No burials were allowed in ancient Rome within the 11 miles of city walls. There are roughly 40 catacombs slightly outside and all around Rome. After people stopped using them in about 500 AD, they were virtually forgotten for about 1000 years. Land was expensive so poor Christians built catacombs many stories deep on land owned by a few wealthy Christians. (Some catacombs were Jewish catacombs.) There are 300 miles of tomb-lined tunnels with networks of galleries 5 layers deep.
One of the noteworthy catacombs is San Callisto. Many martyrs, saints and 9 3rd century popes were buried there. Other regular people chose to be buried nearby in order to be close to these esteemed people. There were 1/2 million tombs in San Callisto alone. The bones have been long since removed. Catacombs were not hiding places but rather were simply used as underground cemeteries.
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