Non-Biblical accounts:
Simon Peter – prince of the apostles.
The most authoritative text informing us of Peter’s martyrdom in Rome is the first letter of Saint Clement the Roman to the Corinthians, generally dated at about 96 AD. In its turn, Clement’s letter cannot be read apart from one famed passage of Tacitus’ (XV, 38-45), in which the historian speaks of the famous fire that flared in Rome on the night of July 18-19, 64 and of its consequences. A comparison of these two testimonies seems to show that Peter was martyred during the anti-Christian persecution campaign unleashed by Nero after the fire and that the place of his martyrdom was the Vatican’s <horti.> The information Tacitus provides is undoubtedly very authoritative because the author of the Annales was writing not long after the events and he was able to quote eyewitnesses as well as from first-hand documents, such as the and the —respectively the minutes of Senate sessions and the official diaries of the Roman State.
According to Tacitus, then, the Christians whom he—as others do—describes as a “considerable multitude” (), were condemned to death not so much for causing the fire but because they were guilty of “hatred towards the human race” () generic). This was a serious charge because, the identification of the human race with the empire itself meant that anyone so charged was considered an enemy of the empire. The execution of the condemned, according to Tacitus’ information, took place during grandiose circus spectacles (), for which Nero made available his own circus in the Vatican that was the principal adornment of his <horti.> It is true, too, that the Vatican circus would have been a natural choice since, after the fire, it was the only area left in Rome for the kind of spectacle Nero desired. In fact, the Circus Maximus—the usual venue for Rome’s —could not be used because of fire damage.
St. Peter’s First Epistle was written almost undoubtedly from Rome, since the salutation at the end reads: “The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you: and so doth my son Mark” (v, 13). Babylon must here be identified with the Roman capital; since Babylon on the Euphrates, which lay in ruins, or New Babylon (Seleucia) on the Tigris, or the Egyptian Babylon near Memphis, or Jerusalem cannot be meant, the reference must be to Rome, the only city which is called Babylon elsewhere in ancient
Christian literature (Apoc., xvii, 5; xviii, 10; “Oracula Sibyl.”, V, verses 143 and 159, ed. Geffcken, Leipzig, 1902, 111).
From Bishop Papias of Hierapolis and
Clement of Alexandria, who both appeal to the testimony of the old presbyters (i.e., the disciples of the
Apostles), we learn that Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome at the request of the Roman
Christians, who desired a written memorial of the doctrine preached to them by St. Peter and his disciples (Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.”, II, xv; III, xl; VI, xiv); this is confirmed by
Irenaeus (Adv. haer., III, i). In connection with this information concerning the Gospel of St. Mark,
Eusebius, relying perhaps on an earlier source, says that Peter described Rome figuratively as Babylon in his First Epistle.
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i fail to see your logic here.
Simon, whom he named Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus; Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. (Mark 3:16-19)