This is the process by which it is possible (but not rigorously necessary, on the evidence) to date the bones before A.D. 79, perhaps in the reign of Nero; perhaps they are the bones of a victim of the persecution of A.D. 64; perhaps they are the bones of St. Peter. They were evidently disturbed in antiquity, for this is not a proper burial, but simply a collection of bones; the head, for example, is missing. The original burial must have lain athwart the line of the later Red Wall: when the builders of the Red Wall hit upon it, they may, knowing the legend of St. Peter’s martyrdom in the amphitheater somewhere near this spot, have assumed that this was his grave, and so they arched up the Red Wall’s foundations to avoid disturbing it. The next step was to build the Aedicula (Fig. 13.10), an act associated in literary sources with Pope Anacletus (traditional dates, A.D. 76–88), but since not even the most pious Catholics suppose the Aedicula to be this early, an emendation of the name into Anicetus (_ca._ 155–165) is defensible: it is paleographically plausible, and it suits the date of the Red Wall. The traces of the Aedicula as found were asymmetrical: its north supporting column had been moved to make room for a wall that was built sometime before Constantine to buttress the Red Wall, which had developed a bad crack from top to bottom. The excavators found the north face of this buttress wall covered with a palimpsest of _graffiti_, only one of which--in Greek--refers to St. Peter by name, though some others may do so in a cryptic way, and all testify that this spot was one of particular sanctity, much frequented by pilgrims. [Illustration: FIG. 13.10 Vatican City, excavations under St. Peter’s. Aedicula, reconstruction by G. U. S. Corbett. (Toynbee and Ward Perkins, _op. cit._, p. 161)] The shrine under St. Peter’s is not the only spot in Rome associated with St. Peter. Another is under the Church of San Sebastiano, two-and-a-half miles out, just off the Appian Way. Here excavation has found _graffiti_ mentioning St. Peter and St. Paul, a room for taking ceremonial meals, and Christian tombs of the third century A.D. Some scholars believe, but without cogent archaeological evidence, that St. Peter’s body, in whole or in part, was moved to this retired spot off the main road, from the Vatican Hill, for safety during the persecutions under the Emperor Valerian in A.D. 258. This would explain the association of the San Sebastiano site with the apostle; the assumption that the bones were returned to the Aedicula after the danger was past would explain--though it is not the only possible explanation--the disturbed state in which the excavators found them.