considers was originally on the loculus containing the body of the saint. The inscription is as follows:
Agne · Sanc
Tissima
The basilica has been several times restored, but preserves with fair accuracy the original disposition of the Church of Constantine.
When it was first built in the fourth century, as we find in other similar instances, considerable destruction and havoc were wrought in the galleries of the catacomb. The fourth-century builders often mercilessly cut away and destroyed galleries, cubicula, loculi, when they arranged for the foundations and lower stories of the church large or small which arose over the tomb of the special saint and martyr. We would instance as conspicuous examples of this strange disregard of the older burying-places, the Basilicas of S. Domitilla, of S. Laurence, of S. Sylvester; the last named is built over the Cemetery of S. Priscilla.
The body of S. Agnes was never translated from its original home. In the year 1605, in the pontificate of Paul V, her remains, together with those of her foster-sister the martyr S. Emerentiana, were placed in a silver sarcophagus or urn. This was seen in the year 1901-2, when some work beneath the altar was being carried out.
(3) The Cœmeterium majus in the immediate neighbourhood of the Catacomb of S. Agnes. De Rossi names it the "Ostrian" Cemetery, and connects it with the memories of S. Peter, as being the place where the apostle used to baptize. Marucchi, however, in the light of recent discoveries in the Catacomb of Priscilla on the adjacent Via Salaria, unhesitatingly believes that the site of S. Peter's work and preaching must be sought for in the last-named cemetery. A brief resume of Marucchi's arguments, which are most weighty, will be given when the Cemetery of Priscilla is described.
The glory of this cemetery (Cœmeterium majus), as the memory of S. Peter seems really to belong to the Catacomb of S. Priscilla, is that here was the original tomb of S. Emerentiana, who for her devotion to her foster-sister Agnes suffered
