But this is not the end of the problem. The next question is, “How early can the burial, by objective archaeological evidence, be demonstrated to be?” The answer to this question must be sought, if anywhere, in the context of Campo P. This proved on excavation to be an area of poor graves, marked, like those of the necropolis of the Port of Ostia on Isola Sacra, simply by a surround and a pitched roof of tiles, without any of the pomp of costly marble sarcophagus or richly stuccoed mausoleum. It is to the class which would be buried in such pathetic graves as these that the earliest Roman Christians (of the age of Nero [A.D. 64]) must have belonged. (Since the Report was published, Professor Magi, whom we have already met in connection with the Cancelleria reliefs, has discovered, under the Vatican City parking lot, another cemetery, also of poor graves, of the first century A.D.; there is no cogent proof that they are Christian.) The graves in Campo P ([Fig. 13.9]) were found to lie at various levels: the deepest must be the earliest. The deepest is the one called by the excavators Gamma (see plan, γ, [Fig. 13.9]): it lies five-and-a-half feet below the pavement of Campo P, and it partly underlies, and is therefore older than, the foundations of the Red Wall, which in turn is dated by the Clivus drain about the middle of the second century A.D. Grave Theta (θ) is higher, and therefore later, than Gamma. It is a poor grave, protected by tiles, one of which bears a stamp of Vespasian’s reign (A.D. 69–79). It is unsafe method to date an archaeological find by a single brick stamp which could be second-hand, used at any date later than its firing, even much later. But the stamp creates at least a presumption that Theta may be dated as early as A.D. 79, and, if so, Gamma must be earlier still. Since both these graves appear to have been dug in such a way as to respect the area just in front of the Aedicula, it follows that the bones in the lowest niche must be earlier than either grave.
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.
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.
In any case, in the years between the building of the Aedicula and the centering of Constantine’s church upon it, there was continuity of pious commemoration of the spot. This is proved by the graffiti on the buttress wall, and by a series of burials, Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon, and Mu (α, β, δ, ε, μ) all motivated by a desire to be buried as close as possible to the Aedicula, and all, to judge by their contents—remains of cloth in Beta, for example, showed gold threads—belonging to important people. Some scholars (not including the excavators) have supposed that these are the graves of early Popes.
This was the state of affairs in Campo P when the building of Constantine’s basilica began. The Aedicula was made the focus of the whole building plan: it was left projecting above the pavement of the new church, and it was covered by a canopy upheld by twisted columns. (It is an extraordinary coincidence that Bernini, when he built the canopy over the altar of the Renaissance church, chose twisted columns to uphold it, though he could not possibly have known that Constantine’s canopy also involved this detail.) Constantine’s architect, in the classical tradition, paid the secular Roman basilica the compliment of creative imitation.
It was not until about A.D. 600 that the altar was placed directly over the shrine, and the presbytery raised to accommodate it. By that time, the tradition was firmly established that pious pilgrims should leave a votive coin in front of the Aedicula: here in the fill the excavators found 1900 coins, Roman, papal, Italian, and from all over Europe, ranging in date from before A.D. 161 uninterruptedly down to the fourteenth century. Also about A.D. 600, at the same time as the placing of the altar directly over the shrine, the two upper niches in the Red Wall were combined into one, the Niche of the Pallia, where the vestments of newly-consecrated archbishops were put to be sanctified by close contact with the bones of the first Bishop of Rome: a shaft in the floor of the niche led down to the grave.
The shrine and the Constantinian church survived the sacks of Rome both by the Goths in A.D. 410, and by the Vandals in A.D. 455; the Saracens in A.D. 846 were not so respectful. In their search for treasure they handled the Aedicula very roughly, and it is likely that it is from this sack, and not from the persecution of A.D. 258, that the disturbance of the bones should be dated. In any case, after the sack the life of the shrine went on as before, and in the Renaissance church as in its predecessor the shrine remained the focal point, one of the most venerated spots in Christendom.
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