The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1878-08-22
Rome O Vast Cemetery.

The ground on which the Eternal City
stands is such as a geologist would find
it hard to describe; it is a mass of ashes,
of vegetable and animal detritus, cor
rupted by contact with the filth of sewers,
constructed at different periods, without
any regular plan or any regard to the
public health. Immediately after the fall
of the Empire, the law forbidding burials
within the walls was neglected, and the
city became vast cemetery, where the
living dwelt in perpetual contact with the
dead, First, the burials invaded the
ancient ruins, and in a long experience of
archaeological research, have never yet
found single ancient building which
did not conceal corpses-often only a
few dozen, but sometimes millions. The
fact that each parish church had its Gem
etery at its side explains the greater part
of these dismal discoveries, but some
times one is obliged to betake ones self
to other hypothesis more or less prob
lematical. The subsoil of the Piazza
Colona, the gayess and most lively spot
in the city, is strewed with corpses. 1t
was the cemetery of the Church (now
destroyed) of st. Andrea, first discovered
in 1925, in digging in the piazza for
water-conduit. The same remark applies
to the Piazza del Pantheon, the former
burial. ground of the Church of s. Maria
ad Martyros. In 1871, when was SUI
perintending the excavations in the
Forum and the Basilica Julia, saw car
ried away at least $4,000 cubic feet of
human bones, which had been buried at
the side of the Chapel of S. Maria Della
Giraffe. A passage in Flaminio Vacca
on the same subject is very characteristic;
'In the therm1 of Constantine" says he,
"opposite the Church of S. Silvestro, in
a garden belonging to Bernardo Accea-
guoli, were found two enormous subter-
ranean vaults, 100 palms long and thirty
wide, filled with several thousand corpses.
The entrance to these dreadful vaults
had been carefully stopped up, and the
bodies were packed so close, one on the
top Of the other, that there remained
hardly cubic foot of space free" do
not doubt that burial place so singular
owed its existence to one of those terri
bic epidemics that ravaged the city be-
tween the twelfth and thirteenth centu-
ries. 1t is, therefore, no wonder that
oulluS tlC iChto VI WV "a
cavations have to be suspended from re-
gard to the public health; and that when,
under exceptional circumstances, some
thing has to be done, it is often effected
at the cost of the life or health of the
workmen. The construction has been
commenced of a collecting drain, to con-
meet the basin of the Coliseum with the
Tiber, passing through the Via Trium-
phalis and the valley of the Circus Maxi
mus. In digging for this purpose, at the
great depth of thirty three feet, the work
men came upon reservoir of water OF
the eighth century B. c. A young archi-
tect was sent to sketch the monument.
Some hours after he had an attack of
fever which nearly cost him his life; and
the same happened to one who had helped
him. At the beginning of last July,
when the tenders for the construction of
the railway from Rome to Flumicno
were adjudicated, this remarkable post
script was added: "All the workmen
who shall assist in the works have ri ght
to an unlimited distribution of quinine.
Those who work in the neighborhood of
Flumicino will have right to the gratu
itous attendance of the municipal doctor
of the place, as we'll as Off necessary to
an honorable place in the cemetery
| London Athen0um.