Catacombs of St. Sebastian

So today for class, our professor said we were going to the catacombs. I was thinking to myself, “Ok that’s fine, I’ve seen catacombs before, like the ones at the Vatican with the Popes.” So I reassured myself and was excited to see the first catacombs in Rome, especially since it is one of the oldest places in Rome left. Let me tell you, this place is amazing, but is an extreme hike from the center of city. In order to get to the catacombs of St. Sebastian, you need to take two metro lines, go out of the gates of Rome, and arrive in the countryside of Rome. Now the countryside of Rome, you would think would be beautiful, let me put those thoughts to rest. The countryside resembles a scene from a scary movie, in that if a car broke down, it’s miles away from civilization. I would never recommend going there alone, or after dark. Anyways, after twenty minutes we finally arrived to the Church of St. Sebastian, and the catacombs were shown to be underneath the church.

When we went down into the catacombs, it is 21 miles into the earth! Luckily, we only went down into the first level, but it still was a bazillion degrees colder than outside. So we walked for a half a mile down these narrow steps, and thankfully I am short, because the ceilings were very shallow. Now, just to clarify I am not claustrophobic, but these catacombs were so tiny and narrow, I felt like I was losing oxygen. Just to make the situation worse, our tour guide told us the one section we were supposed to go for the tour felt apart yesterday….. This did not make me happy not one bit. When walking through the catacombs it seemed very similar to walking in like a pyramid, everything was extremely old, you had to crawl at some points, and there was so much history still in there.

Continuing, the catacombs were overall amazing. In the past, there used to be 173,000 graves, but the bodies were all taken out during an excavation and put into various churches in Rome. Additionally, during excavation archeologists discovered plausible evidence pointing to the idea that originally Peter and Paul had their graves there at some point. The evidence was red marble that had people’s prayers inscribed on them, stating, “Peter, pray for ______” or “Paul, please ________.”

Today the catacombs are open for the public to see, just like we did. However it is very strange that this beautiful basilica is built there, but in the middle of nowhere. In the church there are also many relics such as the arrows that pierced St. Sebastian during his execution, and footprints of where Jesus stood when he appeared to Peter.