the names of the lowly slaves instead of the name of their illustrious
mistress, who was as distinguished by her Christian faith as by her
rank. Time brought to these noble martyrs a worthy revenge for their
ignoble fate; for when their ashes were taken from the catacomb to
this church in the year 524, they were first carried in triumph to the
Capitol, and made to pass under the imperial arches, on which was
affixed the inscriptions "The Senate and the Roman people to Santa
Flavia Domitilla, for having brought more honour to Rome by her death
than her illustrious relations by their works." "To Santa Flavia
Domitilla, and to the saints Nereus and Achilles, the excellent
citizens who gained peace for the Christian republic at the price of
their blood." Jeremy Taylor, in his splendid sermon on the
"Marriage-ring," has a touching reference to the legendary history of
Nereus. The church dedicated to the honour of these Christian slaves
has many interesting associations. It stands upon the site of a
primitive Christian oratory, called Fasciola, because St. Peter was
said to have dropped there one of the bandages of his wounds on the
way to execution. And its last reconstruction, retaining all the
features of the old architecture with the utmost care, was the pious
work of its titular cardinal, Cæsar Baronius, the celebrated librarian
of the Vatican, whose Ecclesiastical Annals may be called the earliest
systematic work on Church History. The church has an enclosed choir,
with two ambones or reading-desks in it, surrounding the altar, as was
the custom in the older Christian churches. The mosaics on the tribune
representing the "Transfiguration" and "Annunciation" are more than a
thousand years old, and are interesting besides as the first
embodiments in art of these sacred subjects. Behind the high altar is
the pontifical chair, supported by lions, with a Gothic gable, on
which Gregory the Great was seated when he delivered his twenty-eighth
Homily, a few sentences of which are engraved on the marble.