of which we are speaking, in common with so many of the catacombs; was deserted by the pilgrim visitors, and its very site was quickly forgotten. De Rossi, in 1858, was enabled to point out its situation, but it was not examined until the year 1884, when some workmen digging the foundations of a house came upon some ancient loculi, with inscriptions, and a number of dim faint pictures. The little basilica of the sixth century thus came to light, and the ruins of what had once been the tomb and shrine of S. Felicitas in the catacomb which bears her name.
On the Via Salaria Nova, between the Cemetery of S. Felicitas and the very important Cemetery of S. Priscilla, there exists what may be termed a network of catacombs only very partially explored. The first is called after Thrason, a wealthy Roman citizen who gave the hospitality of the tomb in a catacomb beneath his gardens to several martyrs to the Diocletian persecution—notably to Saturninus. This portion of the catacombs has as yet been only very little explored; the corridors, etc., are still earthed up.
A little farther on the same road is another cemetery, generally known too under the same name—"Thrason." Marucchi, however, calls it "Cœmeterium Jordanorum." It is probable that it was joined originally to that of Thrason. The meaning of the term "Jordani" used in the old Pilgrim Itineraries is uncertain. This is one of the deepest excavated cemeteries. As many as four stories of galleries, one beneath the other, have been found here. Several "Arenaria" or sand-pits intervene between the groups of galleries of this catacomb. All this extensive network of catacombs and arenaria has only been partially excavated as yet. The work is naturally costly to execute, and is accompanied with some danger.
De Rossi places in one of these "Arenaria" or sand-pits in the midst of this group of Catacombs of Thrason and the Jordani on the Via Salaria, the scene of the martyrdom of the well-known SS. Chrysanthus and his wife Daria, who bore their witness unto death in the persecution of the Emperor Numerian, circa A.D. 284. Daria had once been a Vestal Virgin; she became a Christian, and was the especial object of hatred by the fading pagan party.
