The remarkable San Clemente

About 4 blocks to the east from il Colesso is a church that takes up all of a small block, backing up to the busy Via Labicana and surrounded by high walls. Pleasant, but not unusual from the outside, we waited with 1-2 other small groups for the doors to open (many places are closed from lunch to midafternoon). As the time drew near to 3:30p, the crowd grew to nearly 30 people, all anxious to discover why this wait was so necessary.

The door opened and we entered the Basilica, which is very fine with a decorated ceiling of gilt and paint, well done, but not in and of itself unique in this part of the world. The group of us crossed the beautiful marble floor to a ticket office, paid our easy 5 euro fee, and filtered through a door leading to the lower level of the church--a catacomb perhaps? Uncertain, but obviously the crowd knew something we didn't, we followed them down a steep staircase to a low lit area, very dank smelling.

What you discover is another church, this one some 700 or so years older than the one sitting on top of it (which was already 13th century or so). Decorating the walls are some 11th century frescoes--mostly stories of Sts. Clemente and Alessandro. The light is dim, but the middle age influence is clear--the faces are flat and the eyes pronounced and round. The floor is uneven, even unsafe, and covered with rubber matting, so you move a little cautiously. There are translations in English of the didactics and the tomb of a former prefect of the Vatican library. But as you admire the frescoes, you notice the crowd is vanishing, not up to the church, but down yet again. A narrower and steeper staircase at the far end of this 2nd, older church takes you once again down to a deeper level.

This time you notice narrower walls, long, dark brick hallways, simple stone benches, and you learn you have entered a Roman public house from the 1st century, part of which was used as a Mithraeum, or a temple to the pagan god Mithras! In the distance, you can here water running--so far below ground, perhaps the sewer?

Ducking under a series of short, arched doorways through room after room--each with a row of square windows at elbow height (for circulation?) connecting to adjacent rooms--and reach the room at the end, which features a natural spring coming through a pipe into a trough. The air is cool, the mustyness no longer as noticeable, and you think, maybe I could live like a Roman after all.