This Catacomb takes its name from the Christian martyr Sebastian, who suffered during the Diocletian persecution. The story of his martyrdom is one of great beauty; but, as is the case with most of these 185 legends, its historic value is invalidated by the miraculous episodes of his history. According to the “Acts of St. Sebastian,” this young and gallant officer was a native of Narbonne, in Gaul, who held the high rank of commander of the prætorian guard of Diocletian and Maximian. His access to the emperors enabled him to offer a powerful protection to the persecuted Christians, which he did not fail to extend. Two of his fellow-soldiers, Marcus and Marcellinus, were about to recant their profession, when Sebastian exhorted them to steadfastness with such fervour as to nerve them for martyrdom and convert the judges and all present. For his own fidelity to the Christian faith he was transpierced with arrows and left for dead. He recovered, however, either through the pious care of the Christian matron Irene, or through the special grace of the Virgin. Undeterred by his recent experience, he presented himself before the emperor, upbraided him for his persecution of the Christians, and foretold his death. He was immediately seized by the command of the tyrant and beaten to death with clubs in the hippodrome of the palace, A. D. 286. His body was ignominiously thrown into the Cloaca Maxima, or main sewer of Rome, in order to deprive it of Christian burial. But the place where it lay being revealed in a dream, his remains were rescued from their loathsome and unconsecrated grave, and piously interred in the Catacomb which bears his name. The indignities that he suffered have been more than compensated by the honours paid his relics. Over his tomb the high altar of the church blazes with lights and jewels, and a marble effigy of the saint pierced with arrows commemorates his martyrdom. The genius of Berini, Guido, and the Caracci, has glorified his memory in deathless painting 186 and in “animated bust.”[313] Connected with the church is an irregular semi-subterranean building, where, tradition asserts, the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul for a time reposed. It would appear, according to the legend, that upon the martyrdom of these “princes of the apostles” the oriental Christians sent for their hallowed remains as belonging of right to them as their fellow-countrymen. Their bodies were conveyed thus far from their original sepulchres when a violent storm prevented the accomplishment of the sacrilegious act, and the Roman Christians re-interred the sacred relics in this chamber, where they remained, according to one account, a year and seven months, or, according to another, forty years.[314]