ry
slight suspicion of his faith.

[Illustration: Map of the Via Salaria.]

Glabrio was put to death in his place of exile, the name of which is
not known. His end helped, no doubt, the propagation of the gospel
among his relatives and descendants, as well as among the servants and
freedmen of the house, as shown by the noble sarcophagi and the
humbler loculi found in such numbers in the crypt of the Catacombs of
Priscilla. The small oratory at the southern end of the crypt seems to
have been consecrated exclusively to the memory of its first occupant,
the ex-consul. The date and the circumstances connected with the
translation of his relics from the place of banishment to Rome are
not known.

Both the chapel and the crypt were found in a state of devastation
hardly credible, as though the plunderers had taken pleasure in
satisfying their vandalic instincts to the utmost. Each of the
sarcophagi was broken into a hundred pieces; the mosaics of the walls
and ceiling had been wrenched from their sockets, cube by cube, the
marble incrustations torn off, the altar dismantled, the bones
dispersed.

When did this wholesale destruction take place? In times much nearer
ours than the reader may imagine. I have been able to ascertain the
date, with the help of an anecdote related by Pietro Sante Bartoli in
Sec. 144 of his archaeological memoirs: "Excavations were made under
Innocent X. (1634-1655), and Clement IX. (1667-1670), in the Monte
delle Gioie, on the Via Salaria, with the hope of discovering a
certain hidden treasure. The hope was frustrated; but, deep in the
bowels of the mound, some crypts were found, encrusted with white
stucco, and remarkable for their neatness and preservation. I have
heard from trustworthy men that the place is haunted by spirits, as is
proved by what happened to them not many months ago. While assembled
on the Monte delle Gioie for a picnic, the conversation turned upon
the ghosts who haunted the crypt below, when suddenly the carriage
which had brought them there, pushed by invisible hands, began to roll
down the slope of the hill, and was ultimately precipitated into the
river Anio at its base. Several oxen had to be used to haul the
vehicle out of the stream. This happened to Tabarrino, butcher at S.
Eustachio, and to his brothers living in the Via Due Macelli, whose
faces still bear marks of the great terror experienced that day."

There is no doubt that the anecdote refers to the tomb o