below the surface of the ground around the grave of the apostles to be lined with wide slabs of marble, and to be consecrated as a subterranean chapel.  It is curious enough that this pious work should have been performed, as is learned from an inscription set up here by Damasus himself, in fulfilment of a vow, on the extinction among the Roman clergy of the party of Ursicinus, his rival.  This custom of propitiating the favor of the saints by fair promises was thus early established.  It was soon found out that it was well to have a friend at court with whom a bargain could be struck.  If the adorning of this chapel was all that Damasus had to pay for the getting rid of his rival’s party, the bargain was an easy one for him.  There had been terrible and bloody fights in the Roman streets between the parties of the contending aspirants for the papal seat.  Ursicinus had been driven from Rome, but Damasus had had trouble with the priests of his faction.  Some of them had been rescued, as he was hurrying them off to prison, and had taken refuge with their followers in the Basilica of St. Maria Maggiore.  Damasus, with a mob of charioteers, gladiators, and others of the scum of Rome, broke into the church, and slew a hundred and sixty men and women who had been shut up within it.  Ursicinus, however, returned to the city; there were fresh disturbances, and a new massacre, on this occasion, in the Church of St. Agnes; and years passed before Damasus was established as undisputed ruler of the Church.

It was then, in fulfilment of the vow he had made during his troubles, that Saint Damasus (for he became a saint long since, success being a great sanctifier) adorned the underground chapel of the apostles.  The entrance to it is through the modern basilica of St. Sebastian.  It is a low, semicircular chamber, with irregular walls, in which a row of arched graves (arcosolia) has been formed, which once were occupied, probably, by bodies of saints or martyrs.  Near the middle of the chapel is the well, about seven feet square, within which are the two graves, lined with marble, where the bodies of the apostles are said to have lain hid.  Fragments of painting still remain on the walls of this pit, and three faint and shadowy figures may be traced, which seem to represent the Saviour between St. Peter and St. Paul.  Over the mouth of the well stands an ancient altar.  However little credence may be given to the old legends concerning the place, it is impossible not to look with interest upon it.  For fifteen hundred years worshippers have knelt there as upon ground made holy by the presence of the two apostles.  The memory of their lives and of their teachings has, indeed, consecrated the place; and though superstition has often turned the light of that memory into darkness, yet here, too, has faith been strengthened, and courage become steadfast, and penitence been confirmed into holiness, by the remembrance of the zeal, the denial of Peter, and the forgiveness of his Master, by the remembrance of the conversion, the long service, the exhortations, and the death of Paul.