THE MARTYRS BURIED.
Darker and darker grew the shadows of night over the great empty and
desolate amphitheatre, but a few hours before clamorous with the shouts
and din of the tumultuous mob. The silence seemed preternatural, and a
solemn awfulness seemed to invest the shrouded forms which lay upon the
sand. By a merciful provision of the Roman law, it made not war upon the
dead, and the bodies even of criminals were given up to their friends,
if they had any, that they might not be deprived of funeral rites.
Having wreaked his cruel rage upon the living body, the pagan
magistrate at least did not deny the privilege of burial to the
martyrs' mutilated remains. It was esteemed by the primitive believers
as much an honour as a duty, to ensepulchre with Christian rites the
remains of the sacred dead.[52]
Faustus, the faithful freedman of Adauctus, Hilarus, the fossor, and the
servants of the Christian matron, Marcella, came at the fall of night to
bear away the bodies of the martyrs to their final resting-place in the
silent Catacomb. The service was not devoid of danger, for vile
informers prowled around seeking to discover and betray whomsoever would
pay the rites of sepulture to the remains of the Christian martyrs. But
there are golden keys which will unlock any doors and seal any lips, and
Marcella spared not her wealth in this sacred service.
On the present occasion, too, special facility was given for carrying
out this pious purpose. Through the influence of the Empress Valeria,
Hilarus, the fossor, was enabled to show to the chief custodian of the
amphitheatre an authorization under the hand of Galerius for removing
the bodies of the "criminals who had paid the penalty of the law"--so
ran the rescript.
Beneath the cliff-like shadow of the Coliseum gathered this little
Christian company. The iron gates opened their ponderous jaws. By the
fitful flare of a torch weirdly lighting up the vaulted arches, with
gentle and reverent hands, as though the cold clay could still feel
their lightest touch, the bodies of the dead were laid upon the biers.
Through the silent streets, devout men in silence bore the martyrs to
their burial. Through the Porta Capena, which opened to the magic spell
of the Emperor's order; through the silent "Street of Tombs," still
lined with the monuments of Rome's mighty dead, wended slowly the solemn
procession. There was no wailing of the pagan _nænia_ or funeral dirge,
neither was there the chanting of the Christian hymn. But in silence, or
with only whispered utterance, they reached the door of the private
grounds of the Villa Marcella.
First the bodies were borne to the villa, where, by loving hands, the
stains of dust and blood were washed away. Then, robed in white and
bestrewn with flowers, they were placed on the biers in the marble
atriun. Again the good presbyter Primitius read the words of life as at
the burial of Lucius, the martyr,[53] and vows and prayers were offered
up to God.
While this solemn service was in progress, a lady, deeply-veiled, was
seen to be agitated by violent grief. Convulsive sobs shook her frame,
and her tears fell fast. When the forms of the martyrs were uncovered,
that their friends might take their last farewell, the Empress Valeria,
for it was she, flung herself on her knees beside the body of the late
slave maiden, and rained tears of deep emotion on her face. More lovely
in death than in life, the fine-cut features seemed like the most
exquisite work of the sculptor carved in translucent alabaster. A crown
of asphodel blossoms the emblems of immortality--encircled her brow, and
a palm branch--the symbol of the martyr's victory--was placed upon her
breast.
"Give her an honoured place among the holy dead," said the Empress, amid
her sobs, to the venerable Primitius.
"I have given orders," said the Lady Marcella, "that she, with her
father and brother, shall sleep side by side in the chamber prepared as
the last resting-place for my own family. We shall count it a precious
privilege, in God's own good time, to be laid to rest near the dust of
His holy confessors and martyrs."
"Aurelius shall share the tomb," said Hilarus, the fossor, "which he
made for himself while yet alive, beside his noble wife, Aurelia
Theudosia."
"Be it mine to honour with a memorial tablet the remains of my good
master Adauctus," said Faustus, the freedman, with deep emotion.[54]
"It shall be my privilege," said the Empress, "to provide for my beloved
handmaiden, as a mark of the great love I bore her, a memorial of her
saintly virtues; and let her bear my name in death as in life, so that
those who read her epitaph may know she was the freedwoman and friend of
an unhappy Empress."
The Empress Valeria now retired, and with her trusty escort, returned
to the city.
With psalms and hymns, and the solemn chanting of such versicles as:
_"Convertere anima mea, in requiem tuam"_--"Return unto thy rest, O my
soul;" and _"Si ambulavero in medio umbræ mortis, non timebo
mala"_--"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
shall fear no evil," the funeral procession wound its way, by gleaming
torchlight, through the cypress glades of the garden to the entrance of
the Catacomb of Callixtus. Here additional torches and tapers were
lighted, and carefully the sacred burdens were carried down the long and
narrow stair, and through the intricate passages to the family vault of
the Lady Marcella.
[Illustration: SUBTERRANEAN ORATORY, CATACOMB OF CALLIXTUS.]
This vault was one of unusual size and loftiness, and had been
especially prepared for holding religious service during the outbreak of
persecution. Marcella held the office of deaconess in the Christian
Church, and when even the privacy of her own house was not a sufficient
safeguard against the prying of pagan spies, she was wont to retire to
the deeper seclusion of this subterranean place of prayer. On each side
of the door were seats hewn in the solid rock, one for the deaconess,
the other for the female catechist who shared her pious labours. Around
the wall was a low stone seat for the female catechumens, for the most
part members of her own household, who here received religious
instruction. The accompanying engraving indicates the appearance of this
ancient oratory or class-room, its main features unchanged, although the
lapse of centuries has somewhat marred its structure and defaced its
beauty.
With solemn rites and prayers the remains of the martyrs were consigned
to their last long resting-place. Amid the sobs and tears of the
mourners, the good presbyter Primitius paid a loving tribute to their
holy lives and heroic death--all the more thrilling because they
themselves stood in jeopardy every hour. In the presence of the martyred
dead the venerable pastor then broke the bread and poured the wine of
the Last Supper of the Lord, and the little company of worshippers
seemed united in still closer fellowship with those who now kept the
sacred feast in the kingdom of their common Father and God.
Before they left the chamber, Hilarus, after he had hermetically sealed
the tombs of Demetrius and Ezra, his son, cemented with plaster a marble
slab against the opening of that on which was laid--rude couch for form
so fair--the body of the chief subject of our "ower true tale." As it
was designed to be but a temporary memorial of the virgin martyr, until
the costly epitaph which the Empress was to provide should be ready, he
took the little pot of pigment which he had brought for the purpose, and
with his brush in, scribed the brief sentence:--
VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.
ANIMA DULCIS, INNOCVA, SAPIENS ET PVLCHP IN XRO.
QVI VIXIT ANNOS XVIII. EN. V. DIES X.
"Valeria sleeps in peace. A sweet spirit guileless, wise, beautiful in
Christ. She lived eighteen years, five months, ten days."
[Illustration: "VALERIA SLEEPS IN PEACE."]
Alas! the time never came when that costly memorial should be reared.
The violence of persecution soon drove the Empress herself an exile from
her home, and when the storm rolled away there was none left to carry
out her pious wish. Through the long centuries that humble epitaph was
all the memorial of one of the noblest, sweetest, bravest souls that
ever lived. And even that rude slab was not destined always to cover her
remains. After the re-discovery of the Catacombs in the sixteenth
century, many of their tombs were pillaged for relics, or in the vain
search for treasure. By some ruthless rifler of the grave this very
slab was shivered, and the lower part of the epitaph destroyed; and
there upon its rocky bed, on which it had reposed for well-nigh fifteen
hundred years, lay in mouldering dust the remains of the maiden martyr,
Valeria Callirhoë. Verily _Pulvis et umbra sumus_!
Primitius and Hilarus, with the little company of devout men who bore
the martyrs to their burial, now proceeded to the entombment, in a
neighbouring crypt, of the bodies of Adauctus and Aurelius. As they
advanced through the dark corridors, but dimly lighted by their tapers'
feeble rays, the silence of that under-world seemed almost appalling.
Black shadows crouched around, and their footsteps echoed strangely down
the distant passages, dying gradually away in this vast valley of the
shadow of death. Almost in silence their sacred task was completed, and
they softly sang a funeral hymn before they turned to leave their
martyred brethren to their last long sleep.
Suddenly there was heard the tumultuous "tramp, tramp," as of armed men.
Then the clang of iron mail and bronze cuirass resounded through the
vaulted corridors. The glare of torches was seen at the end of a long
arched passage, and the sharp, swift word of military command rang out
stern and clear.
"Forward! Seize the caitiffs! Let not one escape! Slay if they resist!"
and a rush was made to the chamber where the notes of the Christian
psalm had but now died away.
"Out with your lights!" exclaimed, in a muffled tone, Hilarus, the
fossor. "Follow me as closely and as quietly as you can. Good Father
Primitius, your arm. By God's help we will disappoint those hunters of
men of their anticipated prey."
"Or join our brethren in martyrdom, as is His will," devoutly added
Primitius. "He doeth all things well."
But we must go back a little to learn the cause and means of this armed
invasion of the Catacombs.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[52] See Eusebius, Hist. Eccl, vii., 16 and 22. Eutychianus, a Roman
Christian, is recorded to have buried three hundred and forty-two
martyrs with his own hands.
[53] See Chapter VI.
[54] Through the long lapse of ages this memorial has been preserved,
and may still be read in Grater's great collection of ancient
inscriptions. It is also referred to in Gibbon. In the epitaph occur the
following fine lines:
INTEMERATA FIDE CONTEMPTO PRINCIPE MVNDI CONFESSVS XRM CAELESTIA REGNA
PETISTI.
"With unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having
confessed Christ, thou dost seek the celestial realms."