Prof. Barbara Borg (Exeter) – "Peter and Paul ad catacumbas: a pozzolana mine reconsidered."

Classics and Ancient History Research Seminar. The burial sites of the apostles Peter and Paul are among the most controversial topics in scholarship on early Christianity. Their cult site on the via Appia, set into and above a former pozzolana mine, is still seen by many as a temporary refuge for their relics during times of persecution, while a growing number of scholars has resorted to the assumption that there were rival traditions related to the Appia site on the one hand, and those on the via Ostiense and the Vatican on the other. I shall reconsider the evidence for the apostles’ burial, and the history of their cult on the via Appia, in the light of both the site’s development from quarry to basilica, and its wider context between the second and third milestone of the consular road.