Catacomba di Sant'Ermete

The older of its two names, Bassilla, belongs either to the owner of the ground in which the underground cemetery was dug in the first half of the third century or to the martyr whom the Depositio martyrum commemorates on 22 September, killed in Diocletian's persecution of 304; scholars have not settled it, and the source says a case of homonymy cannot be excluded. Sant'Ermete is the martyr from whom the catacomb takes its other name. Early liturgical sources record four burials on the Salaria vetus, Ermete, Proto, Giacinto and Bassilla, and early medieval pilgrim itineraries add Crispo, Ercolano, Leopardo, Vittore and Massimiliano, of whom almost nothing is known. The Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae attests a basilica above ground dedicated to Bassilla. Inscriptions of Bassilla from this catacomb are now in the Museo Pio Cristiano in Vatican City.