f the Acilii
Glabriones, which is cut under the Monte delle Gioie, and is the only
one in the Catacombs of Priscilla remarkable for a coating of white
stucco. Its destruction, therefore, took place under Clement IX., and
was the work of treasure-hunters. And the very nature of clandestine
excavations, which are the work of malicious, ignorant, and suspicious
persons, explains the reason why no mention of the discovery was made
to contemporary archaeologists, and the pleasure of re-discovering the
secret of the Acilii Glabriones was reserved for us.

These are by no means the only patricians of high standing whose names
have come to light from the depths of the catacombs. Tacitus (_Annal._
xiii. 32) tells how Pomponia Graecina, wife of Plautius, the conqueror
of Britain, was accused of "foreign superstition," tried by her
husband, and acquitted. These words long since gave rise to a
conjecture that Pomponia Graecina was a Christian, and recent
discoveries put it beyond doubt. An inscription bearing the name of
[Greek: POMPONIOS GREKEINOS] has been found in the Cemetery of
Callixtus, together with other records of the Pomponii Attici and
Bassi. Some scholars think that Graecina, the wife of the conqueror of
Britain, is no other than Lucina, the Christian matron who interred
her brethren in Christ in her own property, at the second milestone of
the Appian Way.

Other evidence of the conquests made by the gospel among the
patricians is given by an inscription discovered in March, 1866, in
the Catacombs of Praetextatus, near the monument of Quirinus the
martyr. It is a memorial raised to the memory of his departed wife by
Postumius Quietus, consul A. D. 272. Here also was found the name of
Urania, daughter of Herodes Atticus, by his second wife, Vibullia
Alcia,[4] while on the other side of the road, near S. Sebastiano, a
mausoleum has been found, on the architrave of which the name
URANIOR[UM] is engraved.

In chapter vii. I shall have occasion to refer to many Christian
relatives of the emperors Vespasian and Domitian. Eusebius, in
speaking of these Flavians, and particularly of Domitilla the younger,
niece of Domitian, quotes the authority of the historian Bruttius. He
evidently means Bruttius Praesens, the illustrious friend of Pliny the
younger, and the grandfather of Crispina, the empress of Commodus. In
1854, near the entrance to the crypt of the Flavians, at Torre
Marancia (Via Ardeatina), a fragment of a sarcoph