[Footnote D:  An inscription set up by Vigilius, pope from A.D. 538 to 555, and preserved by Gruter, contains the following lines:—­

  “Dum peritura Getae posuissent castra sub urbe,
  Moverunt sanctis bella nefunda prius,
  Istaque sacrilego verterunt corde sepulchra
  Martyribus quondam rite sacrata piis. 
  Diruta Vigilius nam mox haec Papa gemiscens,
  Hostibus expulsis, omne novavit opus.”]

[Footnote E:  The phials sent by Gregory to Queen Theodelinda were accompanied by a list of the shrines from which they were taken; among them was that of St. Cecilia.  The document closes with the words, “Quae olea sca temporibus Domini Gregorii Papae adduxit Johannes indignus et peccator Dominae Theodelindae reginae de Roma.”  The oils are still preserved in the treasury of the cathedral at Monza,—­and the list accompanying them has afforded some important facts to the students of the early martyrology of Rome.  A similar belief in the efficacy of oils burned in lamps before noted images, or at noted shrines, still prevails in the Papal City.  In a little pamphlet lying before us, entitled Historic Notices of Maria SSma del Parto, venerated in St. Augustine’s Church in Rome, published in 1853, is the following passage:  “Many who visited Mary dipped their fingers in the lamps to cross themselves with the holy oil, by the droppings from which the base of the statue was so dirtied, that hanging-lamps were substituted in the place of those that stood around.  But that the people might not be deprived of the trust which they reposed in the holy oil, bits of cotton dipped in it were wrapped up in paper, and there was a constant demand for them among the devout.”  This passage refers to late years, and the custom still exists.  Superstition flourishes at Rome now not less than it did thirteen hundred years ago; and superstitious practices have a wonderful vitality in the close air of Romanism.]

But although the memory of those who had been buried within them was thus preserved, the catacombs themselves and the churches at their entrances were falling more and more into decay.  Shortly after Gregory’s death, Pope Boniface IV. illustrated his otherwise obscure pontificate by seeking from the mean and dissolute Emperor Phocas the gift of the Pantheon for the purpose of consecrating it for a Christian church.  The glorious temple of all the gods was now dedicated [A.D. 608, Sept. 15] to those who had displaced them, the Virgin and all the Martyrs.  Its new name was S. Maria ad Martyres,—­and in order to sanctify its precincts, the Pope brought into the city and placed under the altars of his new church twenty-eight wagon-loads of bones, collected from the different catacombs, and said to be those of martyrs.  This is the first notice that has been preserved of the practice that became very general in later times of transferring bodies and bones from their graves in the rock to new ones under the city churches.