WEBVTT - Catacombs of Rome 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.880 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.840 Frye and I'm Crazy V Wilson. It's time for some 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:22.200 catacombs talk. Yeah, listen. This is a little bit of 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.159 wish fulfillment for me because I have not been to 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:27.920 the catacombs in Rome, but I sure want to. It 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.440 just has not ever happened when I've been there. Now 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.159 it's a good excuse to go back. It's on my 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.880 list for any future visits. But the story of the 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.159 Roman Catacombs is one that's always been really interesting to 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:42.360 me because it is so very different from the story 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.120 we've told on the show before about the catacombs of Paris. 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.360 Romes are much older, they were created for very different reasons. 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:52.560 So we're going to talk about them today. I want 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.240 to give you a heads up if you are a 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.319 person that knows about them and loves them. We're not 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.600 getting into the art. There's a lot of cool art 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.680 in the Roman Catacombs that could be its own whole 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.440 party train, and I would love for it to be. 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.120 But today we're really talking about like more of the 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.920 mechanics of how these came to be, why they came 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.400 to be, et cetera. We're going to talk about the 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:19.320 circumstances that led to their creation, their rediscovery after centuries 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:24.120 of abandonment, and their status today. A description of the 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:28.320 Roman Catacombs, published in eighteen fifty seven opens this way quote. 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.000 The Roman Catacombs may be briefly described as labyrinths of 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:36.840 subterranean galleries, crossing one another in every direction, and here 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.319 and there opening into chambers more or less lofty and spacious, 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.280 the whole hewn with the most exacting regularity out of 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.280 the living rock, whose entire walls present a series of 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.600 narrow shelves, one above the other, evidently excavated for the 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.040 purpose of receiving the bodies of the dead, and afterward 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.040 closed with facings of tile or marble, on which there 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.440 were often inscribed the names of the persons buried within. 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:10.840 So from that passage already some key differences between the 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.480 catacombs of Rome and those of Paris, which we've talked 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.239 about on the show. Before we reared that episode, I 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.720 think in October of twenty twenty three, the Parisian Catacombs 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.000 were a solution to a public health crisis that was 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:30.640 caused by the city's cemeteries being woefully overfilled was causing 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.160 a number of problems. So the dead were moved into 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.320 limestone quarries under the outskirts of the city, turning those 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.560 quarries into catacombs. This happened in the eighteenth century, but 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.919 Rome was creating catacombs well before that, all the way 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:47.440 back to the first century. 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:49.359 Yeah, that writing that. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:54.320 Tracy just mentioned is uh, it's from the nineteenth century, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.600 and it's like during a time when people were getting 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:01.760 really excited about the Roman catacombs. Again, the person that 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:03.960 wrote that would end up working with one of the 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:05.720 people that we are going to talk about late in 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.040 the episode. So the catacombs are believed to have been 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.720 created in the first or second century as a way 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.360 for people to bury their dead according to a custom 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.919 that was not allowed within the city of Rome. Rome 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.880 at this time was pagan. The standard practice was to 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.640 cremate the dead. We'll talk a little bit about shifting 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.720 trends in how the dead were treated, but cremation was 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.040 not a practice that was part of Jewish and Christian traditions. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.440 Burial of the dead in the city of Rome was 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.880 forbidden by law at the time we'll talk more about 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.800 that law. This is the very simple version to kind 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.120 of get us into the intro. But to really look 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.000 at the context of the Catacombs, we have to talk 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.200 a little bit about Jewish and Christian religion in Rome 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.119 and how people who identified as Jewish or Christian were 0:03:56.160 --> 0:04:01.800 treated and how they lived alongside other Romans. So the 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.680 early centuries of Rome's Jewish population, which of course that 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.360 goes back to before the development of Christianity, those early 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:14.000 centuries are complicated. They feature cycles of conflict and relative peace. 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.640 There are accounts of Jewish people living in Rome as 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:22.440 far back as the second century BCE. Rome expelled its 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.760 Jewish population on several occasions, including in one thirty nine 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.040 BCE amid accusations that they were attempting to convert Romans, 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.000 then again in nineteen CE for an assortment of accusations 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.520 ranging from fraud to disorderly conduct, and then in the 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:44.880 year forty nine when Claudius banished the Jewish population. That 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:49.680 last one is described in the works of Suetonius as 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.400 Claudius expelling them quote as the Jews were making constant 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:59.360 disturbances at the instigation of Christus whether or not Christus 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.080 was Gaesus Christ does a matter that biblical scholars continue 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.200 to examine, and that's way outside the scope of this episode. 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.160 But after each of these expulsions, there was always a 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.640 reversal of the policy, and often that was quite soon 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.880 after it had been issued. During the reigns of Julius 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.279 Caesar and Augustus, so in the time from the middle 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:24.120 of the first century BCE to the early first century CE, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.640 there was legislation put in place that protected the practice 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.640 of the Jewish religion. So this was a period of 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:36.200 just constantly shifting sands of at least somewhat acceptance and 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:41.760 expulsion for Rome's Jewish population. Another text that gives us 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.640 insight into the Jewish population of Rome in the first 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.680 century is the account of Josephus, who was born in 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.520 Jerusalem in thirty six or thirty seven CE and wrote 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.800 autobiographical accounts of his life, which include the story of 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.320 the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation of Judea in the 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:02.479 year sixty six. That revolt is often referred to as 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.800 the Great Revolt and also the First Jewish Roman War, 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.159 and Josephus was a general in the revolt. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:10.280 This is also a. 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.000 Massive historical moment with a lot of context that were 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.520 not diving into here. But the germane aspect is that 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.160 though there were early victories for the Jewish side, eventually 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:24.320 they were defeated. Josephus describes the Romans destroying the Temple 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.200 in Jerusalem in the year seventy and that this war 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.799 displaced many Jews, including a large number that were captured 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.440 and enslaved. So the important thing to note here is 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.600 that at that point there were both free and enslaved 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:42.680 Jewish people living in Rome. Christianity began in Judea in 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:46.600 the first century and then quickly spread throughout the Roman Empire, 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.160 reaching Rome by the middle of the first century, although 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.520 in small numbers, and it was viewed with deep suspicion 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:59.839 by the existing Roman population, which remained polytheistic at time. 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.039 Rome's Jewish residents had gained kind of a grudging tolerance 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.120 by the Romans because the Jewish religion was considered to 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.240 be ancient, but Christianity was really an upstart, and its 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.200 followers were considered to be very aggressive in their desire 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.760 to convert other people, which Rome's eye is a big problem. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.960 The Great Fire of Rome which started on July eighteenth 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.760 of the year sixty nine and lasted for six days, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:29.680 was blamed on Christians. By the end of the first century, 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.240 it was a crime to be Christian in Rome, and 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:37.120 that crime was punishable by death. Over the following centuries, Christians, 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.400 as the Jews before them, faced this roller coaster of 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.400 persecution and kind of a fragile acceptance in the city. 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.040 Coming up, we're going to circle back to how all 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.800 of this resulted in Catacomb's being created to bury the dead. 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.320 But first we are going to take a quick sponsor break. 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:08.320 Both Jewish and Christian practices regarding burials specified that the 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.440 body was to be kept intact, but as we mentioned, 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.400 this was in conflict with Roman law, at least in 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:16.680 terms of anything that could be done within the city. 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:19.640 That law was part of what were known as the 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.280 Twelve Tables. These are regarded as the beginning of Rome's 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.720 legal system, and the Twelve Tables were composed by a 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.040 commission of ten men in four fifty one and four 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:34.839 fifty BCE. Once they were ratified, they were engraved onto 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.559 twelve bronze tables and displayed in the forum. Those bronzes 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.280 are unfortunately lost to time, and we don't have all 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.120 of the text of the Twelve Tables today. What we 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:50.440 have our fragments that were found in written references to them, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.959 so instances where they were quoted while someone was often 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.640 discussing something else. What we know of the laws regarding 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.120 burials include the edict that states quote a dead person 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.359 shall not be buried or burned in the city. Additionally, 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.160 there are some other rules about limiting the degree of 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.840 public mourning, not having more than one funeral for a 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:17.520 given person, not wasting resources by burying gold, spices, incense, etc. 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.800 With remains, and where funeral pyres and burning mounds could 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:26.199 be erected in relation to other buildings. So for religions 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.840 that called for the burial of an intact body, this 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.440 meant that that burial was going to have to happen 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.080 outside the city, which is how the catacombs came to be. 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.760 Jewish residents of the city are believed to have been 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.640 the first to use catacombs to lay their dead to rest. 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.959 An important aspect of Rome's catacombs is how important they 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.600 are to Jewish history. According to Leonard Victor Rutger's writing 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.560 and Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies in 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.440 nineteen eighty nine quote. The Jewish catacombs of Ancient Rome 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:02.120 form the largest coherent body of archaeological material from late 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:06.720 Antiquity pertaining to Jewish life outside Israel. Though there had 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.560 been written information about the Jewish community of ancient Rome, 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:15.360 the catacombs offer a unique opportunity to compare physical evidence 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.560 with those accounts to gain a clearer picture of that 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.839 community and its rituals. One thing that Rutger's points out 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.360 in this writing is that there's no way to know 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.520 if there were any quote Jewish Christians i e. Jews 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.240 that accepted Jesus Christ as the Son of God and 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.720 raised from the dead and at the same time continued 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:41.120 to observe mosaic law buried in the Jewish catacombs. Identifying 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.319 which catacombs had been used for Jewish burial was done 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.880 based on the funerary inscriptions on the tombs there, which 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.559 had Greek and Latin writing, in combination with the identification 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.640 of Jewish motifs in the surrounding wall art and sometimes 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.400 small motifs that were carved into those stones that close 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:02.520 the catacombs. Those catacombs were also identified by just the 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:06.120 lack of Christian or Pagan symbology within them. But this 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.920 also gives an incomplete picture because there are catacomb sites 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.960 in the area around Rome that are unreachable or that 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.200 have been destroyed or have carved in, so the written 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:20.520 record and the archaeological record don't entirely match up. The 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.400 written record establishes a Jewish community in Rome as early 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.360 as the first century BCE, or perhaps even earlier, so 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.319 it has long been assumed that the Jewish catacombs were 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:36.079 in use sometimes shortly thereafter, but the archaeological record only 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:40.760 has evidence of them that begins in the early third century. 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:46.760 The Rutger's paper analyzes things like brickwork, painting styles, bricks, stamps, 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.760 et cetera to be able to conclude with confidence that 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.880 Jewish catacombs weren't actively used for sure in the third 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.679 to fifth centuries, but that the beginning and end of 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.080 their use cannot be conclusively identified on the time line. 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.360 He also makes the case that the practice of burial 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.800 being adopted instead of cremation was probably taking place simultaneously 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:13.120 among the Jewish population, Christians, and even some Pagans. We 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.840 do know that Christians also adopted the use of catacombs. 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.440 This started, according to the Vatican, under the direction of 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.440 Pope Zafarin, who was pope from one ninety nine to 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:28.280 two seventeen. He wanted to have an underground cemetery prepared 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.760 so that pontiffs could be laid to rest there. 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:32.480 The process of. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.160 Burials there was a lot like what we described in 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.280 the opening passage that we read earlier. So bodies were 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.720 wrapped in cloth and then put into the hollowed out 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.040 shelves of rock, and then a stone was placed in 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.000 the front of that hollow to close it, with the 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.160 name of the person interred there, and often a symbol 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.760 of the Christian religion. Also, to be clear, there were 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.199 still tombs for the dead created for Rome's pagan population, 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.600 both for cremated and non cremated bodies. Cremation had become 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.720 the most popular method of handling corpses in the fifth 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.840 century BCE, but there were still people practicing full body 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.880 burials throughout the time periods that were talking about. They 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.040 still had to be interred outside the city, but families 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:18.240 of wealth and even a lot of the middle class 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:22.280 had private mausoleums built on land outside the walls of Rome. 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:26.320 That land was extremely expensive, so there were also shared 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:31.160 burial spaces that families with less money could buy into 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:35.720 to inter their dead, both intact and cremated, without having 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:39.840 to own land and build a private mausoleum. Jewish and 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.439 Christian communities, though needed to bury all of their dead 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.720 because of their religious beliefs, there was no option to 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.880 switch to cremation to try to mitigate overcrowding and lack 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:55.880 of land resources in a growing metropolis. Mausoleums were simply 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.960 not realistic, which is why large shared underground spaces were create, 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.680 And this was also not a new idea in the region. 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.719 The Etruscan civilization, which flourished from the eighth to the 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:13.360 third century BCE, had elaborate underground facilities. There are no 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.959 Etruscan underground burial sites in or immediately adjacent to Rome, 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:19.840 at least not that anybody has found. 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:22.720 But two of these, the Bandit. 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:28.720 Tacha Necropolis and Cervettori and Mantarazzi Necropolis in Tarquinia, are 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:31.400 both less than an hour's drive away today. 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:32.040 Yeah. 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.520 One thing that I found while looking at a lot 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.800 of scholarship about this is that there are even some 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.000 papers and some examinations that kind of make the leap 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.520 to thinking that possibly the Jewish population made use of 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:55.000 existing catacombs that had been Etruscan in origin, but we 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:56.920 don't really have a good way to know that, at 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:01.160 least not yet. Jewish and Christian bear as well as 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:05.480 some pagan ones, continued in the catacombs exclusively into the 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.400 early fourth century. At the beginning of the fourth century, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.400 in the year three oh three, Emperor Diocletian initiated an 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:18.520 intense persecution of Christians. This is always described as the 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:22.600 worst persecution of all of them in Rome and resulted 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:24.760 in the torture and deaths of a lot of people. 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.680 This went on for eight years, during which, despite that danger, 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:34.520 the numbers of Christians in the city continued to rise. Finally, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.960 in three eleven, Emperor Galerius, who had ascended to the 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.760 role of emperor in three oh five and who was 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.440 by the way deeply against Christianity, surprisingly issued an edict 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.840 of tolerance that was the Edict of Certica to end 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.920 that long persecution. By the time Galerius was emperor, he 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.640 was one of two under a system established by Diocletian 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.040 in two ninety three known as the tetrarchy. The the 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.120 Roman Empire was jointly ruled by two emperors, one to 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.840 manage the East and one to manage the West, and 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.120 each of them had their own designated successors who worked 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.240 under them. This was intended to create stability for the empire, 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:19.880 but unsurprisingly there were often problems. The time of Constantine 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.640 the First, who ruled the west starting in July of 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.960 three oh six, and Licinius, who became an emperor in 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.040 November three oh eight, was one in which there was 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.360 a lot of conflict between the two emperors. So much 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:36.160 conflict there are just reams and reams of papers written 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.360 about this conflict. But one thing that they did agree 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:43.200 on was the Edict of Milan in three thirteen. This 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.360 was an alliance in which they agreed to grant freedom 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.240 of religion to everyone, but they specifically called out Christians. 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.400 A translation of the first section of this edict reads quote, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.720 when I Constantine Augustus as well as I Licinius Augustus, 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.920 had fortunately met near Mediolanum, Milan, and we're considering everything 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.240 that pertained to the public welfare and security. We thought that, 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:09.560 among other things which we saw would be for the 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.199 good of many. Those regulations pertaining to the reverence of 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:17.119 the divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.120 we might grant to the Christians and to all others 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:25.280 full authority to observe that religion which each preferred, whence 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.280 any divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.720 be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.240 are placed under our rule. And thus, by this wholesome 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.760 council and most upright provision, we thought to arrange that 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.480 no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.480 his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, or 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.480 of that religion which he should think best for himself, 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.000 so that the Supreme Deity to whose worship we freely 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.360 yield our hearts, may show in all things his usual 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:59.720 favor and benevolence. Therefore, your worship should know that it 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.879 has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever which were 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:08.400 in the rescripts formerly given to you officially concerning the Christians, 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.359 And now any one of these who wishes to observe 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:15.879 the Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.840 any disturbance or molestation. We thought it fit to commend 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.440 these things most fully to your care, that you may 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.359 know that we have given to those Christians free and 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:29.720 unrestricted opportunity of religious worship. When you see that this 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.640 has been granted to them by us, your worship, will 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.080 know that we have also conceded to other religions the 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.040 right of open and free observance of their worship, for 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.760 the sake of the peace of our times, that each 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.920 one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.240 This regulation is made that we may not seem to 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.440 detract aught from any dignity or any religion. I kind 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:54.280 of love that there's a little bit of a bet 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.680 hedge in there of like whatever God is the one, 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.120 be cool or cool with whoever you, whoever follows you. 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.520 This edict also called for the return of all goods 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.480 and wealth that had been seized to be given back 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:12.160 to the Christians. So from that point on, Christians were 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:16.040 able to establish churches and cemeteries, meaning they could conduct 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.960 their burial rituals in the city proper. But even though 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.320 burial was allowed in the city and a large number 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.760 of churches were built and included cemeteries or even places 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.199 within the buildings for the dead. The catacombs did not 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.520 instantly fall out of use. They were actively part of 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.160 Christian burials for more than one hundred more years, even 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.920 after Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.000 Empire by Emperor Theodosius with the Edict of Thessalonica in 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:49.119 three point eighty. Over the next several centuries, as burials 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:53.280 in the catacombs became less frequent, a different activity was 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.480 on the rise in them, and that was looting. There 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.560 were also religious services performed there on occasion, but looting 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:05.359 became a real problem. Reading different accounts of the Catacomb's history, 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.120 a lot of different groups have been blamed for that looting. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.360 Mostly it was holy relics that were being taken from 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.800 burial sites. In reality, it was probably a lot of 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:19.160 different people over time. There's no one perpetrator. It's sometimes 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.520 said to have started with Christians removing relics since they 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.960 no longer had to literally keep their sacred items underground, 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.600 and other accounts point fingers at the various groups who 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.320 have invaded Rome since the fourth century, including the Visigoths, 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:37.840 the Vandals, the Byzantines, and the Lombards. This eventually led 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.240 the Vaticans to initiate a move of the relics from 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.080 the catacombs to churches around the city where they could 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.960 be carefully watched and safeguarded. With the removal of the relics, 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.400 the church also removed the reason that people had still 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.440 been visiting the catacombs, and over time they were more 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.800 or less abandoned and forgotten. Additionally, while they were out 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.720 the city's original walls, as the city grew and expanded 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:08.200 past those old boundaries, new neighborhoods were built on top 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.000 of the catacolums, and people just sort of lost track 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.840 of where they were until they were rediscovered by a 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.000 man named Antonio Bosio. And we'll talk about him after 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.120 we hear from the sponsors that keeps stuff you missed 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:33.360 in history class going. Antonio Bosio was born in fifteen 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.199 seventy five or fifteen seventy six in Malta. He is 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.919 recorded by historian Bartolomeo dal Pozzo as having been the 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:45.119 child of Baligionotto, a knight of the Order of Saint John, 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.439 who had taken a vow of chastity that would have 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:52.600 made his existence a little bit problematic, and that was 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.680 compounded by the fact that his mother was either a 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.320 servant or an enslaved woman. The way it's written in 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:03.600 the old record, it's unclear what they mean when they 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:08.720 refer to her. When Antonio was twelve, he was adopted 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.320 and he was raised by his uncle, Jacomo Bosio, who 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:16.000 lived in Rome, and over time any mentions of Antonio's 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:19.240 parentage seemed to have been left out of his life story, 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:25.120 so his uncle Jacomo became essentially his parent. Antonio Bosio 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:27.840 was apparently a bit wild in his youth, but as 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.359 he matured he became a serious scholar. He got a 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.639 law degree and practiced for several years, but he was 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.439 also a history buff and was specifically fascinated with early 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:43.160 Christian history, so he started exploring any places that held 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:47.360 traces of the religion's earliest days, and that led him 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.040 to the underground cemeteries of the city. He explored them 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:55.320 in a very meticulous and careful manner, cataloging as much 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.000 as he could about everything that he saw there. He 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.040 started working on a book detailing the catacombs that he 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:04.560 had explored, but he died on September sixth, sixteen twenty 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:06.679 nine before it was ready to go to print. 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.000 It was basically complete, but it needed editing. 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.200 Bozio willed everything that he had to the Order of Malta, 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:16.440 and the grand Master of the Order at the time, 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.879 Antoine de Paul, was convinced that the manuscript should go 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:24.960 to press. Roma Sotrana Underground Rome was published in the 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:28.439 sixteen thirties and it is often cited with creating the 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:34.479 bedrock methodology and ideology of modern archaeology. His interpretations of 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:37.760 what he had seen and explored were incorrect in some instances. 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.240 He thought the catacombs had been hiding places where Christians 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:44.439 hold up during times of persecution, was not what they 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:48.480 were used for, but he captivated readers with his descriptions 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:52.320 of these underground cities. He had also commissioned artists to 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:55.119 create imagery of many of the things he had described 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:57.480 to be included in the book, and he had studied 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:01.800 early Christianity and was able to historical contextualize a lot 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:05.080 of the areas that he explored. This writing was also 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:07.960 a boon to the Catholic Church and the decades after 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:12.000 Martin Luther's kickoff of the Protestant Reformation in fifteen seventeen, 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:15.960 support for the papacy had fallen off very steeply, but 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:21.240 Bozzio's writings about martyrs laid to rest in subterranean Roman 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:26.400 cities sparked a new interest in Catholicism and in religious 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:30.320 relics that might also be there. Some of these, including 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:33.960 skeletons of martyrs, many of them clad in armor, became 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:37.760 important symbols of the Catholic Church's fight against the Protestants. 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:42.119 A lot of these, so called corfy santi or catacomb saints, 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:44.840 were sent to Catholic churches around Europe to try to 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:48.840 bolster interest in and devotion to the Church. I know 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:51.320 he said earlier that the relics were taken out of 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:55.640 the catacombs by the church, but they did not purge everything, 0:24:55.680 --> 0:25:00.159 because at that point some catacombs were completely lost. If 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:03.680