many of the names
mentioned in St Paul's Epistles are found here: Phoebe, Prisca,
Aquilius, Felix Ampliatus, Epenetus, Olympias, Onesimus, Philemon,
Asyncritus, Lucius, Julia, Caius, Timotheus, Tychicus, Crescens,
Urbanus, Hermogenes, Tryphaena and Trypho(sa) on the same stone. Petrus,
a very rare name in the catacombs, is found here several times, both in
Greek and in Latin. The neighbouring _Coemeterium Ostrianum_ was
anciently known as "_Fons S. Petri_," "_ubi Petrus baptizavit_," "_ubi
Petrus prius sedit_." This cemetery derives its name from Priscilla,
mother of Pudens, who is said to have given hospitality to St Peter the
Apostle. We are reminded of St Paul, and of his friends Aquila and
Prisca, by a monument erected by an imperial freedman who was
PRAEPOSITVS TABERNACVLORVM--chief tentmaker. In 1888 a corridor was
discovered which had at one time been isolated from the rest of the
cemetery. It had no _loculi_, but recesses in the wall to receive
sarcophagi. At the end of the corridor there was a large chamber, 23 ft.
by 13 ft., once lined with marble and the ceiling covered with mosaic, a
few fragments of which still remain. The only tomb here was a
sarcophagus, of which the broken front bears the letters which show it
to have been the epitaph of one of the Acilian family:--