Roman law forbade burying the dead inside the city, so tombs lined the roads. Beside the Appian Way, for four centuries, Christians carved tens of kilometres of galleries into the rock for their cemeteries. They were not hiding places: they were known, legal, visited graves. Twelve stops between the tomb of the Scipios, the false Arch of Drusus, the great gate in the wall, the Quo Vadis church, the Church's first official cemetery, the crypt of the popes and of Saint Cecilia, the catacomb with a basilica underground, the quarry where the Nazis killed 335 men, the Basilica of Saint Sebastian, the place that gave its name to every catacomb, the circus of a defeated emperor and the tomb of a woman turned into a castle. Approximate audio duration: 20 minutes.
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Roma: las catacumbas, donde los primeros cristianos no se escondían sino que enterraban a sus muertos
La ley romana prohibía enterrar a los muertos dentro de la ciudad, así que las tumbas se alinearon a lo largo de los caminos. Junto a la Via Appia, durante cuatro siglos, los cristianos excavaron en la roca decenas de kilómetros de galerías para sus cementerios. No eran escondites: eran tumbas conocidas, legales y visitadas. Doce paradas entre el sepulcro de los Escipiones, el falso arco de Druso, la gran puerta de la muralla, la iglesia del Quo Vadis, el primer cementerio oficial de la Iglesia, la cripta de los papas y de santa Cecilia, la catacumba con una basílica bajo tierra, la cantera donde los nazis mataron a 335 hombres, la basílica de San Sebastián, el lugar que le dio nombre a todas las catacumbas, el circo de un emperador derrotado y la tumba de una mujer convertida en castillo. Duración aproximada de audio: 20 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~20 min of audio · 5.47 km on foot (~1 h 20 min walking) · about 1 h 45 min in total
You are standing at the Tomb of the Scipios, a grave cut into the rock beside the old Appian Way. From the early third century BC, members of one of the most powerful families of the Roman Republic were buried here.
The oldest was Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, consul in 298 BC. His stone sarcophagus, with an inscription in verse, is now in the Vatican Museums. What you see here is a copy.
To understand the catacombs you have to start with a very old rule. The Law of the Twelve Tables, from the fifth century BC, put it bluntly: no dead person shall be buried or burned inside the city.
So…
2
The Arch That Was Not Drusus's
In front of you, just before the gate in the wall, stands an arch of brick and travertine. Since the Renaissance it has been called the Arch of Drusus.
Drusus was a general, stepson of Augustus, who died in 9 BC. The Senate dedicated an arch to him on the Appian Way, and for centuries people believed this was it.
It is not. This arch was part of an aqueduct from the early third century AD. It carried water towards the huge Baths of Caracalla, a few hundred metres away.
Notice how tightly it is squeezed against the gate. When the wall went up, the old aqueduct arch ended up pressed against t…
3
The Gate to the City of the Dead
You are in front of Porta San Sebastiano, the largest and best-preserved gate in the walls of Rome. Its two semicircular towers frame the way out to the Appian Way.
The wall was begun by the emperor Aurelian in 271, when Germanic peoples were already threatening Italy. It ran around the city for about nineteen kilometres.
In antiquity this was the Porta Appia. Its present name comes from the Basilica of Saint Sebastian, which you will see further on. Medieval pilgrims left through here to visit the tombs of the martyrs.
The shape you see today is due mainly to the works of the emperor Honor…
4
The Queen of Roads and the Quo Vadis
You are in front of a small church at the fork where the Via Appia Antica parts from the Via Ardeatina. It is called Domine Quo Vadis.
The road beneath your feet was begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius the Blind. It reached Capua first and later Brindisi, on the heel of Italy. The Romans called it the queen of roads.
It was also a stage for horror. In 71 BC, after crushing the revolt of Spartacus, Rome crucified some six thousand slaves along the Appian Way between Capua and Rome.
The church recalls a legend from a second-century apocryphal text, the Acts of Peter. Peter was fleei…
5
The Myth of the Hiding Place
You are at the Catacombs of San Callisto. Above, you see a quiet field with cypresses and olive trees. Below, on several levels, run some twenty kilometres of galleries.
Around the year 200, the bishop of Rome, Zephyrinus, put a deacon named Callixtus in charge of this cemetery. It was the first official cemetery of Rome's Christian community. Callixtus later became pope.
Christians wanted to bury their dead, not burn them, and they wanted to lie together. Land on the surface was expensive. The solution was to dig down into the volcanic tuff, which is soft to cut and hardens in the air.
The…
6
The Crypt of the Popes and Saint Cecilia
You are in the Crypt of the Popes, an underground room with marble slabs on the walls. In the third century several bishops of Rome were buried here. Some of their names can still be read in Greek: Pontian, Anterus, Fabian, Lucius and Eutychian.
The persecutions were real, but they came and went. In 257 the emperor Valerian forbade Christians to assemble or to enter their cemeteries. Precisely because the authorities knew where they were.
On 6 August 258 Pope Sixtus II was caught while celebrating in a cemetery in this area and was executed together with several of his deacons. He was buried…
7
A Basilica Underground
You are at the Catacombs of Domitilla, among the most extensive in Rome. The most surprising thing awaits below: an entire basilica, with columns, built beneath ground level.
The name comes from Flavia Domitilla, a woman of the imperial Flavian family, that of the emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Inscriptions found in the area mention land granted for burials by a Flavia Domitilla.
According to ancient historians, Domitian banished her to an island at the end of the first century. Christian tradition remembered her as a believer, though this is not known for certain.
The galleries gr…
8
The Quarry of 1944
You are in front of the Mausoleum of the Fosse Ardeatine. Among the Christian catacombs lies another mass grave, far more recent. Beneath a huge concrete slab rest 335 men.
These tunnels were old quarries of pozzolana, the volcanic sand the Romans used for their concrete. This whole area is riddled with quarries and catacombs.
On 23 March 1944, with Rome occupied by the Nazis, Italian partisans set off a bomb in Via Rasella as a column of German police marched past. Thirty-three German soldiers died.
The reprisal was decided within hours: ten Italians for every dead German. The next day, 24…
9
The Basilica of the Apostles
You are in front of the Basilica of San Sebastiano fuori le Mura, back on the Appian Way. The porticoed facade is seventeenth-century, but the original church dates from the fourth century.
Originally it was called the Basilica of the Apostles. Beneath it lies a third-century space where the faithful gathered to remember Peter and Paul. On its walls they left hundreds of graffiti calling on the two apostles.
No one knows for sure why they were venerated here. One theory is that their remains were kept here for a time during the persecutions. What is known is that banquets in memory of the de…
10
The Place That Named Them All
You are at the entrance to the Catacombs of San Sebastiano. This is, quite literally, the place that gave its name to every catacomb in the world.
In antiquity this stretch of the Appian Way was called ad catacumbas. The expression probably came from Greek and meant something like by the hollows, because of the quarries in the ground.
In the Middle Ages this was almost the only underground cemetery that people kept visiting, because of Sebastian's relics. So its place name came to mean any burial ground under the earth. The Romans of the time simply called them coemeteria, sleeping places.
…
11
The Circus of a Defeated Emperor
You are in front of the Circus of Maxentius, a long racetrack of more than five hundred metres in the valley to the left of the Appian Way. The two towers of the starting area can still be seen.
Maxentius proclaimed himself emperor in Rome in 306. Here he built a great complex: a palace, this circus for chariot races and a mausoleum for his family.
His son Valerius Romulus died very young, in 309. He was buried in the large round mausoleum you see beside the circus, surrounded by a portico.
Maxentius did not enjoy his work for long. In 312 he faced Constantine at the Battle of the Milvian B…
12
The Tomb That Became a Castle
You are in front of the Tomb of Caecilia Metella, a huge stone cylinder almost thirty metres across, on a rise beside the Appian Way. It is one of the most famous monuments on the road.
It was built in the second half of the first century BC. The inscription on the front can still be read: it is dedicated to Caecilia Metella, daughter of Quintus Metellus Creticus and wife of a Crassus, probably the son of the famously rich Marcus Licinius Crassus.
Look at the frieze at the top. It carries garlands and ox skulls. Because of those ox heads, the whole area has been called Capo di Bove since the…
How long does the "Rome: the Catacombs, Where Early Christians Did Not Hide but Buried Their Dead" audio tour take?
It has about 20 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 5.47 km walking route (~1 h 20 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 45 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Dead Outside the City" (coordinates 41.8785, 12.4996). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Rome and pick "Rome: the Catacombs, Where Early Christians Did Not Hide but Buried Their Dead". No account required to start.
