207 Author’s Note Saint Peter was martyred in A.D. 64, during the reign of Emperor Nero. Initially, he was buried just a few steps from the place of his execution in the Circus of Caligula. At first, his tomb was marked only by a few tiles. Later, a shrine was erected over his tomb. Named the Trophy of Gaius, it was flanked by two small marble columns supporting a stone canopy. In 258, at the time of the persecutions of Emperor Valerian, the remains of Saint Peter were transferred to the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian on the outskirts of the city, in the hope of protecting his body from profanation. It is thought that Saint Peter’s relics were once again transferred to their original resting place in the year 336. It was over this tomb that Constantine built a church in honor of Saint Peter. On top of this now stands the present-day Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In the 1970s, new excavations beneath Saint Peter’s led to the discovery of bones within a tomb. The relics, wrapped in red fabric stitched with threads of gold, belonged to “a man of robust constitution, between sixty and seventy years of age,” the forensic analysis specifies. On the wall of the tomb, graffiti reads: “Peter lies here within.”
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