The City of the Dead
Instead of leveling the necropolis, Constantine decreed that the tombs should become part of the foundations of the new basilica. Engineers ordered workmen to fill the interiors of the mausoleums with earth behind a retaining wall. They then built the first basilica of St Peter above the cemetery- leaving pagan and Christian graves alike desecrated. The location of the supposed tomb of St Peter was noted and used as the site for the original church’s altar. Other than that, apart from a brief glimpsed during alterations in the sixteenth century, the rest of the cemetery was forgotten.
Constantine’s measures, however, had allowed for the preservation of a remarkably complete City of the Roman Dead spanning several centuries- as the twentieth-century excavators soon discovered. Excavators uncovered twenty-two family tombs beneath the basilica’s central nave. Based on dating of the graves, it seems by the second century AD, expansion over the former area of the Circus had already begun. The structures of the tombs, as well as their decorative facades and the burials within, survived mostly intact. These tombs did not just house one or two individuals but whole generations- some housing as many as 170 individuals.
The richly decorated tomb of the Caeterrii was the first to be found. The Caeterrii had risen from humble origins as bricklayers to count several senators amongst their ranks. Their monument reflected this status. The tomb was 5.18 meters wide, 5.48 meters deep and at 4.5 meters high and was so tall that the builders of the original basilica had to slice off its roof to accommodate it beneath the nave. Inside, instead of being interred in plain terracotta funeral urns, the deceased Caeterrii were found in vessels of carved alabaster.
Inscriptions above the doorway identified the Caeterri tomb. These notices were a feature common to all the mausoleums. However, not every crypt was for the exclusive use of one family. Half of Mausoleum N was stated to be the tomb of Marcus Aebutius Charito, but a Lucius Volusius Successus and Volusia Megiste used the other half. Nor were all the burials cremations. As time progressed, it became more common to find embalmed bodies in sarcophagi.
By the Christian era, space in the cemetery was at a premium and pagan, and Christian were buried close together. Just behind the grand Caeterrii tomb was the humbler grave of an early Christian, Emilia Gorgonia. Only a stone that read Dormit in Pace– ‘sleep in peace’ marked this burial. However, not all Christian graves were this basic. The religion of the owners of the late third/early fourth-century Tomb of the Julii was apparent from the mosaic décor inside. Images of the pagan Sol Invictus as Christ the Sun appear alongside depictions of Jonah and the whale and the good shepherd carrying a lamb.
But did the excavators find any earlier burials that could be the tomb of St. Peter?