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The history of the Catacombs of St. Callixtus goes back to the end of the 2nd century A.D., when the Church of Rome started excavating her own cemeteries reserved to the Christians. Among the more than sixty catacombs,which surround Rome, the Catacombs of St. Callixtus hold a primary importance for the extension and the deepness of the excavations; for the great number of tombs, for the richness and variety of the inscriptions and paintings; for the Crypt of the Popes and the crypts of many martyrs.
Even when at the beginning of the 5th century the Church started again to bury the dead above ground, the Catacombs, which had become true sanctuaries of the martyrs, continued for centuries to be visited by the Christians, who came to pray at the martyrs' tombs and there to renew their faith.
The invasion of the Goths in the 6th century and of the Longobards in the 8th century gravely damaged the catacombs and forced the Popes to transfer the bodies of the martyrs and saints into the churches within the City, for security reasons. Thus the catacombs were gradually abandoned. In the course of timen landslides and the growth of vegetation obstructed and hid the entrance to the catacombs, so that the very trace of most of the Catacombs were lost. In the Late Middle Ages they did not even know where they were.
Part of them were rediscovered only centuries later by the great Maltese archaeologist Antonio Bosio (1575-1629), but the catacombs of St. Callixtus were rediscovered, explored and documented only in 1852, due to the efforts of Giovanni Battista de Rossi, who is considered the Father and Founder of Christian Archaeology.

The Territory of St. Callixtus

A few hundred metres from the busy, modern Via Cristoforo Colombo, which leads to EUR,we can emerge into a place of Rome 2000 years ago, Rome of the Emperors and of the early Christians. You only have to follow the Via Appia Antica from the Porta S.Sebastiano and you will come to the church of "Domine, Quo Vadis?", the Catacombs of Pretextatus, the Catcombs of St. Sebastian, the ruins of the Circus of Maxentius and the tomb of Cecilia Metella.
Almost in the centre of these great ancient glories enclosed by the Via Appia Antica,Via Ardeatina and the Vicolo delle Sette Chiese, there is an island of green, which guards deep within it a coffer of ancient witnesses, the Catacombs of St. Callixtus. Here in the dark and bright years of the persecutions were housed the tombs of the Popes, and of very many other Christians, martyrs and non-martyrs.
Since 1930 the Holy Father has entrusted this treasure to the Sons of Don Bosco, to guard it jealously and to point it out to the admiration of the faithful.
There are about 30 hectares of surface area of which about 15 are occupied by the Catacombs. The galleries of the "Callixtian Complex" are spread sometimes through 4 levels and have a combined length of about 20 kilometres. There are very many tombs, perhaps half a million.
The complex if formed from several different nuclei, which have spread with the passing of time: the Cryps of Lucina, the cemetery of St. Callixtus, the Cemetery of Santa Soteris, the Cemetry of SS. Mark, Marcellianus and Damasus, known also as "Basileus" and the cemetery of Balbina.
Among the underground cemeteries of the early Church, that of Saint Callixtus has a place of honour, since it was the first official cemetery Rome.In the vast complex included under such a name were buried a host of martyrs and other saints: 16 Popes, of whom 9 in the famous Crypt of the Popes, where five of the original tombstones with their Greek inscritions and the splendid Latin poem by Damasus can still be seen.

Beside the Crypt of the Popes there is the not less famous Crypt of St. Cecilia, where she laid buried for centuries.Crypt equally important are those of St, Cornelius, St, Eusebius and of St. Gaius. Besides, we know that in this cemetry above ground, in a little basilica was venerated St. Tarcisus, the young protomartyr of the Eucharist.

The Cemetery of St. Callixtus

At the beginning ot the 3rd century, Pope zephirinus appointed Callixtus as administrator of the cemeteery. For this reason , the cemetery took the name of Catacombs of Saint Callixtus.This was in contrasto to the normal custom by which the ancient cChristian cemeteries were named after their founders, of the martyrs buried there or after the locality where they were situated.
The "area Prima" pre-existed\ to St, Callixtus and the Crypt of the Popes pre-existed as a family cubicle. Callixtus became pope in 217 and was later martyred and buried in a cemetery on the Via Aurelia.

To understand the history of the cemetery we must state beforehand that in the first century Christians did not have separate burial areas. They buried their loved ones in the pagan cemeteries open to everyone. Towards the end of the 2nd century arose the first Christian cemeteries, which developed around the family tombs.Here the wealty owners, newly-converted or sympathiser allowed Christians to be buried.
As time passed, the burial areas expanded, by donation or acquisition of new property, sometimes by the Church itself. Only in the Vth century did the cemetery of St. Callixtus reach its greater development.
At the beginning of the V century because of the barbarian invasions, the catacombs ceased to be the ordinary places of burial. The visits of pilgrims, however, continued for a further four centuries. However,by the end of the 8th century, and the beginning of the 9th, the catacombs, deprived of the bodies of the glorious bodies of martyrs, were abandoned and forgotten for the whole Late Middle Ages.

The underground City

Nowadays the "Callixtian Complex" is formed from more tha 4 Catacombs and occupy about 15 hectares of ground. The Catacombs are on four levels and have a greatest depth of 30 metres.Those who descend, see opening around them on both sides a network of labyrinths.
Etymologically, the word "Catacombs" means "the place by the hollow", i.e. the place where the ancient Christian cemetery of St. Sebastian was located. This name came to indicate all the underground Christian cemeteries of Rome.
KOIMETERION, that is to say PLACE OF REST. Pagans were used to calling their burial places by the Greek word "necropolis","City of the dead". Christians preferred the name of "cemetery",a word invented by them from the Greek work "Koimao", meaning "to sleep". The cemetery was for them only "the place of rest" in expectation of the resurrection of the dead, the most charming moments of a Roman stay. The immense underground network has an irresistible force of attraction. The visitor feels an uncontainable push to penetrate the fascinating labyrinths and feels the deep glamour of silence.

The "Fossores", makers of a most intricate network of galleries.

The catacombs were mostly excavated from unbrokent tufo. Christians also reused galleries of abandoned caves. It was a slow work done by the "fossores" with picks, shovels and a basket to carry away the earth by the faint light of oil lamps. They decorated as well the cubicles and crypts of the Martyrs with frescoes. They also acted as guides to the relatives of the dead and to the pilgrims who visited the tombs of the martyrs. Many of these workmen are known to us trhough the inscriptions and paintings of the catacombs. At St. Callixtus, a fossor, Iconius, left his graffito behind the Crypt Pope St. Gaius, almost boasting in the speed of his work.

The Christians in Rome: poor or rich people?

We might wonder that in community cemeteries such as the Catacombs, "family" tombs are to be found. Some families put their property at the disposal of the Christian community, as it happened in the Catacombs of Priscilla, Domitilla and the Crypts of Lucina. The members of the rising Church came from all social classes. They were drawn from the lower classes as well as from the aristocrats; therefore it was not difficult ot obtain from the State the juridical designation of funeral Corporation , composed of rich and poor, and which Roman law provided for.
Then, while the Church freely provided for the poor, believers who had the economic means, while they were still alive, bought sepulchres for themselves or their families. After having complied with the precept of Christian charity ( giving everyone the necessities of life) they had the right to construct a family tomb.It is in such tombs of noble families that numerous slaves, freed by their Christians owners, found decent burial.
Another interesting fact is the great number of infant tombs in the catacombs.. Why? The Roman world of that time tolerated the abandonment of newly-born. These infants were "exposed" at the foot of a pillar called "lactaria", which stood in the "Olitorium Forum" (vegetable forum) near the temples of Apollo and of Bellona, near to the present day Teathre of Marcellus. To the Christians this was a crime.
Constantine at the beginning of the 4th century, to prevent the "exposing" of infants, ordered food and clothes to be provided to the poo, at the public expenses. In the first half of the 4th century capital punishment was established for those who "exposed" infants.
Saint Augustine assigned to consacrated Virgins the task of collecting the abandoned babies to having them baptised. The many who died were buried in the Christian cemeteries