The shepherds have handed down this tradition, but we have no historic record of where she was buried. Dionysius (xi. 39) gives this account of her funeral:—
"The relatives of the virgin still increased the disaffection of the citizens by bringing her bier into the forum, by adorning her body with all possible magnificence, and carrying it through the most remarkable and most conspicuous streets of the city: for the matrons and virgins ran out of their houses lamenting her misfortune, and some threw flowers upon the bier, some their girdles or ribbons others their virgin toys, and others even cut off their curls and cast them upon it. And many of the men, either purchasing ornaments in the neighbouring shops, or receiving them by the favour of the owners, contributed to the pomp by presents proper to the occasion: so that the funeral was celebrated through the whole city."
"And close around the body gathered a little train
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain.
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown,
And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down."—Macaulay.
About three miles from the bridge are the
ORATORY AND CATACOMB OF S. ALEXANDER,
discovered in 1853. S. Alexander suffered under Trajan, A.D. 117. In the fourth century a church was built over the oratory and catacomb. In 1867 Pius IX. laid the foundations of a church to be erected over these remains. To visit them a permit is necessary from the cardinal vicar, 70 Via della Scrofa.