(A.D. 590-604) to Theodelinda the Lombard Queen), the names of Felicitas and six of her martyred sons occur.
In the "Pittacia" or labels they are grouped topographically together, as we have given them above, Felicitas' being in a separate label, Januarius also in a separate label, then the two groups together as above, the "two" and the "three." There is a reason for S. Silanus, who was buried with his mother in the cemetery named after her, being absent from this "Monza" Catalogue, and from the labels on the phials of oil. His body, as the "Liberian" Catalogue informs us, was missing for a season from its original loculus, it having been stolen away, but was subsequently recovered and replaced.
The suspicion of the legendary character of the story of the martyrdom of S. Felicitas and her seven sons is largely traceable to the conclusions of some critical scholars (by no means of all) that the "Acts of S. Felicitas" and her sons are not authentic, that is, that they are not a contemporary piece, but were compiled at a somewhat later and uncertain date. It is, however, by the most trustworthy of these critics conceded that they are very ancient.
But granting these conclusions are accurate and that the "Acts," in the strict sense of the word, are not authentic, the circumstances of the Passion and the martyrdom of the mother and her heroic sons rest on other authorities outside and quite independent of the "Acts"—authorities of the highest value and absolutely unquestioned.
Of these the testimony of the catacomb tombs of the mother and her seven sons, a somewhat novel witness, is the one we have especially brought forward here.
It is an evidence unchangeable, and which admits of no subsequent revision or addition. In its special department it is perhaps the strongest piece of testimony that can be brought forward, and much of this strange unexpected witness was unknown until quite lately—until these forgotten cemeteries were partially explored by competent and indefatigable scholars of our own day and time.
There are, besides, other important "pieces," which for want of space have not been quoted here, bearing on the same
