rist.
Eccl. Polit._ vol. iv. Dissert. 5), and in separate treatises by
Bellerman and Schultze. Plans of them are also given by Agincourt in his
great work on Christian art. These catacombs differ materially from
those of Rome. They were certainly originally stone-quarries, and the
hardness of the rock has made the construction practicable of wide,
lofty corridors and spacious halls, very unlike the narrow galleries and
contracted chambers in the Roman cemeteries. The mode of interment,
however, is the same as that practised in Rome, and the _loculi_ and
_arcosolia_ differ by little in the two. The walls and ceilings are
covered with fresco paintings of different dates, in some cases lying
one over the other. This catacomb contains an unquestionable example of
a church, divided into a nave and chancel, with a rude stone altar and
bishop's seat behind it.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Fresco Ceiling. (From Bosio.)

The subjects, beginning at the bottom and going to the right, are--

(1) Moses striking the rock.
(2) Noah and the dove.
(3) The three children in the furnace.
(4) Abraham's sacrifice.
(5) The miracle of the loaves.]

[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Plan of the Catacombs of St John, Syracuse.]

Syracuse.

At Syracuse also there are very extensive catacombs known as "the
Grottos of St John." They are also figured by Agincourt, and described
by Denon (_Voyage en Sicile et Malte_) and Fuhrer. There is an entire
underground city with several storeys of larger and smaller streets,
squares and cross ways, cut out of the rock; at the intersection of the
cross ways are immense circular halls of a bottle shape, like a
glass-house furnace, lighted by air shafts. The galleries are generally
very narrow, furnished on each side with arched tombs, and communicating
with family sepulchral-chambers closed originally by locked doors, the
marks of the hinges and staples being still visible. The walls are in
many places coated with stucco adorned with frescoes, including palms,
doves, labara and other Christian symbols. The ground-plans (figs. 19,
20), from Agincourt, of the catacomb and of one of the circular halls,
show how widely this cemetery differs in arrangement from the Roman
catacombs. The frequency of blind passages and of circular chambers will
be noticed, as well as the very large number of bodies in the cruciform
recesses, apparently amounting in one instance to nineteen. Agincourt
remarks that this cem