[118] Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century, asserts that under Numerian, the brother and contemporary of Carinus, Chrysanthus and Daria suffered martyrdom in a Catacomb on the _Via Salaria_. A number of the faithful being observed to visit their tombs, the emperor ordered the entrance to be built up and covered with a heap of sand and stones, that they might be buried alive in common martyrdom. When their remains were discovered by Damasus, in the fourth century, he refrained from removing them, and simply made an opening from an adjacent gallery, that pilgrims to the early shrines of the faith might behold, without disturbing it, this “Christian Pompeii.” Gregory asserts that these interesting relics were still to be seen in his day--the skeletons of men, women, and children lying on the floor, and even the silver vessels (_urcei argentei_) which they used. [119] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 1. [120] _Ibid._ [121] _De Mort. Persec._, c. xxiii. [122] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 1. [123] Caius ... fugiens persecutionem Diocletiani in cryptis habitando, martyrio coronatur.--_Lib. Pontif._; cf. Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, vii, 32. [124] Ἐκ τῶν ἐν στρατείαις ἀδελφῶν καταρχομένου τοῦ διωγμοῦ.--_Hist. Eccles._, viii, 1. [125] _Vita Const._, ii, 54. [126] The following inscription, found in Spain, and given by Gruter, seems designed as the funeral monument of dead and buried Christianity. But though apparently destroyed, like its divine Author, instinct with immortality it rose triumphant over all its foes. DIOCLETIAN · CAES · AUG · GALERIO · IN ORIENTE · ADOPT · SVPERSTITIONE CHRIST · VBIQ · DELETA ET CVLTV DEOR · PROPAGATO. “To Diocletian, Cæsar Augustus, having adopted Galerius in the East, the Christian superstition being every-where destroyed, and the worship of the gods extended.” [127] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 2. The effects of the persecution were felt even in Britain. (Gildas, _de Excid. Britan._, in Bingham, viii, 1.) Alban was the first British martyr at a somewhat earlier date. [128] “The dungeons destined for murderers,” says Eusebius, “were filled with bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists, so that there was no room left for those condemned for crime.”--_Hist. Eccles._ [129] Nec unquam sine cruore humano coenabat.--Lactan., _de Mort. Persec._ [130] Date of Edict, April 30, A. D. 311. Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, ix, 1. [131] Eusebius gives the edict, taken from a brazen tablet at Tyre, in which the Emperor speaks of “the votaries of an execrable vanity, like a funeral pile long disregarded and smothered, again rising in mighty flames and rekindling the extinguished brands.” _Hist. Eccles._, ix, 9.