not uncommon
to find in pagan sepulchres symbols and arrangements of a Christian
character, and in Christian Catacombs Mithraic features. The funeral
monuments of those who were converted to Christianity in the earliest
ages of the Church indicated the transition between the two religions.
We find upon their tombs pagan symbols, which ceased to be identified
with pagan worship, and became mere conventional ornaments. We have
other evidences along the Appian Way of the eclectic revival of
paganism at this time. When alluding to the classic stream of the
Almo, I spoke of the associations of the worship of Cybele. This
naturalistic cult was introduced from Phrygia, and its orgiastic rites
and nameless infamies had a horrible fascination for an age of
decaying faith. And not far from the mounds of the Horatii and
Curiatii there is a monument, probably of the age of Trajan, with a
bas-relief portrait, dedicated to the memory of one _Usia Prima_, a
priestess of Isis; this worship, with its painful initiations and
splendid ritual, being imported from Egypt in the second century. But
although this Neo-paganism appealed more to the passions of men than
the sunny humanistic worship of older times, and for a time inspired
the most frenzied enthusiasm, it failed utterly to resuscitate the
decaying corpse of the old religion. Great Pan was hopelessly dead!

At a short distance on the same side of the road is the Catacomb of
Sts. Nereus and Achilles, which contained the remains of these saints,
and are interesting to us as the most ancient Christian cemetery in
the world. The masonry of the vestibule is in the best style of Roman
brickwork; and the frescoes on its walls, representing Christ and His
apostles, the Good Shepherd, Orpheus, Elijah, etc., indicate a period
of high artistic taste. This Catacomb contains the oldest
representation extant of the Virgin and Child receiving the homage of
the Wise men from the East, supposed to date from the end of the
second century, and was often made use of in support of Roman
Mariolatry. Several days might be profitably spent by the antiquarian
in investigating the contents of the different tiers of galleries;
while the geologist would find matter for interesting speculation in
the partial intrusion of the older lithoid tufa here and there into
the softer and more recent volcanic deposits in which the passages are
excavated, and in which numerous decomposing crystals of leucite may
be obser