Catacombs and Roman Countryside (Rome Day 2, Part 1)

As I mentioned in my previous post, our only scheduled tour in Rome took place on Saturday morning.  But first we needed breakfast.  We found All Brothers Cafe just around the corner advertising "American Breakfast."  A typical Italian breakfast is simple - cappuccino and pastry.  Our American breakfast included eggs, toast, and bacon.  But we also had cappuccino and pastries.

Our tour met at 10:00 a.m. near the Colosseum, so we decided to walk there.  A few wrong turns and three miles later we were at our meeting place.  Our guide was Jeannette.  She was very knowledgeable but had a tendency to talk too much about the latest Hollywood star she was in love with or talk negatively about her ex-husband.

Our first stop was the Catacombs of San Callisto or Saint Callixtus. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside the catacombs, but they were very interesting.  The first large-scale catacombs in the vicinity of Rome were excavated from the 2nd century onward. They were carved through tufo, a soft volcanic rock, outside the walls of the city, because Roman law forbade burial places within city limits. Since most Christians and Jews at that time belonged to the lower classes or were slaves, they usually lacked the resources to buy land for burial purposes. Instead, networks of tunnels were dug in the deep layers of tufo which occurred naturally on the outskirts of Rome.

The catacombs were dug one layer at a time.  The oldest crypts are the closest to the surface.  Once an area was full, a new lower level would be dug.  The catacombs that we saw do not contain any bones, just chambers where bodies had been placed.  When the barbarians (Goths and Longobards) invaded Italy and came down to Rome, they systematically destroyed a lot of monuments and sacked many places, including the catacombs.  They were disappointed to find that Christians were not buried with any valuables like many other religions.

Picture source: Vatican

It is believed that popes, martyrs, and many Christians were buried here. We walked through several areas.  Some held single crypts.  Others, as pictured above, were family crypts where entire families could be buried.  After quite some time underground, we were happy to be out in the fresh air again.  We were just steps away from where we had entered.

The next part of our tour took us to the Appian Way.  This was used as a main military route, constructed in 312 B.C.  This is the road the Apostle Paul took on his final journey to Rome as found in Acts 28.  The Appii Forum and Three Taverns named in verse 15 are both towns on the Appian Way.  This road is still used today by motorists, cyclists, runners and walkers. 

We took a short break for refreshments.  I bought a bottle of water and just before getting back on our van I saw Jeannette refilling hers in a fountain.  This would be the first of many times we would use Rome's water system.  There are around 2,500 public fountains which are called nasoni (big noses). These fountains contain clean water that is safe for drinking. This is the exact same water that comes out of the taps of Rome’s houses.  It was very refreshing and cold!

A fountain in the Roman Forum that we used later that afternoon.

Our final stop was the Roman Aqueduct.  Rome's first aqueduct was built in 312 B.C. and by the third century A.D. there were eleven aqueducts supplying water to the city of over one million people.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, some aqueducts were deliberately cut by enemies but many more fell into disuse through lack of organized maintenance. Their failure had an impact on the population of cities; Rome's declined from its high of over one million in the Imperial era to as low as 30,000 in the medieval era.

Aqueducts moved water through gravity alone, being constructed along a slight downward gradient within conduits of stone, brick or concrete. Most were buried beneath the ground, and followed its contours; obstructing peaks were circumvented or, less often, tunneled through. Where valleys or lowlands intervened, the conduit was carried on bridgework, or its contents fed into high-pressure lead, ceramic or stone pipes and siphoned across.

Our van took us back to the city and we said goodbye to our tour group just outside the Colosseum.  More on that part of our day later...

I've posted many more pictures to Shutterfly.  Click HERE.