bridge of AEmilius Lepidus.
The stream carried them to a considerable distance, and their young
sister Beatrix, who was anxiously watching the banks of the river for
the recovery of their dear remains, discovered them lying in the
shallows of la Magliana, near the grove of the Arvales. She buried
them in a small Christian cemetery which a certain Generosa had
excavated close by, under the boundary line of the grove itself.
Beatrix, left alone in the world, found shelter in the house of one of
the Lucinas; but the persecutors, to whom her pious action had
evidently been reported, discovered her retreat, and killed her by
suffocation, seven months after the execution of Simplicius and
Faustinus. Lucina laid her to rest in the same cemetery of Generosa,
by the side of her brothers. This touching story is related in
contemporary documents.

Pope Damasus, who in his younger days had been notary and stenographer
of the church of Rome, and was acquainted with every detail of the
last persecution, raised a small oratory to the memory of the three
martyrs, and sanctified the ground which for eleven centuries had been
the seat of the worship of the Dea Dia. The chapel lasted until the
pontificate of Leo II., when it became evident that the only way of
saving the remains of Beatrix, Simplicius, and Faustinus from
profanation and robbery, was to remove them from a place so
conspicuous for many miles around, and directly in the path of pirates
and invaders from the sea, and to place them under the protection of
the city walls. The translation took place in 682; the bodies were
removed to the church of Santa Biviana, or the Bibiana, on the
Esquiline, and placed in a sarcophagus, with the record: "Here lie in
peace Simplicius and Faustinus, martyrs, drowned in the Tiber and
buried in the cemetery of Generosa, above the landing-place called ad
Sextum Philippi." Sarcophagus and inscription are still in existence.
The discovery of the oratory of Pope Damasus and the cemetery of
Generosa took place, as already stated, in the spring of 1867, when a
fragment of the architrave of the altar was found in front of the
apse, inscribed with the names, ... STINO . VIATRICI, engraved in the
best Damasian calligraphy. The spelling of the second name deserves
attention, because it is certainly intentional, as Damasus and his
engraver Furius Dionysius Philocalus are distinguished for absolute
epigraphic correctness. _Viatrix_, the feminine of _Viato