Anacletus (called also Cletus, the shorter Greek form of the same name) succeeded Linus as third bishop of Rome and reigned, according to the Liber Pontificalis, for twelve years. Irenaeus and Eusebius name him in the succession of Roman bishops; some early lists distinguish 'Cletus' from 'Anacletus' as two persons, an early confusion now generally rejected.
Tradition records that he ordained twenty-five priests in Rome and divided the city into the original ecclesiastical districts that later became the Roman parish system. He is said to have built a monumentum (memorial shrine) over the tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill — the antecedent of the later basilicas of Constantine (c. 326) and Bramante/Bernini (1506–1626).
He is named in the Roman Canon of the Mass — the First Eucharistic Prayer — among the early Roman popes whose memory the universal Church preserves at every celebration of the Eucharist.