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The area of the catacombs of San Sebastiano used to be a pozzolan mine; it was abandoned at the end of the 2nd century and then used by Romans as a place for pagan burial: simple graves for slaves and freedmen have been discovered, as well as monumental tombs, particularly in the so-called piazzuola ("little square"), a circular compartment that had been an opencast mine, in which walls three mausoleums were dug. The presence in these mausoleums of typically Christian iconographies, such as the anchor and the fish, suggests that the mausoleums were used, at a later stage, also for the sepulture of Christians. Beside the piazzuola, the dig of the cemetery galleries was started in this period.
The style of the inscription on the epitaph of is virtually the same as those of contemporary pagan inscriptions. Only the two flanking symbols of the anchor and the fish indicate that the deceased was a member of the Christian congregation.
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