Portogruaro, by Perulli
and Bartolini. This cemetery, which contains, in the section already
explored, nearly two hundred sarcophagi, cut in limestone, in the
shape of Petrarch's coffin, at Arqua, or Antenor's at Padua, was
wrecked by Attila in 452, and buried soon after by an inundation of
the river Tagliamento, which spread masses of mud and sand over the
district, and raised its level five feet. The accompanying plate is
from a photograph taken at the time of the discovery.

I have just stated that burial in catacombs seems to have been
abandoned in 410, because no inscription of a later date has yet been
found. The reader will easily perceive the reason for the abandonment.
On August 10, 410, Rome was stormed by Alaric, and the suburbs
devastated. This fatal year marks the end of a great and glorious era
in Christian epigraphy, and in the history of catacombs the end of the
work of the _fossores_. More fatal still was the barbaric invasion of
457. The actual destruction began in 537, during the siege of Rome by
Vitiges. The biographer of Pope Silverius expressly says: "Churches
and tombs of martyrs have been destroyed by the Goths" (_ecclesiae et
corpora sanctorum martyrum exterminata sunt a Gothis_). It is
difficult to explain why the Goths, confessed and even bigoted
Christians (Arians) as they were, and full of respect for the
basilicas of S. Peter and S. Paul, as Procopius declares, should have
ransacked the catacombs, violated the tombs of martyrs, and broken
their historical inscriptions. Perhaps it was because none of the
barbarians could read Latin or Greek epitaphs, and make the
distinction between pagan and Christian cemeteries; or perhaps they
were moved by the desire of finding hidden treasures, or securing
relics of saints. Whatever may have been the reason of their behavior,
we must remember that two encampments, at least, of the Goths were
just over catacombs and around their entrances; one on the Via
Salaria, over those of Thrason; the other on the Via Labicana, above
those of Peter and Marcellinus. The barbarians could not resist the
temptation of exploring those subterranean wonders; indeed they were
obliged to do so by the most elementary rules of precaution in order
to insure the safety of their intrenchments against surprises. Here I
have to record a remarkable coincidence. In each of these two
catacombs the following memorial tablet has been seen or found,
written in distichs by Pope Virgilius