| The necropoli
[necropolises] of the ancient city extend above all to
the north and east of the amphitheatre, which, as
mentioned already, constituted the northern limit of the
inhabited area. Directly to the north of the
amphitheatre, in Via Sant'Euplio, under the church of the
same name (destroyed in the Second World War), there is
still an underground room with quadrangular niches that
was used for burials. A little to the north again, during
building work first on the main post office and later on
a department store along Via Etnea, a large necropolis of
the Roman era was identified and can still be visited
today under La Rinascente. To the east of Via Etnea, in
the first courtyard of the convent (today the
Lucchesi-Palli barracks ) connected to the Carmelite
church, the remains of a Roman tomb are displayed.
Popular tradition identifies this tomb as that of the
Greek poet Stesichorus, and some scholars - on very
scanty evidence - attribute it to the classical era.
Another area with necropolises - in use from the
Hellenistic age - has been identified around Viale Regina
Margherita and Piazza Santa Maria di Gesù. Inside the
perimeter of the Garibaldi Hospital there is a
rectangular columbarium with eighteen niches. Visible in
Via Ipogeo, with an entrance on Via Sanfilippo, is a
small Roman funeral monument consisting of a rectangular
room half-buried in the surrounding ground level. The
building perhaps carried a second floor. Another
sepulchral building, circular in form and on two floors,
has been identified in the garden of the complex at 33-35
Viale Regina Margherita: an arched opening on the western
side leads to a small room with four niches in the walls.
In the 1950s, to the south of Piazza Santa Maria di Gesù
and on the western side of Via Androne at the crossroads
with Via Dottor Consoli, Giovanni Rizza discovered the
most significant burial ground of Christian Catania. The
remains of a small, early fourth century basilica, with a
corridor nave and a trichora apse, were identified
between the tomb precincts. The archaeologist suggested
that this is the martyrium in which the
eighteen-month-old Iulia Florentina, from Ibla near
Catania, was buried. Indeed, an inscription held today in
the stores of the Louvre records this event. A second
basilica has been identified just to the north of the
first one (the apse is under Casa Lombardo).lt lies
parallel to the first and is also superimposed on the
tombs, but is wider. This
basilica dates to around the mid sixth century, was paved
with a polychrome mosaic carrying marine, agricultural,
pastoral and animal scenes, and today
is held in the Civic Museum . |
