We cannot better conclude this necessarily imperfect survey of these ancient Christian cemeteries than by quoting the following passage, though characterized by a somewhat fervid rhetoric, from “Les Trois Romes” of the Abbé Gaume: “Here is the glorious monument,” he exclaims, “of the faith and charity of our forefathers! This work of giants was completed by a community of poor men, destitute of resources, without talent as without fortune, incessantly persecuted and frequently decimated. What, then, was the secret of their power? This is the problem suggested by the sight of the Catacombs in general, and of the Catacombs on the Appian Way in particular. The solution is in one word--FAITH. This power--unknown to the ancient world, and too little recognized in the modern world--this 202 faith, was the lever by which the early Christians could remove mountains, and turn and change the universe. With one hand they constructed in the bowels of the earth a city more astonishing than Babylon or the Rome of the Cæsars; and with the other, seizing on the pagan world in the abyss of degradation into which it was plunged, they raised it to the virtue of angels, and suspended it to the cross.” [291] This book, so often referred to, has been ascribed to Damasus but much of it is unquestionably of much later origin. While much of its information is valuable, more of it is quite unauthentic. [292] “Qua limite noto Appia longarum teritur _Regina Viarum_.”--_Stat. Syl._, II, 2. [293] Often mere vulgar wealth exhibited its ostentation even in death by the magnitude and magnificence of these tombs designed to perpetuate the memory of their occupants forever. But, as if to rebuke that posthumous pride, they are now mere crumbling ruins, often devoted to ignoble uses, the very names of whose tenants are forgotten. Many of them, during the stormy period of the Middle Ages, were occupied as fortresses. More recently that of Augustus, on the Campus Martius, was used as an arena for bull-fights, and as a summer theatre, where Harlequin played his pranks upon an emperor’s grave. Some of the tombs have been converted into stables, pig-styes, or charcoal cellars. The cinerary urn of Agrippina, wife of Germanicus, was long used as a measure for corn. In many a _vignarolo’s_ hovel in the Campagna swine may be seen eating out of sculptured sarcophagi, and in the imperial halls where banqueted the masters of the world they hold their unclean revels. “Expende Hannibalem,” says the Roman satirist, “quot libras in duce summo invenies?” [294] _Monumenti delle Arti Cristiane Primitive_, p. 73. [295] Substitit ad veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam. --Juv., _Sat._, iii.