We turn reluctantly from the Nomentan Way, and passing through Rome, we go out of the gate which opens on the Appian. About a mile from the present wall, just where the road divides before coming to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, a little, ugly, white church, of the deformed architecture of the seventeenth century, recalls, by its name of _Domine quo vadis?_ "O Lord, whither goest thou?" one of the most impressive, one of the earliest and simplest, of the many legends of the legendary religious annals of Rome. It relates, that, at the time of the persecution of Nero, St. Peter, being then in Rome, was persuaded to fly secretly from the city, in the hope of escaping from the near peril. Just as he reached this place, trembling, we may well believe, not more with fear than with doubt, while past scenes rose vividly before him, and the last words heard from his Master's lips came with a flood of self-reproach into his heart,--as he hurried silently along, with head bowed down, in the gray twilight, he became suddenly aware of a presence before him, and, looking up, beheld the form of that beloved Master whom he was now a second time denying. He beheld him, moreover, in the act of bearing his cross. Peter, with his old ardor, did not wait to be addressed, but said, _Domine, quo vadis?_--"O Lord, whither goest thou?" The Saviour, looking at him as he had looked but once before, replied, _Venio Romam iterum crucifigi_,--"I come to Rome to be crucified a second time"; and thereupon disappeared. Peter turned, reëntered the gate, and shortly after was crucified for his Lord's sake. His body, it is said, was laid away in a grave on the Vatican Hill, where his great church was afterwards built. And here we come upon another legend, which takes us out again on the Appian Way, to the place where now stands the Church of St. Sebastian. St. Gregory the Great relates in one of his letters, that, not long after St. Peter and St. Paul had suffered martyrdom, some Christians came from the East to Rome to find the bodies of these their countrymen, which they desired to carry back with them to their own land. They so far succeeded as to gain possession of the bodies, and to carry them as far as the second milestone on the Appian Way. Here they paused, and when they attempted to carry the bodies farther, so great a storm of thunder and lightning arose, that they were terrified, and did not venture to repeat their attempt. By this time, also, the Romans had become aware of the carrying off of the sacred bodies, and, coming out from the city, recovered possession of them. One of the old pictures on the wall of the portico of the ancient basilica of St. Peter's preserved a somewhat different version of the legend, representing the Romans as falling violently upon the Oriental robbers, and compelling them, with a storm of blows, to yield up the possession of the relics they were carrying away by stealth.