Before Constantine, Rome's Bishops had been persecuted leaders. Now they were important officials with real influence. One Pope, Damasus I, revelled in this new status. Nearly 70 when he came to power, Damasus didn't allow old age to dampen his pleasures. Corrupt and egotistical, his enemies described him as a smooth-talking adulterer, or as they put it, "A tickler of the ears of middle-aged women." But Damasus was also a poet who used his literary gifts to win Christian souls. He took Rome's earliest sites of martyrdom and celebrated them in poetry. This poetical propaganda has been studied by Marianne Saghy, a historian who I'm meeting at the Church of Sant'Agnese. Pope Damasus went into every single catacomb, more than 60 catacombs, placing poetic inscriptions above the holy graves. Damasus's inscriptions were like huge billboards in the labyrinthine darkness of the catacombs. And it attracted huge throngs, huge crowds to the graves of the martyrs.


在君士坦丁之前，罗马主教们曾是遭受迫害的宗教领袖。而今他们身居要位，拥有真正的影响力。 其中一位教皇，达玛斯一世就沉浸在新的地位（所赋予的权利当中）。达玛斯就任时已年近七十，但他没让高龄妨碍到自己的享乐。生活堕落、自高重大；他的仇敌们则把他描述为一个能说会道的通奸者；原话是这么说的——“善于为中年女性挠耳朵的人”。但达玛斯还是个诗人，他用自己的文学天赋来赢得基督教信徒（的肯定）。他以罗马最早的殉道者遗址为题材，写诗予以赞颂。这富有诗意的布道方式得到了Marianne Saghy的研究；她是位历史学家，我现在正同她在 Sant'Agnese教堂会面。达玛斯教皇进到每一个墓穴之中——共有六十几个之多，将题好的诗文放到庄重的坟墓上方。在这些如迷宫般曲折而又漆黑一片的墓穴里，达玛斯的碑文就仿佛是大型的指示牌。达玛斯此举引得大批人潮来到烈士们的墓穴。