Damasus made an excellent record in his see, after the abating of the troubles which attended his accession to it. He left no room for doubt as to his orthodoxy. For the first time since the great controversy broke out in Alexandria, the whole weight and influence of the great Roman see was thrown unreservedly and effectively on the Athanasian side. The accession of Valentinian (364-75) to the imperial authority in the West once more threw the weight of court influence on the other side; but intolerance was not carried to the same extent as by Constantius. At every stage of the discussion we find Damasus outspoken on behalf of the Nicene faith, and in support of Athanasius. In 368 he held a synod at Rome, in which the Illyrian bishops Ursacius and Valens, who were trying to Arianize the West, were condemned as heretics; and in 370 another in which the same condemnation was meted out to Auxentius, the Bishop of Milan. Before he died he saw the second General Council meet at Constantinople and lay the ban of the Church on all the compromises with Arianism. The see of Rome already had become a place of great splendor and influence. “Make me Bishop of Rome,” the pagan senator Praetextatus said to him, “and I will be a Christian to-morrow.” Damasus seems to have enjoyed the pomp and show and opportunities for outlay and for influence which his position secured him. But there was much in his administration of his diocese which commends him to our sympathies and even our admiration. He seems to have been the first to have taken a genuine interest in the Catacombs—the great underground burial-places which are so rich in memorials of the Church’s primitive and martyr ages. He fostered their use as places of pilgrimage and reunion for the people of his own diocese and pilgrims from others. He constructed the staircases which made them accessible, the well-lights for their illumination and ventilation, and the chapels for collective worship. Here Christendom, in the day of its triumph, gathered to commemorate those who had been faithful when the Church was under the cross, and Prudentius in his _Peristephanon_ has left us a lively picture of the eager multitudes who resorted thither on the festival days, some from Rome itself, others from the Etrurian and Sabine villages, thronging even the great roads to the city to their utmost capacity: “From early morn they press thither to greet the saints. The multitude comes and goes until evening. They kiss the polished plates of silver which cover the grave of the martyr. They offer incense, and tears of emotion stream from the eyes of all.”