CONCERNING THE THIRTY HOLY SOLDIER MARTYRS AT ROME ON THE VIA APPIA.
Under Diocletian.
CommentaryThirty Soldiers, Martyrs at Rome (SS.)
Bede, Usuard, Ado, and the rest: "At Rome, on the Via Appia, the crown of thirty holy Soldier Martyrs under the Emperor Diocletian." The German Martyrology adds that they were first cast into chains and then beheaded. Galesinius also writes that their heads were cut off by the order of Diocletian himself.
Notker explained differently what in the other sources is indicated by the name "Corona" for the passion and death of these Saints, as though he were calling their chief centurion "Corona": unless it is a copyist's error. "Likewise at Rome," he says, "on the Via Appia, of Corona and thirty soldiers who merited to be crowned with martyrdom under the Emperor Diocletian Augustus for the confession of the Christian faith." The Martyrology of St. Jerome also mentions them. The manuscript Martyrology of the Monastery of St. Riquier, which bears the name of Bede, has only twenty. The manuscript of St. Lawrence at Liege, which is that of Ado, has twenty-one.