Note 57 — Chapter IV · RESTORATION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE.

On this chair were represented the labours of Hercules and the signs of the zodiac. It is believed at Rome to be the veritable chair of the Apostle himself, and whatever may be thought of such an antiquity as this, it can be satisfactorily traced back to the third or fourth century of Christianity. (The story that it is inscribed with verses from the Koran is, I believe, without foundation.) It is now enclosed in a gorgeous casing of gilded wood (some say, of bronze), and placed aloft at the extremity of St. Peter's, just over the spot where a bishop's chair would in the old arrangement of the basilica have stood. The sarcophagus in which Charles himself lay, till the French scattered his bones abroad, had carved on it the rape of Proserpine. It may still be seen in the gallery of the basilica at Aachen.