The neighbourhood of the Divus Rediculus (which he however places on the _right_ of the Via Appia) is described by Pliny in connection with a curious story of imperial times. There was a cobbler who had his stall in the Roman Forum, and who possessed a tame raven, which was a great favourite with the young Romans, to whom he would bid good day as he sate perched upon the rostra. At length he became quite a public character, and the indignation was so great when his master killed him with his hammer in a fit of rage at his spoiling some new leather, that they slew the cobbler and decreed a public funeral to the bird; who was carried to the grave on a bier adorned with honorary crowns, preceded by a piper, and supported by two negroes in honour of his colour,--and buried--"ad rogum usque, qui constructus dextrâ Viæ Appiæ ad secundum lapidem in campo Rediculo appellate fuit."--_Pliny, Nat. Hist._ lib. x. c. 60. * * * * * Returning to the Via Appia, we reach, on the right, the _Basilica of S. Sebastiano_, rebuilt in 1611 by Flaminio Ponzio for Cardinal Scipio Borghese on the site of a church which had been founded by Constantine, where once existed the house and garden of the matron Lucina, in which she had buried the body of Sebastian, after his (second) martyrdom under Diocletian. The basilica contains nothing ancient, but the six granite columns in the portico. The altar covers the relics of the saint (a Gaul, a native of Narbonne, a Christian soldier under Diocletian) and the chapel of St. Sebastian has a statue of him in his youth, designed by Bernini and executed by Antonio Giorgetti. "The almost colossal form lies dead, the head resting on his helmet and armour. It is evidently modelled from nature, and is perhaps the finest thing ever designed by Bernini.... It is probably from the association of arrows with his form and story that St. Sebastian has been regarded from the first ages of Christianity as the protecting saint against plague and pestilence; Apollo was the deity who inflicted plague, and therefore was invoked with prayer and sacrifice against it; and to the honour of Apollo, in this particular character, St. Sebastian has succeeded."--_Jameson's Sacred Art_, p. 414. The original of the footprint in the Domine Quo Vadis is said to be preserved here. On the left of the entrance is the descent into the catacombs, with the inscription: