material.[1] In fact, about the year 1840, the Marquis Campagna dug up, near Rome, two old graves, in one of which had been buried a Roman lady of high birth, inferred from the circumstance that all about her remains were found portions of such fine gold flat thread, once forming the burial garment with which she had been arrayed for her funeral: "Di due sepolcri Romani, del secolo di Augusto scoverti tra la via Latina e l'Appia, presso la tomba degli Scipioni."
Now we get to the Christian epoch. When Pope Paschal, A.D. 821, sought for the body of St. Cecily, who underwent martyrdom A.D. 230, the pontiff found, in the catacombs, the maiden bride whole, and dressed in a garment wrought all of gold, with some of her raiment drenched in blood lying at her feet: "Aureis illud (corpus) vestitum indumentis et linteamina martyris ipsius sanguine plena."[2] In making the foundations for the new St. Peter's at Rome, they came upon and looked into the marble sarcophagus in which had been buried Probus Anicius, prefect of the Pretorian, and his wife, Proba Faltonia, each of whose bodies was wrapped in a winding-sheet woven of pure gold strips.[3] Maria Stilicho's daughter, was wedded to the Emperor Honorius, and died sometime about A.D. 400. When her grave was opened, A.D. 1544, the golden tissues in which her body had been shrouded were taken out and melted, when the yield of precious metal amounted to thirty-six pounds.[4] The late Father Marchi found, among the remains of St. Hyacinthus, martyr, several fragments of the same kind of golden web, winding sheets of which were often given by the opulent for wrapping up the dead body of some poor martyred Christian brother, as is shown by the example specified in Boldetti's "Cimiteri de' santi martiri di Roma."[5]
Childeric, the second and perhaps the most renowned king of the Merovingean dynasty, died and was buried A.D. 485, at Tournai. In the year 1653 his grave was found out, and amid the earth about it so many remains of pure gold strips were turned up, that there is every reason for thinking that the Frankish king was wrapped in a mantle of such golden stuff for his burial.[6] That the strips of pure gold out of which the burial cloak of Childeric was woven were not anywise round,
- ↑ Book XXXIII. c. 19. Dr. Bostock's Translation.
- ↑ Liber Pontificalis, t. ii. p. 332, ed. Vignolio, Romæ, 1752; Hierurgia, 2nd ed. p. 275.
- ↑ Batelli, de Sarco. Marm. Probi Anicii et Probæ Faltoniæ in Temp. Vatic. Romæ. 1705.
- ↑ Cancellieri, De Secretariis Basil. Vatic. ii. 1000.
- ↑ T. II. p. 22.
- ↑ Cochet, Le Tombeau de Childeric I^{er}, p. 174.
