The mode of thus indicating a date has proved extremely valuable. We find also that palimpsest monuments are more ancient than is generally considered.
The employment of old pagan tombstones was common after the time of Constantine: but the usual custom in such cases was to reverse the marble and to engrave the Christian epitaph upon the opposite side. According to antiquarians, many stones have been discovered with unequivocal marks of paganism on one side, and of Christianity on the other: but of this there is now no opportunity left us of judging, as every catacomb tablet has been carefully plastered upon some wall or pillar.
The principal symbols found on these tablets are the ancient Christian monogram, the palm branch, the dove, and the fish. The expression in Pace is of frequent occurrence, often the only ostensible indication of the faith of the person commemorated.
Lamps of terra cotta are found abundantly in the catacombs; they are generally marked with the cross, with the likenesses of Peter and Paul, or with some other Christian symbol.
At p. 127, we are presented with the fac-simile of an inscription commemorative of a martyr, at the head of which appears the symbol of the cross.
Lannus, the martyr of Christ, rests here. He suffered under Dioclesian. (The sepulchre is) also for his successors (Boldetti). This fac-simile represents one of the very few epitaphs actually inscribed on the grave of a martyr, specifying him to be such. Its chief value lies in the letters E.P.S., shewing that the tomb had been legally appropriated to Lannus and his family after him—et posteris suis.
Dr. Maitland endeavours to disprove the notion suggested by Aringhi, that the implements marked upon the grave stones, or inclosed in the tombs, were the instruments by which the deceased had suffered martyrdom, and states that whilst "we have no historical evidence that it was the custom of the Church to bury instruments of torture or of death with the martyrs, the habit of designing the emblems of a trade or profession upon the tombstone, was, on the contrary, extremely common." The usage of representing
