The well-known foundation legend of Santa Maria del Popolo revolves around the evil memory of Emperor Nero and Pope Paschal II cleansing the area from this malicious legacy. As the story goes, after his suicide Nero was buried in the mausoleum of his paternal family, the Domitii Ahenobarbi, at the foot of the Pincian Hill. The sepulchre was later buried under a landslide and on its ruins grew a huge walnut tree that ″was so tall and sublime that no other plant exceeded it in any ways.″ The tree soon became the haunt for a multitude of vicious demons harassing the inhabitants of the area and also the travelers arriving in the city from the north through Porta Flaminia: ″some were being frightened, possessed, cruelly beaten and injured, others almost strangled, or miserably killed.″