- quently became part of the great Cemetery of Callistus. The
martyr was interred evidently in a vault or crypt which belonged to her illustrious family; several inscriptions belonging to Christian members of the gens Cæcilia have been found in the immediate vicinity of S. Cecilia's grave. Less than a quarter of a century after her martyrdom, the subterranean cemetery in which the Cæcilian vault was situated became part of the general property of the Roman congregations. Callistus, afterwards Bishop of Rome, held a high office under Bishop Zephyrinus, and he was set over the cemetery, which was subsequently called after him, the Cemetery of Callistus. At the beginning of the third century—as in the Vatican Crypt, where the earliest Bishops of Rome had been deposited round the body of S. Peter, there was no more room for interments—Callistus arranged the sepulchral chamber known as the Papal Crypt to be the official burying-place of the Bishops of Rome. The chamber in which S. Cecilia was laid was close by this Papal Crypt. De Rossi graphically expresses this: "Ce n'est donc pas sainte Cecile qui fut enterrée parmi les Papes, c'est elle au contraire qui fit aux Papes du III^{me} siècle les honneurs de sa demeure funèbre." (From Allard.)
We will trace the story of the celebrated Roman saint through the ages.
The statement contained in the "Acts of S. Cecilia" of her interment in the Cemetery of S. Callistus no doubt is accurate, although the hand of a somewhat later "redactor" is manifest, for the cemetery only obtained its title of "Callistus" some thirty years after the martyrdom of the saint. S. Cecilia at once seems to have won a prominent place among the martyrs and confessors of the persecution of Marcus Aurelius. This is accounted for not only by the dramatic scenes which a generally accepted tradition tells us were the accompanying features of her passion, but also by the high rank and position of the sufferer and her generous bequest to the Roman congregations.
Towards the close of the fourth century S. Cecilia's crypt was among the popular sanctuaries specially cared for by Pope Damasus, much of whose work is still, in spite of centuries
