History of mediæval art . nd air {luminarid). Thesechambers contained sarcophagi {mensae) reserved for eminent per-sonages ; being covered with large slabs of marble, the coffers werefrequently used as altar-tables. Masonry of brick was employed CATACOMB OF CALIXTUS. 9 when found necessary, and all the walls were thinly covered withstucco, whitewashed and roughly painted. The persecutions with which the third century began, disturbedfor the first time the regular development of the plan. At thatperiod seem to have been formed those hidden labyrinthic gallerieswhich led from the side farthest f
History of mediæval art . nd air {luminarid). Thesechambers contained sarcophagi {mensae) reserved for eminent per-sonages ; being covered with large slabs of marble, the coffers werefrequently used as altar-tables. Masonry of brick was employed CATACOMB OF CALIXTUS. 9 when found necessary, and all the walls were thinly covered withstucco, whitewashed and roughly painted. The persecutions with which the third century began, disturbedfor the first time the regular development of the plan. At thatperiod seem to have been formed those hidden labyrinthic gallerieswhich led from the side farthest from the street to .the neighbor-ing sand-pits, in order that, in case of surprise, an escape might beprovided, and that the believers, when watched by informers, mightfind unobserved entrance by means of ladders and ropes. As ingeneral the persecutions were directed against the congregationsrather than against the cemeteries, the extension of the latter wascarried regularly forward. ? Indeed, from the death of Septimius. Fig. 5.—Forms of Tombs in the Loculus. b. Arcosolium. Severus, in the year 211, to the beginning of the persecution underDecius, in 250, the work was pursued with great diligence, and butrarely interrupted. After the founder of the necropolis, Pope Zephyrinus, hadbeen interred there, in the year 218, even the bodies of thechief officers of the Church who had died in exile were permittedto be publicly brought, with funeral rites, and laid in the PapalVault. Pope Fabianus connected the oldest enclosure of theCemetery of Calixtus with a second tract, situated upon the otherside of the Via Appia Ardeatina, which had likewise belonged tothe Csecilian family; and, probably in 249, with still a third ad-joining complex, which appears to have been given to the Churchby Anatolia, daughter of the Consul Aemilianus, who died in thatyear. This last catacomb received, in later times, the name of St. IO EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. Eusebius. Al
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