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perpendicularly in the ground, and to throw their bodies promiscuously in 

 them ; of this the memory is still preserved, churches having been built in the 

 places where the holes were made, and little monuments erected over the holes 

 themselves, to which the name of Putei is continued to this day. 



This is the true notion of the puticuli, holes dug perpendicularly in the 

 ground to receive bodies carelessly thrown in ; as appears to have been the 

 custom of the Romans to their slaves ; but how does this apply to the galleries 

 and chambers of the catacombs, where decency and distinction of quality is 

 nicely observed. I cannot forbear thinking they were made for this purpose, 

 and in consequence of the two ancient opinions, that the shades hate the 

 light, and love to hover about the place where the bodies are laid : they appear 

 so easy and decent a resting place for the one, without the least fear of being 

 ever disturbed, and at the same time there is provided a noble and a vast con- 

 veniency, full of variety, for the others, to space themselves freely and with 

 pleasure in. 



I think it will not be denied, that laying up the bodies in caves was the ori- 

 ginal way of disposing of the dead; this was the manner of the Phoenicians; and as 

 they with their colonies peopled the western parts of the world, it is more than 

 probable they carried it along with them. Afterwards, as men grew great and 

 powerful, they erected noble and magnificent monuments for themselves above 

 ground ; at length others of inferior degree imitated them, all leaving room 

 enough, and excluding the light : but then interring as we do now in the open 

 air, or in temples, was never the manner till Christianity introduced it. Of 

 the whole we have many instances, and II Signior Abbate Bencini, librarian of 

 the propaganda assured me, that on the great roads in most parts of Italy 

 little catacombs have been, and still are found under ground, and that it was 

 the custom to build small houses over them. This, and the testimony of the 

 labourers whom I consulted, made me abandon an opinion of which I was 

 once fond, that the catacombs are of the nature of our gravel-pits, as old as 

 the city itself, and that out of them was taken the puzzolana, the famous in- 

 gredient in the Roman mortar. The same learned gentleman added, as to 

 the marks of a martyr, that they do not conclude much ; and that the so 

 famed cypher xp was in use among the ancients long before Christianity. 

 And that it was composed of the two Greek letters XP, under which some- 

 thing mystical was comprehended, but that he met with no author that gave 

 account what the mystery was. 



Upon the whole, the catacombs I conceive were the burying-places of the 

 ancient Romans ; at length the manner of burning, which they received from 

 the Grecians, coming by degrees to prevail universally, they fell under a total 



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