E04222: Prudentius, in his Latin Crowns of the Martyrs (Peristephanon), written c. 400 in Calahorra (northern Spain), in a poem on the martyrdom of *Hippolytus (martyr of Rome, S00509), describes a church in the neighbourhood of the tomb of Hippolytus. The church is richly decorated because of the gifts of the pilgrims visiting the grave of the martyr.

Liber Peristephanon, Poem XI.215-230

215 Stat sed iuxta aliud, quod tanta frequentia templum
tunc adeat cultu nobile regifico,
parietibus celsum sublimibus atque superba
maiestate potens muneribusque opulens.
Ordo columnarum geminus laquearia tecti
220 sustinet auratis suppositus trabibus.
Adduntur graciles tecto breuiore recessus,
qui laterum seriem iugiter exsinuent.
At medios aperit tractus uia latior alti
culminis exsurgens editiore apice.
225 Fronte sub aduersa gradibus sublime tribunal
tollitur, antistes praedicat unde deum.
Plena laborantes aegre domus accipit undas
artaque confertis aestuat in foribus,
maternum pandens gremium quo condat alumnos
230 ac foveat fetos adcumulata sinus.


'But there stands close by another church (templum), renowned for its princely decoration, for the great multitude to enter then, a lofty church with towering walls, and a great one by reason of its proud grandeur, and gifts have made it rich. (219) A double row of pillars supporting gilded beams holds up the panelled roof, and there are also slender aisles with lower roof which stand back and widen the sides all along their length, while up the middle there stretches a broader passage-way making open space under a high roof, rising to a loftier top. (225) Facing you, at the top of some steps rises the pulpit from which the priest proclaims God. The building, even when it is full, scarcely admits the struggling waves of people, and there is turmoil in the confined space at the packed doorway when she opens her motherly arms to receive and comfort her children and they pile up on her teeming bosom.'

Text: Cunningham 1966: 377. Translation: Thomson 1953: 319-321.