one that was 1,000 feet by 300
feet. The inscription of one dug up in the Via Labicana gives 1,800
feet by 500 feet; another was only twenty-four feet by fifteen feet,
and another sixteen feet square. In the case of one of the larger
tombs belonging to a family that became Christian, it was easy for
them to make a catacomb under it and allow their fellow-Christians to
be buried there, or to sell portions of the large space for separate
vaults. Many vaults of sixteen feet square might be made in the space
of 1,800 feet long by 500 feet wide, as the one on the Via Labicana.
If the adjoining field belonged to the same family, the catacomb might
be extended as far as the family property itself extended. This is the
most probable explanation of the _praedium_ of the Lady Lucina and
other Christian martyrs. They were heiresses to whom such a tomb and
meadow belonged. When the space was limited, three or four stories
were excavated in succession, one under the other, as we see in many
instances.

The measurements of Michele de Rossi coincide with this in a
remarkable manner. He finds the _area_ of each separate catacomb to be
respectively 100, 125, 150, 180 and 250 feet. None of these spaces are
at all too large for the area commonly left round a tomb of
importance, and the family property of this area would extend to any
depth. Each cemetery was complete in itself, but sometimes connected
with others by subterranean roads.

These tombs were protected by special laws, and the _area_ in which
the tomb stood was included with it. The area was often of
considerable extent, and was intended for the burial-place of
succeeding generations of the family to whom it belonged. The tombs of
the period of the early empire were by no means exclusively for the
_columbaria_ for cinerary urns. The instances in which there are both
places for bodies and urns are perhaps more numerous than those for
urns only. The fine sarcophagi now found in museums, or applied to all
sorts of uses, as water-troughs, vases for flowers, and various other
purposes, were all originally in tombs, and generally in tombs in
which there were also _columbaria_ for cinerary urns. Some Pagan tombs
on the Via Latina have catacombs for the interment of bodies under
them, and often bodies were put in them.

The custom of burning the bodies was never universal, and lasted only
for a certain period; the custom of burying bodies came in again soon
after the Christian era,