Catacombs of Saint Sebastian

This guide to the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian in Rome traces how the word catacomb itself was born in this quarry beside the Appian Way, later used by early Christians for burial from the late second century onward. It follows the triclia, a hall where pilgrims scratched hundreds of prayers to Peter and Paul into the plaster during Emperor Valerian's persecution, and the account of how the martyr Sebastian's body was recovered from the city's sewer by a woman named Lucina. Look for the scratched Latin and Greek inscriptions covering the walls.