Christian antiquities -- Italy -- Rome; Rome (Italy) -- Antiquities
These are by no means the only patricians of high standing whose names
have come to light from the depths of the catacombs. Tacitus (_Annal_.
xiii. 32) tells how Pomponia Græcina, wife of Plautius, the conqueror
of Britain, was accused of "foreign superstition," tried by her
husband, and acquitted. These words long since gave rise to a
conjecture that Pomponia Græcina was a Christian, and recent
discoveries put it beyond doubt. An inscription bearing the name of
ΠΟΜΠΟΝΙΟC ΓΡΗΚΕΙΝΟC has been found in the Cemetery of
Callixtus, together with other records of the Pomponii Attici and
Bassi. Some scholars think that Græcina, the wife of the conqueror of
Britain, is no other than Lucina, the Christian matron who interred
her brethren in Christ in her own property, at the second milestone of
the Appian Way.
Other evidence of the conquests made by the gospel among the
patricians is given by an inscription discovered in March, 1866, in
the Catacombs of Prætextatus, near the monument of Quirinus the
martyr. It is a memorial raised to the memory of his departed wife by
Postumius Quietus, consul A. D. 272. Here also was found the name of
Urania, daughter of Herodes Atticus, by his second wife, Vibullia
Alcia,[4] while on the other side of the road, near S. Sebastiano, a
mausoleum has been found, on the architrave of which the name
URANIOR[UM] is engraved.
In chapter vii. I shall have occasion to refer to many Christian
relatives of the emperors Vespasian and Domitian. Eusebius, in
speaking of these Flavians, and particularly of Domitilla the younger,
niece of Domitian, quotes the authority of the historian Bruttius. He
evidently means Bruttius Præsens, the illustrious friend of Pliny the
younger, and the grandfather of Crispina, the empress of Commodus. In
1854, near the entrance to the crypt of the Flavians, at Torre
Marancia (Via Ardeatina), a fragment of a sarcophagus was found, with
the name of Bruttius Crispinus. If, therefore, the history of
Domitilla's martyrdom was written by the grandfather of Bruttia
Crispina, the empress, it seems probable that the two families were
united not only by the close proximity of their villas and tombs, and
by friendship, but especially by community of religion.
I may also cite the names of several Cornelii, Cæcilii, and Æmilii,
the flower of Roman nobility, grouped near the graves of S. Cæcilia
and Pope Cornelius; of Liberalis, a _consul suffectus_,[5] and a
martyr, whose remains were buried in the Via Salaria; of Jallia
Clementina, a relative of Jallius Bassus, consul before A. D. 161; of
Catia Clementina, daughter or relative of Catius, consul A. D. 230, not
to speak of personages of equestrian rank, whose names have been
collected in hundreds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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