eet and even insulting on the part of Anastasius
IV. to have removed the remains of a canonized empress from this noble
sarcophagus in order to have his own placed in it; but we must bear in
mind that although the Torre Pignattara has all the appearance of a
royal mausoleum, and although the ground on which it stands is known
to have belonged to the crown, Eusebius and Socrates deny that Helena
was buried in Rome. Their assertion is contradicted by the "Liber
Pontificalis" and by Bede, and above all by the similarity between
this porphyry coffin and the one discovered in the second mausoleum of
which I have spoken,--that of S. Constantia, on the Via Nomentana.

[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS OF HELENA, MOTHER OF CONSTANTINE]

When the love of splendor which was characteristic of the Romans of
the decadence induced them to take possession of the enormous block of
primeval stone of which this second sarcophagus was made, the art of
sculpture had already degenerated; all that it could accomplish was to
impart to this mass of rock more of an architectural than a plastic
shape. The representations with which the sarcophagus is adorned or
disfigured, as the case may be, if met with elsewhere would
scarcely attract our attention. On the sides are festoons enclosing
groups of winged boys gathering grapes; on the ends are similar
figures treading out the grapes. This sarcophagus was removed to the
Hall of the Greek Cross by the same enlightened Pope Pius VI.

[Illustration: The Mausoleum of S. Constantia.]

The same vintage scenes are represented in the beautiful mosaics with
which the vault of the mausoleum is encrusted, and from this
circumstance the monument received the erroneous name of the Temple of
Bacchus, at the time of the Renaissance. There is no doubt that this
is the tomb of the princess whose name it bears. Amianus Marcellinus,
Book XXI., chapter i., says that the three daughters of
Constantine--Helena, wife of Julian, Constantina, wife of Gallus
Caesar, and Constantia, who had vowed herself to chastity, and to the
management of a congregation of virgins which she had established at
S. Agnese--were all buried in the same place.

[Illustration: Plan of the Imperial Mausoleum.]

The study of these two structures may help us greatly to explain the
origin and purpose of the two rotundas which are known to have existed
on the south side of S. Peter's, in the arena of Nero's circus. One of
them, dedicated to S. Petroni