'More than usual they gather for rejoicings; tell me, friend, what it is! Throughout all Rome they run to and fro and exult.' 'The festal day of the apostolic triumph returns to us, ennobled by the blood of Paul and of Peter. One day, yet renewed each full year, saw both of them laurelled by a proud death. The Tiber's marsh knows it, lapped by the river flowing near, that the sod is consecrated with twin trophies, a witness both of the cross and of the sword, with which, drenching those same grasses, the rain of blood twice flowed. The first sentence carried off Peter by the laws of Nero, bidden to hang upon overhanging wood. Yet he, fearing to vie in emulating the glory of a lofty death, presumed to court the glory of so great a Master, demanded that they fix his head plunged downward with his feet upraised, that with his brain he might look upon the lowest of the stake.
His hand, therefore, is fixed beneath, alone turned toward the summit, the greater in mind the lesser its posture; for he had learned that heaven is reached more swiftly from a lowly place, and so he bowed his face, about to yield up his spirit. When the rounded orb of the bending year had run its course on its wheel and the rising sun brought back the selfsame day, Nero spewed forth his seething fury upon the neck of Paul, and ordered the teacher of the nations to be struck down. He himself had foretold to his own self that the end would soon be his: 'We must go to Christ, now I am being released,' he said. Without delay he is dragged out, handed over to punishment, sacrificed by the sword; neither the hour nor the day deceived the prophet. The sacred Tiber divides the bones of the two upon either bank, as it flows between their hallowed tombs. The right-hand region holds Peter, received under golden roofs, where the olive sings and the running stream murmurs;
for from the brow of a rock a spring arose, waking a perennial fount rich in chrism; now it pours over precious marble and glides down the slope, until it ripples into a verdant pool. There is an inner part of the tomb, where with sounding cascades the water rolls in a snowy depth. A painting of every hue tints the glassy waves above; the moss gleams, the gold grows green, and the dark-blue water draws in the shadow of the overhanging purple: you would believe the panelled ceiling was stirred by the waves. There the Shepherd himself feeds his sheep with the chill of the cold spring, and sees those whom the streams of Christ make thirst. On the other side the Ostian Way guards the monument of Paul, where the river skirts the left-hand bank. Royal is the splendour of the place; a good prince consecrated these strongholds and lavished his vast wealth upon the precinct.
He overlaid the beams with thin gold leaf, so that all the light within might be golden, like the gleam of dawn at sunrise. Beneath the tawny coffered ceilings he set columns of Parian marble, which there a fourfold rank marks out. Then a vaulted arch ran in varied colours of brilliant glass: even so do the meadows glow with the flowers of spring. Behold, two endowments of the faith bestowed by the supreme Father, which he gave to be honoured by the toga-clad city. Look, the people of Romulus pour through the forked streets; one light burns hot in two festivals. Yet let us hasten to both with quickened step, and take our full delight in these hymns and in those. We shall go further, where the way of Hadrian's bridge leads; then we shall make for the left bank of the river. First the watchful priest performs the rites beyond the Tiber, then he hurries back here and doubles his vows.