The church of S. Ercolano is built straight against a part of the first Etruscan walls on the spot where the saint is supposed to have been decapitated by Totila. It is a strange little church, octagonal and very tall and narrow. The first church is said to have been built as early as 1200 and out of the remains of an old amphitheatre, or, as some say, the temple to Mars, which originally stood on the site. Its early history is, however, somewhat hazy. In 1600 the church was finally rebuilt by Bishop Comitoli, who at once looked about him for some suitable tomb in which to place the body of S. Ercolano, which had hitherto had such a very unquiet history. It happened that just at that time a splendid sarcophagus was dug up under the little chapel of S. Orfito at the foot of Monte Pacciano. Six skulls and a wooden cross, together with certain legends connected with some early Christian martyrs and a chapel in the woods, seemed to prove that the sarcophagus had formerly held their "holy bones." The pious bishop Comitoli very reasonably concluded that "Heaven was ministering to his need," so he took the sarcophagus and put it on the altar of his new church, and in it he laid the body of the saint. The translation of the body from its old abode in the Duomo was marked by a magnificent ceremony. The Bishop got up into the pulpit in the square, which had never been used since the days of S. Bernardino, and thence preached a sermon on the merits of their patron Saint to the people of Perugia, who came in thousands to attend him. S. Ercolano, who is purely a local saint like S. Costanzo, plays an important part in the history of Perugia; he may, indeed, be called the presiding genius of the city. His history is often confused with that of a most obscure and highly mythical person [Illustration: CHURCH OF S. ERCOLANO AND ARCHWAY IN THE ETRUSCAN WALL] of the same name who was martyred at Perugia in very early days and devoured by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The shining point in the life of the second S. Ercolano is the part that he played in the defence of his city during the siege of Totila. This has endeared him to the hearts of the citizens, and his name is as familiar to the street boys of Perugia as that of S. Ubaldo to the children of Gubbio. Unlike the saint of Gubbio, however, S. Ercolano failed in his diplomacy. Barbarossa listened to the prayers of Ubaldo and departed from Gubbio; Totila took Perugia and beheaded its Bishop, and the Gothic soldiers cut off his head on a ledge of the Etruscan walls where the present church now stands to commemorate his martyrdom.