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catacomb|ˈkætəkəʊm, -kʊːm|
[a. F. catacombe, ad. It. catacomba (= Pr. cathacumba, Sp. catacumba):—late L. Catacumbas, a name of which even the original application is uncertain: see below.]
1. A subterranean place for the burial of the dead, consisting of galleries or passages with recesses excavated in their sides for tombs.
a. Representing the Latin catacumbas (catecumpas), or (?) ad catacumbas, used as early as the 5th c. in connexion with the subterranean cemetery under the Basilica of St. Sebastian, on the Appian Way, near Rome, in or near which the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul were said to have been deposited: this is the only sense in which the word occurs in English before the 17th c.
971Blickl. Hom. 193 Eal folc Romwara befeng þa lichoman on þære stowe Catacumbe þy weᵹe þe hate Appia. 1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 119/1 Whan thou hast wasshed it [my body] thou shalt burye it at Cathacombes by the appostlis. Ibid. 205/2 The grekes..threwe the bodyes [of the two apostles] in a pitte at catacumbas. 1636Abp. Williams Holy Table (1637) 220 The famous place called Catacombe (a word of mongrell composition, half Greek, half Latin, and signifying as much as near the Tombs), a kind of vaulted Church under the earth. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) II. 207 From this church a pair of stairs leads down into the Roman catacombs. 1854Card. Wiseman Fabiola ii. ii, The cemetery of St. Sebastian [among] other names had that of Ad Catacumbas: the meaning of this word is completely unknown. 1870W. B. Marriott Test. Catacombs 1 Catacombs—this name properly applies only to one particular cemetery beneath the church of St. Sebastian.
b. In later times applied (in the plural) to all the subterranean cemeteries lying around Rome (which, after having been long covered up and forgotten, were fortuitously discovered in 1578). In the singular applied to a single crypt or gallery.
1662J. Bargrave Pope Alex. VII (1867) 121 Ten miles, almost, round about Rome, under the vineyards and cornfields, are hollow caves, streets, rooms, chappells, finely painted, etc., which is called Rome underground, or the Catacombs. 1683–4Robinson in Phil. Trans. XXIX. 479 Those Quarries became Catacombes. 1709Steele Tatler No. 129 ⁋7 There has lately been found an Humane Tooth in a Catecomb [at Rome]. 1782Priestley Corrupt. Chr. I. iv. 395 It was..after the discovery of the Catacombs. 1841W. Spalding Italy & It. Isl. II. 35 Sextus, bishop of Rome, had been slain in the catacombs. 1870W. B. Marriott (title), Testimony of the Catacombs, and of other Monuments of Christian Art. 1876E. Venables in Dict. Chr. Antiq. 313/2 The catacombs became places of refuge in times of persecution (..though not to the extent popularly credited). Ibid. 314/1 At the entrance of the Jewish Catacomb on the Via Appia.
c. Extended to similar works elsewhere, as at Naples, at Syracuse, in Egypt, etc.
1705Berkeley Cave of Dunmore Wks. 1871 IV. 508 Those artificial caves of Rome and Naples called catacombs. 1717Lady M. W. Montague Lett. II. xlvii. 39 During his wonderful stay in the Egyptian catacombs. 1732T. Lediard Sethos II. ix. 327 Bury the king's corpse in the catacombs of Utica. 1796Morse Amer. Geog. II. 271 Under the mountains adjoining the Kiow are several catacombs. 1858R. Vaughan Ess. & Rem. I. 5 The Necropolis, with its Catacombs. 1862Stanley Jew. Ch. (1877) I. xv. 290.
2. In a wider sense, applied to any subterranean receptacle of dead bodies, as the catacombs of Paris, which are worked-out stone-quarries (see quot.); also fig. place of entombment of former races of animals, etc.
1836Penny Cycl. VI. 359/2 The catacombs of Paris could not be called catacombs with any propriety until very recent times, when, by a decree of the French government, all the churchyards were emptied of their contents, and the skulls and bones sent to the spacious subterranean quarries, where they are now arranged in a manner that is grotesquely horrible. 1845Darwin Voy. Nat. iv. (1879) 80 This point being a perfect catacomb for monsters of extinct races.
3. transf. A place arranged with crypts and recesses, like the catacombs.
1884Harper's Mag. Nov. 828/1 These are, indeed, catacombs of books, with lettered avenues.
b. spec. A compartment in a cellar with recesses for storing wine.
1795Edin. Advert. 2 Jan. 2/1 One half of the sunk flat or cellars, neatly laid out and furnished with catacombs. 1816Scott Old Mort. ix, He ran down to the cellar at the risk of breaking his neck, to ransack some private catacomb.
note.—The name regularly applied to the Roman catacombs during the first four centuries, when they were in use, as well as during the succeeding four or five centuries, while they were still objects of attention and care, was cœmētērium. Catacumbas, catecumbas, appears in the 4th (?), 5th, and following centuries only in connexion with the name of the cemetery of St. Sebastian on the Appian Way, which is distinguished as Cœmeterium Catacumbas, or shortly Catacumbas. In other cases Catacumbas appears to be used as name of the locality, or perhaps of the part of the Appian Way, in which this cemetery lay. The earliest instances are:
a400Inscr. in Orelli 4575 Comparaui..uiuus in catacum[b]as a[d] lumenarem a [f]ossore.. 411[or 354] Martyrology (Bucher ad Canon. Pasch. 237) Depositio martyrum..Decimo tertio Kalendas Februarij, Fabiani in Callisti et Sebastiani in Catacumbas... Tertio Kalendas Iulij, Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Ostiense. a600(List of Cemeteries) Cimeterium catecumbas ad St. Sebastianum Via Appia. a600Greg. Magn. Epist. iv. Ind. xii. Ep. 30 In loco qui dicitur catacumbas collocata sunt. a700Imperia Cesarum (Eccard Corp. Hist. Med. æv. I. 31) Maxentius [a.d. 311] Termas in Palatio fecit et Circum in Catecumpas. c705Bæda De Sex æt. Mund. ad ann. 4327 Damasus..fecit basilicam..aliam in catacumbas ubi jacuerunt corpora sancta apostolorum Petri et Pauli. a900Anastasius Hadrian i. §343 In loco qui appellatur catacumbas ubi corpus beati Sebastiani martyris cum aliis quiescit. a1300De Mirabil. Romæ, Cœmeteria Calisti juxta Catacumbas.
The evidence does not settle the disputed question whether the name originally belonged to the cemetery, or (as the majority of investigators now appear to think) to the locality. Some of the other cemeteries were named from their locality, e.g. Ostiense, Ad Septem Columbas, Ad Duas Lauros (names of taverns), but most from a personal name as Calisti, Domitillæ, Cyriacæ. The word catacumbas was in later times treated as an acc. pl., with nom. sing. catacumba; but in earlier use it appears to be invariable. To account for this, some have surmised that the full name was Ad Catacumbas, others that it was itself a Greek phrase κατὰ κύµβας. The recorded meanings of Gr. κύµβη are ‘the hollow of a vessel, a drinking vessel, cup, or bowl (whence a possibility that κατὰ κύµβας was the name of a tavern); a boat, L. cymba; a knapsack, wallet’. But the question how a Greek phrase was likely to become the name of something near Rome, when it is not known what that thing was, is manifestly futile; still more profitless are conjectures that the word might contain the Greek preposition combined with a Latin, Sabine, or Celtic word or root, which may be seen in works or articles treating of the Catacombs. There appear to be no examples of the application of the word to the other Roman subterranean cemeteries in ancient times, though catacumba is apparently used by Joannes Diaconus (9th c.) of those of Naples: see Du Cange. But the actual extension of the name belongs to modern times, since the discovery of ‘Subterranean Rome’.] |