Catacombs of St.Callixtus Guided Tour

About one and a half Kilometres along the Appian Way are the Catacombs of St. Calixtus. Like many others in Rome and its surroundings, these Catacombs were a place of refuge of the early Christians.

The rise of Christianity was not uncontested; on the contrary, it was opposed because it was considered a force hostile to the state, damaging to the institutions and to the very security of the empire. This is understandable when one considers that a religious movement of this kind, which preached the equality of all and respect for the human personality, must certainly have been inconvenient to the rulers and men in the government. It must not be forgotten that in Roman society, as in all the preceding civilisations, slavery was practised, and that in any case, neither servants nor foreigners enjoyed the same rights as Roman citizens.

For this reason, all followers of the new religion, in its early years and for some centuries after, had to hide, practising their rites in secret and meeting in secret. This was the origin of the catacombs, a series of corridors, warrens, rooms and underground sepulchres, which for centuries were the refuge of the Christians as well as their early, marvellous church. Indeed, with the years, underneath the pagan Rome, monumental, solemn and majestic, a second Rome gradually coming into existence a Christian Rome, poor and humble, enveloped in darkness and mysticism. These two cities, one above the other, swarmed with life, but in each of them, there was a completely different life and civilisation.

The Catacombs of St. Calixtus are undoubtedly the most important at Rome; they are called after the Deacon Calixtus, who enlarged the labyrinth of galleries and crypts already in existence, making them the abode and cemetery of the Christians and Popes of the time.

Without listing in detail the remains to be found here, it need only be said that most of the tombs are those of 3rd century popes, and that there are crypts of great artistic value owing to the ancient frescoes which are still in excellent condition.