Bisomus

A tomb large enough to contain two bodies

A tomb large enough to contain two bodies. The ordinary tombs (loci) in the galleries of the Roman catacombs contained one body. It sometimes happened, however, that a space large enough to contain two bodies was excavated. Such a double grave is referred to in inscriptions as locus bisomus. An inscription from the catacomb of St. Calixtus, for instance, informs us that a certain Boniface, who died at the age of twenty-three years and two months, was interred in a double grave which had been prepared for himself and for his father (Bonifacius, qui vixit annix XXII et II (mens) es, positus in bisomum in pace, sibi et patr. suo). A fourth-century inscription tells of two ladies who had purchased for their future interment, a bisomus in a "new crypt" which contained the body of a Saint:

IN CRYPTA NOBA RETRO SAN CTUS EMERVM VIVAS BALER RA ET SABINA MERUM LOC V BISOM AB APRONE ET A BIATORE

Like so many

pious

but rather

superstitious

persons

of that age "Balerra" and "Sabina" wished to be

buried

in the closest proximity to a

martyr

,

retro sanctos

, a

privilege

which, as we learn from another inscription, "many desire but few receive" (

quod multi cupiunt et rari accipiunt

).

Sources

NESBITT, in Dict. Christ. Ant., s.v.; NORTHCOTE AND BROWNLOW, Roma Sott. (London, 1878); MARUCCHI, Eléments d'arch. chrét.: notions gén. (Paris, 1899).