Pope Marcellus I was the bishop of Rome from May or June 308 to his death. He succeeded Marcellinus after a considerable interval. Under Maxentius, he was banished from Rome in 309, on account of the tumult caused by the severity of the penances he had imposed on Christians who had lapsed under the recent persecution. He died the same year, being succeeded by Eusebius. His relics are under the altar of San Marcello al Corso in Rome. Since 1969 his feast day, traditionally kept on 16 January by the Catholic Church, is left to local calendars and is no longer inscribed in the General Roman Calendar.
Pius I was the bishop of Rome from c. 140 to his death c. 154, according to the Annuario Pontificio. His dates are listed as 142 or 146 to 157 or 161, respectively. He is considered to have opposed both the Valentinians and Gnostics during his papacy. He is considered a saint by the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church with a feast day in 11 July, but it is unclear if he died as a martyr.
Pope Caius, also called Gaius, was the bishop of Rome from 17 December 283 to his death in 296. Little information on Caius is available except that given by the Liber Pontificalis, which relies on a legendary account of the martyrdom of Susanna of Rome for its information. According to legend, Caius baptized the men and women who had been converted by Tiburtius and Castulus. His legend states that Caius took refuge in the catacombs of Rome and died a martyr.
Pope Marcellinus was the bishop of Rome from 30 June 296 to his death in 304. A historical accusation was levelled at him by some sources to the effect that he might have renounced Christianity during Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians before repenting afterwards, which would explain why he is omitted from lists of martyrs. The accusation is rejected, among others, by Augustine of Hippo. He is today venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and in the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Vitus, whose name is sometimes rendered Guy or Guido, was a Christian martyr from Sicily. His surviving hagiography is pure legend. The dates of his actual life are unknown. He has for long been tied to the Sicilian martyrs Modestus and Crescentia but in the earliest sources it is clear that these were originally different traditions that later became combined. The figures of Modestus and Crescentia are probably fictitious.
Cyriacus, sometimes Anglicized as Cyriac, according to Christian tradition, is a Christian martyr who was killed in the Diocletianic Persecution. He is one of twenty-seven saints, most of them martyrs, who bear this name, of whom only seven are honoured by a specific mention of their names in the Roman Martyrology.
A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs and other saints and beati arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by names borrowed from neighbouring churches. Consolidation occurred, by the combination of several local martyrologies, with or without borrowings from literary sources.
Saint Anastasia is a Christian saint and martyr who died at Sirmium in the Roman province of Pannonia Secunda. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, she is venerated as St. Anastasia the Pharmakolytria, i.e. "Deliverer from Potions". This epithet is also translated as "One who Cures (Wounds)" in Lampe's A Patristic Greek Lexicon.
Gorgonius or Gorgon was a Christian who was martyred in AD 304 alongside Peter Cubicularius and a certain Dorotheus at Nicomedia during the Diocletianic Persecution.
The Four Crowned Martyrs or Four Holy Crowned Ones were nine individuals who are venerated as martyrs and saints of Early Christianity. The nine saints are divided into two groups:
- Severus, Severian(us), Carpophorus (Carpoforus), Victorinus
- Claudius, Castorius, Symphorian (Simpronian), Nicostratus, and Simplicius
Martinian and Processus were Christian martyrs of ancient Rome. Neither the years they lived nor the circumstances of their deaths are known. They are currently buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Mark and Marcellian are martyrs venerated as saints by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Their cult is sometimes associated with that of Saints Tranquillinus, Martia, Nicostratus, Zoe, Castulus, and Tiburtius, though not in the official liturgical books of the Church, which mention only Mark and Marcellianus among the saints for 18 June. Their mention in the General Roman Calendar on that date from before the time of the Tridentine calendar was removed in the 1969 revision, because nothing is known about them except their names, the fact of their martyrdom, and that they were buried on 18 June in the cemetery of Santa Balbina on the Via Ardeatina.
There are several saints named Rufus, of which the Roman Martyrology records ten; historical mention is made of the following ones, which have liturgical feasts:
- On 19 April, a group of martyrs in Melitene in Armenia, one of whom bears the name of Rufus. These martyrs are mentioned already in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.
- On 1 August, Rufus, with several companions who, according to the most reliable manuscripts of the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum" died at Tomi, the place being afterwards by mistake changed to Philadelphia.
- On 27 August, two martyrs named Rufus at Capua -- one, whose name also appears as Rufinus in the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum". The other is said to have suffered with a companion, Carponius, in Diocletian's persecution circa 304 AD.
- On 25 September, several martyrs at Damascus, among them one named Rufus.
- On 7 November, a Rufus of Metz, who is said to have been Bishop of Metz; his history, however, is legendary. His name was inserted at a later date in an old manuscript of the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum"(ed. cit., 140). In the ninth century his relics were transferred to Gau-Odernheim in Hesse, Diocese of Mainz.
- On 12 November, Rufus, legend, without any historical proof, the supposed first Bishop of Avignon, who is perhaps identical with Rufus, the disciple of Paul. [cf. Louis Duchesne, "Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule", I, 258; Duprat in "Mémoires de l'Académie de Vaucluse" (1889), 373 sqq.; (1890), 1 sqq., 105 sqq.].
- On 21 November, Rufus the disciple of the Apostles, who lived at Rome and to whom Saint Paul sent a greeting, as well as he did also to the mother of Rufus. St. Mark says in his Gospel that Simon of Cyrene was the father of Rufus, and as Mark wrote his Gospel for the Roman Christians, this Rufus is probably the same as the one to whom Paul sent a salutation [cf. Cornely, "Commentar. in Epist. ad Romanos", 778 sq.].
- On 28 November, a Roman martyr Rufus, probably identical with the Rufinianus who was buried in the Catacomb of Generosa on the Via Portuensis, and who is introduced in the legendary Acts of the martyrdom of St. Chrysogonus.
- On 18 December, the holy martyrs Rufus and Zosimus, who were taken to Rome with St. Ignatius of Antioch and were put to death there for their unwavering confession of Christianity during the persecution of Trajan. St. Polycarp speaks of them in his letter to the Philippians.
Susanna of Rome was a Christian martyr of the Diocletianic Persecution. Her existing hagiography, written between about 450 and 500 AD, is of no historical value and the relations it attributes to Susanna are entirely fictitious. It is probable that a real martyr named Susanna lies behind the literary invention.
San Crisogono is a church in Rome dedicated to the martyr Saint Chrysogonus. It was one of the tituli, the first parish churches of Rome, and was probably built in the 4th century under Pope Sylvester I (314–335).
Saints Cantius, Cantianus, and Cantianilla are venerated as saints and martyrs by the Christian church.
Quirinus of Neuss, sometimes called Quirinus of Rome is venerated as a martyr and saint of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. His cult was centred at Neuss in Germany, though he was a Roman martyr.
The Roman Martyrology records eleven saints named Rufinus:
December 21 - Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar - December 23
