on the pictures of the Catacombs, or of M. Muntz on the Mosaics of Rome, far exceed in value the labours of hundreds of less specialised workers. At the same time it is not possible to do good work in any one department without at least a general knowledge of the whole field. A student who is beginning a new subject like that of Archæology will do well in the first place to read a generalised sketch which covers a wide area, and consists of conclusions rather than of facts. At this early stage of his knowledge, he will be apt to be confused by too large a number of facts and details, and to fail in consequence to obtain any clear ideas of what the facts point to. He will find himself, in effect, in the position of the countryman of the story, who complained when they brought him up to visit the capital that he was wholly unable to see the town because it was always hidden by the houses. His knowledge will very likely be accurate and extensive enough, but he will be unable to make proper use of it because his view will be circumscribed and limited by his want of any clear conception of the greater whole which lies beneath and beyond the immediate series of facts of which he has obtained cognisance. Such a general sketch it has been the object of this book to supply. It is intended to arouse interest and to lead on to further and deeper study, the materials for which will be found indicated in the Bibliographical notes at the end of the volume. The author's thanks are especially due to his friend, Prof. Marucchi, for his kind interest, and for permission to reproduce many illustrations from his monumental work on the Lateran Museum. He would also thank others who have given similar permissions which are acknowledged on the various plates. PART I. CHAPTER I. The Apostles at Rome. IN the sixteenth century and for some time afterwards it came to be the fashion among Protestant controversialists, while they were ready enough to acknowledge the truth of the story which told how St. Paul had preached and died in Rome, to deny that the same was also true of St. Peter. Such a position was rendered possible by the paucity of the literary evidence available. In the New Testament itself it is admitted that no clear and undoubted proof of the fact is to be found, and to those whose watchword of religion was "the Bible and the Bible only," this seemed, no doubt, a strong and almost irrefragable argument. But, at any rate in dealing with historical facts, there can be no possible reason for confining ourselves to the evidence contained in Holy Scripture; and once we look outside its covers, we find that evidence exists in plenty. No other place than Rome ever claimed to be the scene of St. Peter's last labours and of his martyrdom, and when we realize how absolutely unanimous all antiquity is upon this point, the wonder comes to be that any scholars should have been found so hardily sceptical," as Bishop Ellicott of Gloucester phrased it, as to deny a fact based upon evidence "as strong, early, and wide as that on which we believe that Hannibal invaded Italy". But another and quite independent line of evidence is open to us, which has hitherto, in England at least, been very generally neglected. It is that which is drawn from the study of archæology, and is admirably summed up by Prof. Lanciani in his excellent book on "Pagan and Christian Rome". "I write," he says, "about the monuments of Rome from a strictly archæological point of view, avoiding questions which pertain, or are supposed to pertain, to religious controversy. For the archæologist the presence and execution of SS. Peter and Paul in Rome are facts established beyond the shadow of a doubt by purely monumental evidence. . . . There is no event of the imperial age, and of imperial Rome, which is attested by so many noble structures, all of which point to the same conclusion-the presence and execution of the Apostles within the capital of the empire. When Constantine raised the monumental basilicas over their tombs on the Via Cornelia and the Via Ostiensis; when Eudoxia built the church ad Vincula; when Damasus put a memorial tablet in the Platonia ad Catacumbas; when the houses of Pudens and Aquila were turned into Christian oratories; when the name of Nymphae Sancti Petri was given to the springs of the Catacombs of the Via Nomentana; when Christians and pagans alike named their children Peter and Paul; when the twenty-ninth day of June was accepted as the anniversary of St. Peter's execution; when sculptors, painters, medallists, goldsmiths, workers in glass and enamel, and engravers of precious stones, all began to reproduce in Rome the likenesses of the Apostles at the beginning of the second century and continued to do so until the fall of the empire; must we consider them all as labouring under a delusion or as conspiring in the commission of a gigantic fraud? Why were such proceedings accepted without protest from whatever city, from whatever community, if there were any other which claimed to own the genuine tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul?"1 The Places of Martyrdom. This monumental evidence, the special domain of Christian archæology, thus briefly and vividly sketched out by Prof. Lanciani, it is the object of the present chapter to draw out in rather greater detail. We begin with the spots in Rome connected by tradition with the two Apostles. Not all the churches in Rome which assert such claims are altogether worthy of acceptance. Especially must we mention in this category the well-known church upon the Janiculum, which claims to be the scene of St. Peter's passion. Its history goes back only to the fourteenth century, and was the outcome of faulty antiquarianism and of wrong deductions from the records of the past. The real place of the martyrdom was, there can be no doubt, the spina of the Circus of Nero, close to the obelisk in the centre, and, therefore, just outside the eastern transept of the present basilica. The ancient authorities are in complete agreement. The "Liber Pontificalis "2 tells us that the grave was near to the place of martyrdom; the "Martyrium B. Petri Ap." tells us that it was close to the obelisk; and, lastly, the "Acta Petri " adds the detail that it was on the spina of the Circus intra duas metas. Now the ancient place of the obelisk, before it was moved to the centre of the piazza by Sixtus V, may be dis 4 1 Lanciani, "Pagan and Christian Rome," p. 125. 3" Acta Petri," ed. Lipsius, p. 13. * 4 Ibid. p. 216. covered by a flat stone with an inscription let into the pavement, close by the door of the present sacristy, and this enables us to locate the exact spot of the martyrdom with considerable accuracy. St. Paul, who as a Roman citizen was beheaded, was taken to the third milestone on a small road branching from the Via Ostiensis. The place is now known as the Three Fountains, but was then called the Aquae Salviae. No other place has ever claimed the honour of being the scene of his martyrdom, and there is no reason whatever for doubting the truth of the tradition.1 The Tombs on the Vatican and the Via Ostiensis. No other monuments of apostolic Rome can make so absolute a claim to authenticity as the two tombs which are now covered respectively by the great basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul. Already at the beginning of the second century we have notice of their existence in the words of the priest Caius, "I can show you," he says, "the monuments (tropaea) of the Apostles, for you will find them on the Vatican and on the Ostian Way";2 and Eusebius himself, who has preserved this testimony, bears witness that in his time the monuments were still extant. Each of these two primitive apostolic sepulchres was necessarily situated outside the city limits, for burial within those limits was not allowed, and they are each of them placed as near as might be to the spot of the actual martyrdom. As regards the tomb of St. Peter there can be no doubt that the place was used for burials in the age of Nero, for many tombs of that period were discovered in the course of the excavations made when the basilica was rebuilt. A small 1 See "Bull. d' arch. crist.," 1869, p. 83. 2 Eus., "H.E.," |