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  Whoever has seen the remains of even a few Etruscan cities must realize that both the Capitoline and the Palatine were originally settled not by Latin but by Etruscan tribes. For these two hills — from which it was possible not only to prevent anyone from crossing the Tiber, but also to bar the way to ships approaching along the river — might well have reminded the Lydian immigrants of their native Thyrrha, or Tyrsa. Later on, these places fell into the hands of the Latins, but even today they are still haunted by the memory of their first inhabitants.

  What strange, mysterious people! Their most striking characteristic seems to have been that they never tried to delude themselves about anything, however disagreeable, however tragic. Outwardly effeminate, yet incorruptible, these men and women took the span of life for exactly what it is; as an opportunity, never to return, to enjoy not, perhaps, the highest happiness, but the deepest, often the grossest pleasure. And, unlike most peoples of antiquity, they regarded the realm of the dead not merely as the abode of the shades, but as a dismal region where the souls of the departed, enveloped in black clouds, eternally mourn the irretrievability of life. If what lay in store for them in the end was the terror of annihilation, they should at least not delude themselves about their fate. And since they could not revenge themselves upon the immortals for having laid the sentence of death upon man, they vented their cruelty on the creatures of these immortals. What an extraordinary contrast to the preparation for death of the later Roman Christians! But whether we struggle violently against death or merely sink into it as though it were a never-ending swoon, the reason is the same. It is because death is incomprehensible to us. The manner in which we may meet it cannot alter in any way its incomprehensibility.

  The Etruscans apparently tried to rebel against the gods in other ways as well. They continually and deliberately violated the laws of the gods, disregarding all the laws of decency and all the prejudices of convention, such as the notion that courage is better than cowardice, or chastity preferable to debauchery. It is, therefore, quite possible that they practiced in those ancient times what today we call nihilism. But certainly they did not, like us, do so because their faith was so weak; they simply had no illusion whatsoever.

  This is one of the few characteristics of the Etruscans we have any knowledge of or, at least, may surmise in them. Otherwise, we scarcely know them. Even their language has remained puzzling to us, and nothing further of any real significance will ever be discovered. They will probably always be removed from us in that realm of the dead which, when they were still alive, held such terror for them. If ever they were to emerge more clearly, it would probably not be they we would see, but their ghosts; chieftains in helmets like the caps of gigantic mushrooms, phantoms in the purple shadows of the laurel groves, spirits on bronze-studded war chariots, disembodied presences clad in effeminate garments, reclining beneath the gray olive trees of the Romagna. For they continue forever to haunt the destiny and history of Rome. Held in check for centuries by the valor and might of the Latins, they yet continually break out in all of their destructiveness, not only in the Romans and the Italians, but in all peoples in the hour of their defeat.

  Like Parnassus, the Capitoline had — and still has — two summits. As one mounts the shallow steps, the so-called Cordonata, to the Capitol piazza, the peak dedicated to Jupiter is on the right, the other, sacred to Juno, is on the left. Crowning the summits, high up in the sparkling sunlight, there were once two quiet groves of trees with thick, luxuriant foliage. They were far more beautiful than the later temples; and here, even in very ancient times, the two deities were worshiped. The depression now occupied by the Capitol square was called “the place between the groves.” At that time the valley of the Forum was still swampland. Most of the surrounding hills were covered with woods in which wild animals roamed at will, and the settlement on the Palatine, the Roma Quadrata, was still so small that all of its citizens could be summoned from the fields with a horn sounded from the ramparts.

  O happy days of long ago when the city was still young! O early, rural Rome! Your sons, a sturdy race of peasant warriors, tilled their own ancestral soil; with their own hands, they yoked the oxen, and when the evening sun cast long shadows from the hills, they bore home on their own shoulders the wood from the forest. Food was simple, clothing plain, and people still honored the gods, the children their parents and the woman the man. Women did not paint their faces, nor did married people break their vows; friend did not betray friend. But when, on the pretext that all this was too rustic, too coarse, too old-fashioned, they strove to make everything bigger and better, their lives at once began to deteriorate. The more the nation’s power grew the more did its inner force diminish. The talons of the legions’ eagles might stretch to the borders of Latium, might hold all of Italy in their grasp, might reach out toward the ends of the earth; the city which had been built of clay and brick might clothe itself in gilded stone; the peaks of the Capitol might bristle with temples and pillars of Pentelic marble, with triumphal arches and bronze chariots with effigies of its own and conquered gods, with statues stolen from Greece, with the captured banners of foreign peoples and with countless trophies; but the moral decency, the strength of mind and of spirit, in short, the very qualities that had enabled the Romans to build up their vast empire were destroyed by the vastness and the might of their own creation. The city and its empire went down before the assault of the Christian faith which was as strong as the Roman faith once had been, and before the attacks of the tribes of the north who were still young, as the early Romans. The Capitoline temples fell into ruins and rubble. So also did the chapels of the minor gods, the citadel and small roofs over the votive offerings, the pillars of Duilius ornamented with the prows of ships, and the gilded horsemen of Metellus; the monuments of fame and the symbols of might, all went down into the dust, as did Rome’s glory itself. And where, long ages before, animals had grazed, goats were grazing again.

  There were, to be sure, a few noble hearts, even in Christian Rome, who did not wish to see the sacred hill defiled. Certain noble families, such as the Frangipani, who had settled not only on the hill itself, but down along the side to the Forum and even as far as the Colosseum, were forced to remove themselves and their fortifications. The hill was restored to the Senate and not only adorned with new palaces, but fortified with towers and provided with a sanctuary, a church called the “Altar of Heaven,” which was dedicated to the One God. But what we admire on the Capitol today is no longer its true greatness, but only the shadow of it, a mosaic of laboriously excavated and accumulated remains, an image of the majestic glory of the past put together by the unworthy descendants of its great creators.

  If one were to draw a line through the hill from east to west, one would divide into two parts not only the city of Rome itself, but the Italian peninsula and the entire Mediterranean area as well. The northern part is filled with the busy life of the present; the southern part, mourning amid its ruins, seems still to cling to the fruitless memories of an irretrievable past. It is as though, in the north, too little faith in heaven had destroyed a higher world; in the south too much faith had destroyed a lower. To the north, even the most venerated vestiges of early Christianity have been buried beneath the edifices of modern times, while to the south, the remains of antiquity still lie exposed, as though nothing living had ever dared to settle again where the blood of the first martyrs was shed; as though no one had been able to clear away the rubble which was all that remained of the palaces of their persecutors. Melancholy, oppression, resignation brood over the Aventine, the Via Latina, the Circus of Maxentius; misery, poverty, and dirt nest among the stones that witnessed the sufferings of the martyrs.

  Depressing as is this world of wreckage within the walls of Rome, the scene outside in the melancholy of the Campagna is even more mournful. The Appian Way is the most famous of the grave-lined streets which lead to this realm of the dead. And there are graves not only along the str
eets above ground, but also along those below. The streets below are, of course, the passages of the catacombs which, particularly in southern Rome, run all through the ground, and their walls are composed entirely of tombs.

  The original name of the catacombs — we are following the account of Carlo Cecchelli, Professor of Christian Archaeology at the University of Rome — was coemeteria, that is, sleeping places. They were so called because the bodies of Christians who had died were supposed to be those not of dead but of sleeping men who were waiting to be awakened for the resurrection. In the beginning, the word catacumbae itself was used only to designate a particular locality outside the walls of Rome, and only later was extended to include all the subterranean graveyards. The actual place called “ad catacumbas” was near the church of St. Sebastian. The Appian Way passed through certain hollows in the ground which, because their shape suggested the hull of a boat, were called cymbae, and this word was combined with the Greek kata, meaning “down,” to form catacumbae. “Ad catacumbas,” therefore, meant “near the nether hollows.” Many pagan graves were there, and it was only later that the spot became a Christian burial ground.

  As a rule, in ancient times, the dead were buried in chambers, passages, or vaults, which had been hewn out of the rock. Sometimes the urns with the ashes were placed in the so-called columbaria, which contained a large number of niches. Sometimes, as in the case of the Christians, the bodies were not cremated, but were laid in sarcophagi, or beneath so-called pseudosarcophagi, which consisted of rectangular or rounded niches hewn in the tuff wall above the real graves.

  The practice of building long, narrow passages was finally adopted in the Roman catacombs, probably owing to lack of space. The boundaries of the burial places were carefully marked with stones and no overlapping was permitted even under the ground. And as the number of the faithful who had to be interred was constantly growing, it was soon necessary to do more digging down below. Here the soft tuff or sandstone of which the ground was composed facilitated the task of the workmen. But of even more assistance were the passages already hewn out for quarries in the rock underlying the tuff. Space was never wasted, and almost always the passages laid out were the long and narrow kind, the so-called cryptae which were scarcely higher than a man. When a passage was no longer big enough it was deepened so that the oldest graves were always up close to the ceiling. When it became impossible to deepen a passage, other passages were dug beneath it. Later, in place of the passages with their rows of graves, the so-called cubicula, or little chambers, were cut out, as well as sizable burial vaults for entire families or for persons who wished to be buried together.

  There were no catacombs in the earliest period of Christianity. The first of them were probably built at the end of the first century and the beginning of the second. These early catacombs, however, consisted only of small groups of passages and it is quite evident that some were isolated vaults which were later connected. Eventually all the various sections dating from widely different periods were linked up. In the process the passages were considerably widened and whole basilicas were constructed under the ground. By the fourth century a great deal of work had been done which had so altered the aspect of the structures that they had become gigantic, subterranean necropolises. But the following centuries added little to them and most of the catacombs were entirely forgotten.

  It was not until the sixteenth century that subterranean Rome was rediscovered by Antonio Bosio, the “Columbus of the catacombs.” His work was carried on by a long series of men, among them Giuseppe Marchi. But the most outstanding achievements were those of de Rossi who, during the second half of the nineteenth century, rediscovered the so-called cubiculum pontificum, the papal vault containing the tombs of Anteros, Fabianus, Lucius, Eutychianus, and nine other popes.

  After tracing the historical background, Cecchelli then proceeds to describe the individual sections of subterranean Rome. From among these descriptions we shall single out that of the Praetextatus coemeterium. For it was through the maze of passages in these catacombs that Jessiersky tried to escape his pursuers — not only Count Luna, but also the police.

  It is quite evident that his original intention was to make them think that he had lost his way and had died. His plan was to come out at a different place from the one at which he had entered, to board a ship, and turn his back on Europe. It may be assumed that it was the disappearance of the two French priests, which he must have read about months before in some paper, that had given him the idea. Otherwise it would be very difficult to explain why he should have gone into the scarcely opened Praetextatus catacombs at all, and particularly without a guide.

  Cecchelli describes the coemeterium of Praetextatus as follows:

  This burial place is situated at the fork between the Via Appia Pignatelli and Via Appia Antica. It was probably part of the estate of Herodes Atticus, a famous financier of antiquity, and his wife, Annia Regilla. In one of the oldest sections of the catacombs there is a cubiculum with an unusual picture of Christ receiving the crown of thorns, and not far from it a Greek epitaph bearing the name of Urania, daughter of Herodes. The latter name, however, probably refers not to the financier himself, but to one of his manumitted slaves, who assumed the name of his master in gratitude for his freedom. In the crypt are two frescoes, one of which represents Christ and the Good Samaritan, the other the Road to Emmaus.

  Very ancient also is a somewhat wider passage, called the Spelunta Magna. In this section, where the martyrs Januarius, Cyrinus, Felicissimus, and Agapetus are buried, there is also a niche-shaped room with pillars and marble slabs where the faithful used to gather. A lower story containing portrayals of scenes from the pagan cults of Attis and Sabazios does not belong to the catacombs of Praetextatus. It was originally a separate crypt and at a later time the catacombs, quite by chance, were built alongside of it.

  These catacombs, then, are almost entirely unexplored.

  It must have been that very fact that caused the two French priests to enter the subterranean passages from Sant’Urbano. Undoubtedly they would not have been permitted to embark on an exploring expedition had they gone in at one of the official entrances. In Sant’Urbano, however, the custodian had no means of stopping them.

  Originally, the church of Sant’Urbano was, according to some, an ancient mausoleum dating from the time of the Antonines; according to others, part of the villa of Herodes Atticus. It is situated several hundred feet to the east of the Appian Way and looks like a little temple. The portico supported by marble pillars has recently been uncovered, after being for a long time walled up with bricks. The church faces to the east, and opening out at its feet is the shallow Almo valley, where Egeria is said to have had her grottos and sacred grove.

  Before the time of the Roman Republic, her grottos and grove were on the banks of Lake Nemi. It may be conjectured that the two sanctuaries “accompanied” the settlers on their wanderings from there to Rome in much the same way the oracle of the tree of Dodona — from the rustling of whose foliage it was believed one could foretell the future — “accompanied” the Greeks on their journey southward. Whenever they came to a new place, they would search for a new Dodonean Oak resembling the old one that had been left behind. In this same way, the grottos and the grove of Egeria, the nymph, traveled with the Latin tribes from Lake Nemi to Rome. The people wanted them always near because they played an important part in their cult and they could not very well make the long pilgrimage back into the Alban mountains to visit the sanctuaries.

  Long ages ago, King Numa Pompilius is said to have often met the nymph in the grove of evergreen oaks, and on one of these occasions, they were united in marriage. In reality, however, this was not the marriage of a simple ruler with a creature of fable, but the mystic union of a so-called priest-king with a priestess of the springs. Those legendary nuptials were reenacted every year, perhaps to fructify and water the land. Surely the grove where those rites were
celebrated was not, as it is today, a clump of pitiful bushes overtowered by a couple of trees, but a beautiful shady spinney. But even today the Valley of the Nymph is not always a desolate place. The broom was in blossom at the time of Jessiersky’s visit at Sant’Urbano, and the whole region was filled with the scent of tall grass and wild flowers.

  In all probability, Alexander Jessiersky, on his underground excursion, had carried with him the maps of the catacombs drawn up by a certain Casamonte. This was the conclusion the Vienna official, Dr. Julius Gambs, arrived at when, in the course of a careful search of the Strattmann Palace, he happened to glance through the library catalogue. It was not necessary, of course, for this already overworked man to check the catalogue, let alone to examine the books. He did so of his own free will, for he was rather interested in so-called erotic literature, and he took this opportunity to see if he could find anything of this nature in the Strattmann Palace. He found no pornography, but, as he was going over the catalogue, his eye lighted on the heading “Catacombs” which struck him as important from another, more pertinent point of view. Listed under this heading were Casamonte’s maps. But when Dr. Gambs went to take out the book, he found that it was no longer there. From this he concluded that Jessiersky must have taken the volume with him. The book, of course, might have got lost in some other way. But this was improbable, for it was the only work on catacombs in the library, and when, from the same house, a book about the Roman catacombs disappears, and a man into them, it stands to reason that they probably disappeared together.

  Whereas most public servants are merely indolent, Dr. Gambs was made up of a mixture of indolence and intelligence; and the latter won the day in the present instance. He betook himself to the National Library and asked for a copy of Casamonte’s map book.