Roman Holiday

Yesterday we headed off early to the Roman Forum. We've noticed that if you go anywhere early, you miss the long lines. It was overwhelming - so many remains of temples and the original Forum. You can turn all around and still see marble columns and stones. We decided to leave Palatine Hill for when Lizzie gets here, and headed off on the Archeobus to the Catacombs of Saint Callixtus.

It was very different from the catacombs in Paris. There you pass through corridors of nameless bones, all reordered and arranged. At St Callixtus' or St Callisto's (English) catacombs, there is much more religious significance. Apparently for the first three hundred or so years, Christians were not allowed to be buried within the walls of Rome. (Constantine made Catholicism the official church of the state in 313) Christians with property outside the city wall donated it and Christians then buried their families underground. A priest said an opening prayer before the tour and then we heard the story of the early church through the history of the cemetery. It is very cold down there, but quite inspiring. As you enter the walls are covered with chunks of marble slabs. A couple of hundred hears later the Barbarians attacked Rome and ransacked the tombs, taking any valuables they could find. The marble slabs covering each hole in the wall were smashed.
Here is some information from the Christian Catacombs of Rome website:
“The catacombs of St. Callixtus are among the greatest and most important of Rome. They originated about the middle of the second century and are part of a cemetery complex which occupies an area of 90 acres, with a network of galleries about 12 miles long, in four levels, more than twenty meters deep. In it were buried tens of martyrs, 16 popes and very many Christians. They are named after the deacon Callixtus who, at the beginning of the third century, was appointed by pope Zephyrinus as the administrator of the cemetery and so the catacombs of St. Callixtus became the official cemetery of the Church of Rome.”
It was an amazing place. We enjoyed a beautiful, long walk to get there.

We ended the day with a circuit on the Archeobus - our tickets are no longer valid now. We hopped off at Termini and walked back to Barberini. Of course we enjoyed gelati on the way. This morning we're off on another adventure - church. In Italian!