C'mon...Claud. You and I both know there was a "Simon" in Rome. The question is.....which Simon?
What skin off your nose is Peter in Rome, anyway?
You know....it really isn't that big of a deal....except you folks must prove he was there.....or your Papacy come tumblin' down.
It's really kind of comical because scripture really does tell us where he was.....and it "wasn't" Rome! It is a fairly easy task to discredit this tradition of yours. In all actuality....it's a fairly easy task to discredit your entire theology....come to think of it!
And again I say...all the Christian writers of the 1st through 4th centuries were very clear about the fact which Simon it was. Everyone just took it for granted back then that Peter was in Rome: Clement, Tertullian, Papias, Eusebius. Peter’s epistle was written “from Babylon” which was a common early Christian cipher for pagan Rome (as in Revelations 17). Mark’s Gospel—history tells us he was Peter’s interpreter and wrote down Peter’s teaching—is full of Italianizations in the Greek (e.g., kenturion instead of hekatontarch), indicating that it was written in Italy. When archaeologists unearthed the 1st century cemetery under the Vatican they found early inscriptions dedicated to Peter.
I wouldn’t get too comfortable with your powers of “discrediting” if I were you..I’ve been in this apologetics business long enough to see that pride goeth before the fall.