the tomb or crypt in which
the commemorative feasts were held, and were represented by paintings.
His expressions imply that such paintings were not then a received
custom.

That the painted vaults in the catacombs were used for feasts on
various occasions in the same manner as the painted chambers in the
Pagan tombs, is evident from the manner in which several writers of
the fourth and fifth centuries mention them; in addition to the
letters of Paulinus of Nola and S. Augustine, and the hymns of
Prudentius, there is also a remarkable passage in a sermon of
Theodoret on the Martyrs (written about A.D. 450):

"Our Lord God leads His own even after death into the temples for your
Gods, and renders them vain and empty; but to these [Martyrs] He
renders the honors previously paid to them. For your daily food and
your sacred and other feasts of Peter, Paul, and Thomas, and Sergius
and Marcellinus, and Leontius, and Antoninus, and Mauricius, and other
martyrs, the solemnities are performed; and in place of the old base
pomp and obscene words and acts, their modest festivities are
celebrated, not with drunkenness and obscene and ludicrous
exhibitions, but with hearing divine songs and holy sermons, and
prayers and praises adorned with tears. When, therefore, you would
dilate on the honor of the martyrs, what use is there in sifting them?
Fly, my friends, the error of demons, and under their guidance seize
upon the road that leads to God, and welcome their presence with holy
songs, as the way is to eternal life."

Bosio enumerates six _cubicula_ or family burial-chapels in the
cemetery or catacomb of Priscilla, and thirteen arched tombs with
paintings. These pictures, of which he gives engravings, were far more
perfect in his time than they are now. His engravings are good for the
period when they were executed; but it was a time when all drawing was
bad, slovenly, and incorrect, so that the general idea only of the
picture is all we can expect. The costume and ornaments do not
indicate any very early period of art, but rather a time when it had
declined considerably. Costume in Rome, as in the East generally, was
far more stationary and less subject to changes than in the West, and
these _may_ be as early as the fourth or fifth century, but can hardly
be earlier. Several of the martyrs buried in the Via Salaria suffered
in the tenth persecution under Diocletian, called the great
persecution, about the year 300: the decorat