The Hidden History of the Catacombs of Rome
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- If you'd like to explore the Roman catacombs - and Rome's other ancient wonders - with guides passionate about the history and culture of the Eternal City, consider Through Eternity Tours. Save 5% on any public or private tour with the discount code TOLDINSTONE2022:
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Over the course of two centuries, millions of Romans were buried in the vast network of subterranean cemeteries that we know as the catacombs. This video explores the genesis, construction, and ultimate abandonment of the ancient world's most fascinating necropolis.
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If you liked this video, you might also enjoy my book “Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.”
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:48 The Roman catacombs
1:31 Cremation and burial
2:31 Rome's cemeteries
3:08 Catacombs - private, Jewish, Christian
3:41 Building the catacombs
4:14 Burial in the catacombs
4:55 Art and inscriptions
5:57 Martyrs and pilgrims
6:34 Decline and abandonment
7:28 Through Eternity Tours
Dr. G! A tale to amuse you... During WWII the Germans bombed the crap out of Malta and when I worked there, my Scottish boss who had married a Maltese, told me that during the Siege of Malta, his wife's father - a kid at the time - helped his family delve a deep bomb shelter down into the friable limestone of the island, as so many did. Then, this kid and his sister, digging away one afternoon, broke into a vast subterranean space. They told no one about it, but explored it with candles and lamps and then, having disguised the entranceway they had created from the adults, would retreat into it during the heaviest bombardments. They even brought in chairs and a table to play chequers on. What they had found was the ancient Neolithic megalithic temple of Tarxien, now a major tourist attraction. I think of it still. Two kids deep underground in a temple built over 5,000 years ago, playing chequers in absolute stillness by candlelight while the Luftwaffe raids roared overhead demolished Renaissance palazzi, medieval fortresses, Roman villas with only a handful of Spitfires to fight them off.
Fascinating stuff. Taking refuge in history...
@@toldinstone Well, pre-history, to be academically precise.
@@cerberus6654 Not prehistory
Thats Wild ! Would give anything to have experienced something like that ... I live in Canada and e have sweet f' all here .. What we do have is the odd lump of dirt in a mound and some chipped stone bits . Thats about it . I am so Jealous and Envious of those who live in Europe and more so the UK where my Ancestors are from . One day i will get there and see what my heritage left for us . I just wish that day was Years ago . Cheers .
@@fetus2280 I'm Canadian too and yeah, you're right. We've got scenery and wilderness but that's about it. I think the most amazing thing that happened to me on Malta was hiking along a beach one Saturday that was beneath some cliffs with caves in them and right there on the sand was a red-brown fossilized bone about ten inches long. Beautiful huge rib bone, bigger than a modern cow. Then I noticed that both ends had been cleanly chopped like spare ribs, and all up and down the thing you could see little cross-hatched cuts where a razor sharp stone had been used to cut the meat off. Well, it seemed clear to me that hundreds of thousands of years ago when there were forests there and the Med was at least a couple of miles away that some Neanderthals up in those caves had a BBQ of some huge animal and tossed the scraps down the hill.
I’m with editor on this one… I wanna know about the lightening strike thing!
The Romans regarded any spot struck by lightning as sacred. A person killed by lightning was thought to have been singled out by the gods, and was buried on the site of his immolation.
@@toldinstone went to look this up while tabbed in still nd gave up. but i came back to the explanation, somewhat to be expected by the time they lived in
@@toldinstone What did the Romans think about people who survived being struck by lightning? Sacred as well, or did the lack of modern medicine mean it was basically impossible to survive at the time?
@@edanarator7716 dude modern medicine has nothing to do with a blast of electricity to your body. You either survive or you don’t, the same is still true today
@@toldinstone Singled out in a positive or negative way? I mean, I know being struck by lightning is not something most people look forward to, but was it viewed as death by an angry god or as a fatal blessing?
The horrors of just stumbling around in the dark for days in a catacomb
I’ve been to the catacombs of Rome and the underground city in Orvieto. They are mind blowing. The day that we visited the Santa Domatilla catacombs there was a group of Slovakian pilgrims who were having a worship service in the catacombs. They sang old Gregorian chants. It was an opportunity to get a tiny idea of what it might have been like for worshippers who were burying their dead.
Just visited these catacombs last week. Amazing
I was supposed to go with my dad to rome this spring or this autumn.. It would've been my first time visiting the city and i had made a bit of list of places to visit, maimly based on your videos... Although ironic now, we for sure would've toured the catacombs
May he rest in peace
In The Netherlands there was this rich dude in the early 1900's who was so fascinated by the roman catacombs that he ordered a replica to be made in the old lime stone quarries of Limburg. Of course it is not the real deal, but it is rather convincing and was nevertheless entertaining to see.
Are those the catacombs in Valkenburg? I was there in 1980. Lovely place.
@@OlizerVanAntoninus Yes as a matter fact. I've been there several times and it sure is a charming little town.
Sure
I’m actually so glad I bought your book. Your writing style is great and the subjects you cover are amazingly interesting.
I requested it from my library. They bought a copy for their stacks.
I'm loving it
I bought it. It was fun to read!
I also tend to use a bottle of perfume or two to disguise my own decay.
Amazingly, the sponsor is spot-on matching here and not annoying at all. Well done!
I was hoping for the plumber sponsor! People need plumbing in catacombs too you know ;)
There are tons of catacombs all over Latium; my moms family is from Latina and Cisterna di Latina, and the latter also has catacombs under a palace built in the 1500s. Nearby was a place called “tres tabernae”, which are the remnants of a Roman roadside “diner”.
Mine is from Neopoli
I know very well Cisterna di Latina and of course Latina as I was living there for 7 years. What a shame that 96% of Cisterna di Latina was destroyed during the landing of Anzio-Nettuno and was bombed by massive cannons by battleships, around the town in the countryside there are still craters from those shells. An ugly town that I never stopped but curiously I never new that it had catacombs!
@@paoloviti6156
Cisterna isn’t very pretty at all, but the catacombs are under the towns main palazzo in the historic center. Funny you mention the landing; my grandparents home was one of those destroyed by the artillery fire, and is the reason the moved to Venezuela… Then, in 2002, they had their homes and businesses expropriated by the Chavez administration.
I’ll never forget how good the buffalo mozzarella and burrata are; I miss stopping by the side of the roads there to pick them out of the barrels and eat them fresh with olive oil and a basil leaf
@@optimusprinceps3526
My grandmothers side is from Scauri and Formia- we could see Vesuvius from their homes hehe
yes I understood that it was under the "palazzo" and somewhere the center. I'm very sorry what Chavez did to you and many people in Venezuela. And I miss very much too those "mozzarella shops" as well and those shops on the way to Sperlonga. They were so good that I made pasta with mozzarella. It is a long time I moved back to Tuscany but I heard that many shops have been closed because it was not up to EU standards. Sad...
I know it's somewhat common to call the Roman volcanic layers "Tufa." However, Tufa suggests that the beds are layers of a limestone-esque carbonate rock (see examples such as the Trona Pinnacles). What is actually surrounding Rome is Tuff, a consolidated volcanic rock comprised of lithified ash. Not sure exactly where the catacombs are, but I'd guess it's in the Villa Senni Tuff Unit, since it's the thickest of the three tuff layers, and it underlies the anthropogenic (ruins, etc) layers on top.
Love all your videos! As a geologist I don't get a chance to weigh-in on history videos, just wanted to make a distinction between the two rock types.
You're right, of course - geologically speaking, the rock under Rome is tuff, not tufa. But because the Italian term is tufa, it's become conventional (at least among ancient historians) to use that name, despite the risk of confusion with actual tufa. The tangled webs we weave...
In Italian grammar we say Tufo as a male not Tufa as a female. My Swedish girlfriend says that Italian language is "sexist" but I tried to explain her that it is not entirely correct because it is question of "musical" associations!! It is fine to call it tuff in English but perhaps it would better to call it Tufo in Italian or Latin to avoid misunderstanding but it is just my opinion....
@@paoloviti6156 I don't understand. Is your girlfriend joking about Italian being a sexist language because it conjugates on gender? Because if she isn't, she does know Swedish does the same thing right?
Edit: update, I did some research because this really caught my eye, and it turns out, the system of masculine and feminine overtime merged into one single form in Swedish. It USED to exist historically, but now it's like how in french we say "le" or "la" but in English both translate to "the". The language essentially simplified
@@saaddagoat she was actually joking but was a bit miffed. But you are correct, I speak a a bit of Swedish as my mother is Swedish and I'm born in Stockholm. That said in the eighties Olof Palme and his party then was so politically "motivated" that imposed a simplified Swedish dispensing much of the old grammar, that was almost identical to German grammar. It was ridiculous because you can't say hej/ciao to the King or Prime minister and maybe give a nice slap on the shoulder. In this those same kind of people tried something similar in Italy but didn't work at all....
@@paoloviti6156 the more you know! I always imagined Nordic languages were similar to romance and Germanic, but I never imagined the speakers would take it upon themselves to simplify the language lmao. This kinda makes me want to learn Swedish now ahaha. It would be a nice change from Russian grammar that's for sure
I've always loved that fresco called 'Cubiculum of the Veiled Woman.' the middle image of the woman with the outstretched arms is 🔥
I often wonder if this is a depiction similar to how an early Christian teacher like Marcellina would've been remembered.
Great work, Garrett 👏
Appreciated as always!
Loving your videos man!
Excellent background on the underground, really lays bare the scope and scale of Rome as the earliest metropolis. Amazing history, thank you!
I recommend visting around noon. The temp is cooler in the summer
and wherever there is a skylight (a small roof opening),
a sun beam hits the ground like a white laser 👌
Maybe, but I would never ever visit rome during summer times. Too hot.
I would assume that inhumation in the Middle East was the only option in a dessert. I think if wood was something abundantly available it would be a preferred option, until talk of resurrection was taken seriously.
Sometimes
It's thought that Gobele Tekle (or however you spell it) in Turkey was associated with sky burials. At any rate, you won't find many people living in most actual deserts, though Mesopotamia at least was certainly lacking in the wood that would have been desirable for cremation.
AHHH! I've been waiting for an ancient funeral practices video from you! This is awesome!
Thank you for doing this fella! Awesome as always.
My favorite tomb/burial/tombstone/whatever the proper term is would be the dog whose epitaph reads in first person…Err first canine… Like “I’m Fido. My master buried me here and provided this cool tombstone for me cause I was a good boy and performed my dogly duties faithfully for twelve years. Then I became infirm with the fart needles and the gods saw fit for me to cross the Styx.”
Like dudes grave is probably long gone and forgotten if he even had one. He was there to bury his dog but possible no one was there to bury an old destitute fellow. I think if only him or his dog could be known for thousands of years he’d choose his pooch.
Fantastic Video, Thank You.
I was in the Catacomb of Santa Domitilla a week ago. This is an interesting video to watch afterwards as it goes over the same topic, and provides more information.
excellent video!
Thank you. Interesting and informative.
What a wonderful video.
Great video; Malta has ancient catacombs as well.
Glad to see you! I forgot to check your channel for a few weeks. . . A bit odd RUclips never notifies when you upload
Very entertaining and educational :)
Fascinating! Thanks.
Always the best pairing sponsors fr
Thank you for the video!
Thank you!
That new logo is really awesome
I love your presentation. I live in the Rome of the New World and have worked in a historic cemetery.
I have read about the transition of what people once called "Christian Burials" as described in the story of how Adam was buried by Seth. Some tribes used burial mounds for their elders However, it is no longer seen as hugging an ancestor, but instead a "Tree Hugger" is a nature activist.
Then the Latin speaking people arrived on the land, raised the symbol of death and hid all their dead men. I'm assuming they documented the location, because they all received new grave markers during the late 1800s Greek reform. These were the ones buried in the ground, but didn't become a tree, but instead their family mourns over stoned masonry.
There was an a sect of cursed beliefs that arrived a little after that time, they sole the belief that buried like a King was the new thing of the day and the toured around the body of a dead President to sell the corporate new way. After that sect finally changed the original thought, the President signed legislation that took the original teachings out of education. However, he didn't last long, he was taken by a bullet and the pre-need business was sold by the charm.
Now, I am out of the industry and can say for sure that the reformation is upon us again.
Some historic cemeteries have sold their lands for "the fathers" of science and modern medicine to be built above. Others are now being abandoned, Catholic Cemeteries are being left to rot and disappearing with the churches that used to serve the community. Sadly, it is history that is lost that can't be regained, but the Natural Burial Commission has arrived as a player in this New World game.
It comes and it goes, gets built and demolished, but it's with people like you that we remain knowledgably astonished
Fab video!! 🏆⭐👍😁
BUY THE BOOK!!
Thank you sir
Thanks!
I have visited years ago the Catacombs of Santa Prescilla that was very interesting especially the almost intact tombs with paintings almost as if it was painted some years ago, not centuries. It is an incredible labyrinth to visit but I can't fathom how it is so dark to walk around with only a torch as it is really creepy there..
Two weeks ago I was at the Catacombs of San Marcellino and San Pietro and it's breathtaking.
Thank you
Excellent! Did the popularity of certain names wax and wane during the Empire? What were the most popular names?
And new subject-have you thought about hosting any tours of Rome yourself?
They did (stay tuned for a future video on names)! I've never really considered doing tours myself, simply because (truth be told) the guiding thing doesn't really appeal to me.
@@toldinstone sounds good on the names! On the tour guide part, I can completely understand.
@@toldinstone just hire entertaining guides, but you write the script and plan the tour. Bet it would be far more interesting than most tours.
I never see any of the Tour Books talk about the beautiful Verano cemetery; great art and lovely grounds...and FREE ...No crowds. People suffer long waits and lines at the Vatican yet can go to Verano free and see actual funerary art in situ! Famous angels by Monteverde too.
An endorsement deal! Nice to see.
Ive been fascinated with catacombs like the ones in paris, but this many mysterious routes makes me want to see it myself!
Most of the catacombs are closed. Seeing as mass tourism in what is a cheistian cemitery next to the pope wouldn’t be well perceived. By most I mean 99%. I would also imagine most of them are also unexplored, since no official exploring mission was ever undertaken, and I don’t see what people would be doing down there (seing how much of it must be in part collapsed, unlike in Paris bodies/bones were never taken out, etc).
I am not sure who would have access to the closed off entrances. Maybe the church maybe cultural ministery. And probably there are other entrances to some sections which aren’t being checked or aren’t known.
If you dig a whole in the right place (and there could be places where you could do this undisturbed) you could find yourself in it. So maybe if you want to explore that is the path?
yay upload
Sack ray blew!
I never knew how extensive the catacombs were. Mind boggling.
Enjoyed the video! One also wonders in addition to the reasons you mentioned, if the cremation of the emperors who were (usually) declared divine, also influenced early Christian practice to bury instead of cremate?
" You'll never find my Sarcophagus " 🌿😆🌿
Aber jeder weiß, wo dein bescheiden er Sarkophag ist
We visited the subterranean world below San Clemente, and the "City of Water" under Harry's Bar and Hotel last summer. Highly recommended!
I’m a Christian and I absolutely love your vids bro!! ❤️
Orvieto is a really nice place!
We have quite some villages which large tunnel systems which are historic. In Oppenheim at the Rhine river people escaped there during all the wars.
Nowadays they are attractive for tourists. They're great wine cellars and nice restaurants.
Trier has been a roman emperor city. An underground tour is as fine as a wine tasting in the big roman wine cellars....Come and visit!
Pretty badass
the romans thought that where lightning struck was sacred. they built special little temples on those spots.
persons struck by lightning were seen to have been killed directly by the gods and were untouchable things.
How could humanity descend so much with the fall of a State? I hope our civilization keeps thriving long enough to never see a period like 450-1000 again.
Underground base full of weird niches :)
Someone should ask the question: "Could people have moved from cremation to burial because of deforestation?" Lack of wood for fuel, especially in the eastern Mediterranean would have made cremation more difficult.
Uhh some dude was blindly walking through the catacombs for 2 days…. That sounds freaking terrifying
At 1:30 you ask if the coin depicts a funeral pyre or a birthday cake. Could a tall cake actually be it? Did the Romans have birthday cakes? Thanks!
Yes and I love cake
They did have cakes, but usually not fancy ones like that. The reverse of that coin shows the four-story funeral pyre of Antoninus Pius.
1:01 I can totally see getting lost in there forever haha
are the carvings of fish and such on the tombstones made at the same time as the tomb was placed or when other carvings were made on the tombstone? or before or after?
I hate to ask this question, but- When a human decomposes, they basically leak out a bunch of gross fluid. Any chance they were collecting the fluid and using it as some sort of fuel or oil, and that’s why they did it this way?
Doubtful. Those fluids wouldn't be good for fuel and sure as heck isn't oil. In very specific conditions adipose tissue can undergo a process that creates "corpse wax" that perhaps could be used as fuel.
I was told by a Catholic priest that the reason relics of the Saints were placed in the altar stones was in remembrance of persecuted early Christians celebrating their services in the catacombs, but it is apocryphal. It's actually to remember early services held over the graves of the Saints, though some were certainly in the catacombs.
I'm amazed every time I study Ancient Egyptian mythology/religion how often it is aligned with Jewish/Christian teachings. I guess the roughly 500 miles between the peoples is a short journey for mythology!
Which catacomb is the least claustrophobic? Or brightest lit?
Could you do a video on cult of mithra?
Were the spots in the catacombs rented out for a number of years, as is current in many French cemeteries?
Not just the French ones, in the UK you only get 50 years then your out of there if they need the space
@@alland1241 My parents opted for "green" burial. so they are in what Australians call 'scrub' within earshot of the M1. They might be disturbed, as anyone can, but it is not a rental situation.
@@SubTroppo it's all in the burial and plot details, believe me you will have paid for it
Anybody played Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma before? The hidden underground underneath the monastery with all the huge brown undead ghouls crawling out from the burial niches in the walls is definitely 100% inspired by this.
I visited some catacombs when I visited Rome in 2003. They were empty. Where were the bodies moved to?
I have always wondered if there are still people entombed underground in their original places.
are there other companies doing the same mission as the sponsor? What are the ethics and practices used by this type of efforts and companies? How do different ones compare, both the practices/ethics and the companies using them?
wow
I'm not trying to do historical one-up-man-ship, but how do they compare to the much more recent (and famous) catacombs of Paris? Both in size, decoration, and care with which the deceased were placed?
The Paris catacombs are, of course, much more recent, and were built much more systematically (since they originated in a government-sponsored "sanitization" project). Unlike the Roman catacombs, which were true cemeteries, the Paris catacombs are really a gigantic ossuary, designed to hold the bones of the long dead. Their scale, however, is comparable to that of the Roman catacombs, at least in terms of total burials.
Finally! An North American RUclipsr who knows how to say 'niche'
How do you visit the city catacombs in Rome.
There are two catacombs on the Appian Way. The hop on, hop off bus stops there.
The Silent Majority
Are you writing a second book?
I am! It's a sequel to "Naked Statues," and will be published in September 2023.
@@toldinstone Awesome! I hope all goes well with publishing it. Will be looking forward to it!
I wonder what they did with the material that was removed? Concrete production?
Perhaps cremation fell out of fashion because fuel became less abundant and more expensive
And The Clean Air Act of Diocletian...
cool but where are the draugrs
Christians: "We only want a World in which Christ's justice and love rule all of us"
Emperors Nero, Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Thrax, Decius, Gallus, Valerian and Diocletian: "So, anyway, we started burning..."
I didn't
Lol
2:49 hundreds if not thousands of niches for funerary urns
tumblr probably
Obviously
Well.. if the gods are mad enough at poor Horious to strike him dead with lightning I sure af am not gonna dare stir the gods anger by moving Horious to bury him.
Maybe there are Eastern Roman catacombs beneath Istanbul too.
404 Istanbul not found
Did you mean Constantinople?
@@Michael_the_Drunkard I was originally going to write Constantine, but the Turkish people on the internet can be quite hot-blooded, a lot of them say Eastern Rome never existed and the "Byzantine Empire" was only Greek and therefore their enemies 🙄
@@lucas9269 Even the ottomans called it constantinople.
Was a fresco of Dionysus found in the catcombs? Romans called him Bacchus.
There were a number of "pagan" frescoes in the catacombs, both because non-Christians were buried there, and because early Christian art borrowed heavily from traditional Roman models.
@@toldinstone Was Inpace (in peace) a non-Christian sentiment? If not this fresco is a little confusing.
@@metametaphysician2279 That wasn't "Dyonisius", it was "Dyonisia".
Bro............................the lightning
I visited the catacombs some time ago. The tour guide said there were some one million people buried down there! I thought for sure he must be exaggerating. Anyone know if that's correct?
Nobody knows the exact number, but there were probably well over a million burials in the Roman catacombs.
@@toldinstone I'll be darned. I feel really bad now for calling him a liar and leaving him a 1 star review.
@@toldinstone Wow! I never would have guessed anything that high.
Change the rating. Or delete it. It could be 1 million, because rome was for centuries the capital with million inhabitants.
I was kidding about the review, etc.
Think what a treasure trove for DNA archeologists...
😎💀
I'd love to go on one of these tours. But I'm an unvaccinated Australian. Is this still a problem?
why were lightning strike victims buried on the spot?
Because a lightning was a sign of the gods, the ones stroke by lightning were deemed to be "chosen" by the gods or to have enraged the gods, so they would be "sacer" (in Latin meaning both "holy" and "cursed") and would have to be separated from other people/dead.
@@Laurelin70 thank you so much
When I die, please... just cremate me and spread my ashes at the next Foreigner concert.
Is the word Catachism from the same root word?
It's spelled catechism, and no.
Catacumbas from the Greek "catà" = near and "cùmbas" = caves. Cathechismus from the Greek "cathekèin" = to teach orally.
I told by a man who taught history at U of M that by the end of Rome's status as the major world power, the names you see engraved on tombs of that ere reflect that those later people weren't "real" Romans, but people from around the empire with Romanized names. He also claimed that was why Rome ceased to be the major power. Does your research reflect that, or was I getting bamboozled?
It's true that many of the people with Roman names found in places like the catacombs were not native Romans, or even ethnic Italians. But that doesn't mean that they weren't "real" Romans. Rome had always been a melting pot, and a Roman name - whatever a person's origins - indicated Roman citizenship. In the eyes of Roman law, at least, that made someone Roman. Rome's decline had nothing to do with the influx of new Romans. In fact, "new" Romans - emperors like Aurelian and Diocletian, whose ancestors came from the Roman frontiers - saved the empire in the third and fourth centuries.
Romans at the time certainly felt so, OP, I recall reading that there was a lot of consternation about the extension of the citizenship even to all Italians. The loss of "small-town" energy and interconnectedness and mutual sacrifice for the sake of kinship couldn't not have had an influence on the mindset of the population. To what extent Romans actually existed by the third century, then, is debatable, but I do think the core ethnic group was still present and clinging on conservatively to privilege by means of kinship groups. As for ruling individuals, I don't think is hugely relevant, many peoples have been ably led by a foreigner to their own benefit, eg. the British under the Hanoverian dynasty.
It is news to me that Christians allegedly did not hide out in the catacombs during persecutions. I wonder where the story came from, and what evidence was used to refute it. Proving that something like that never happened seems like it would be a difficult task.
Why are you making me look up "inhumation"? "The action or practice of burying the dead; the fact of being buried."
Wasnt the transition to catacombs fueld by the emergence of christianity itself,
is your voice faster in this or something? It sounds off.
The early Christians we’re praying God would free them from tyranny of Rome. Rome took their religion over instead.
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