Ariadne

ON ST. ARIADNE, MARTYR,

AT PRYMNESSUS IN PHRYGIA SALUTARIS,

From the Roman Martyrology and the Greek Fasti.

Under Hadrian or Antoninus Pius.

Ariadne, martyr, at Prymnessus in Phrygia Salutaris. (S.)

J. S.

To this day Baronius transferred St. Ariadne the martyr, whom he commemorates in the Roman Martyrology in these words: In Phrygia, of holy Ariadne, martyr, under the emperor Hadrian. The memory of the Saint in the sacred Fasti: her elogium, But all the Fasti of the Greeks agree upon the following day, where the Menology, rendered into Latin by the most eminent Sirletus, has it thus: Likewise of the holy martyr Ariadne, who under the emperor Hadrian completed the contest of martyrdom, because she execrated the idols and, cultivating the faith of Christ, shed her blood for the confession of him. The Basilian Menology celebrates the Saint with a longer and somewhat different elogium. This I transfer hither from the Latin interpretation: Ariadne the martyr flourished under the emperors Hadrian and Antoninus. She, a Christian, and the slave of a certain wealthy man who held the principate of Phrygia, on a certain day, when the birthday of her master's son was being celebrated, was compelled to enter the shrine of the idols together with them, and to keep the festal day. When she was unwilling to do this, she was most cruelly beaten. Then, delivered to prison, she was wasted with hunger. Brought out thence, she was led to the prefect of the region, that she might be tortured: by whom, being again urged to sacrifice to the idols, when she could not be brought to it, she was hung up and torn on her sides. Presently, being loosed from prison, she seized the occasion and made for flight to a mountain. When the soldiers learned this, they pursued her with swords. But she, when she saw that no escape lay open to her, prayed God that she might be delivered from them: and at once a rock, split apart by the divine will, received her: and closing and joining again, it became a sepulcher for her as she gave thanks and departed.

[2] These last things may seem to many to be fabulous. Yet they are augmented again by a new prodigy in the printed Menæa, in which the martyrdom is related not without fables: which otherwise agree about the condition of the Saint and about the occasion of the martyrdom. I do not transfer the Greek hither, because it is already printed, and because the elogium does not seem to be reckoned of such worth: but I subjoin the elogium faithfully rendered into Latin: She contended under the reign of Hadrian and Antonius, [] being the handmaid of a certain Tertillus, a leading man of the city of Prymnessus in Phrygia Salutaris. And because she refused to celebrate the birthday of her master's son in the shrine of the idols, she was savagely beaten and let go. But when the prefect again pursued her, drawing near to a certain rock she besought God that she might be delivered. And the rock being split by the divine will, she was found in the midst of it, the rocks coming together again. But the men who were pursuing her were slain and perished at the apparition of angels sitting upon horses and holding spears.* Both the splitting of the rock and the apparition of the angels seem to be relegated to fables. In the Menæa these little verses are added:

Σώζει

ῥαγεῖσα

τὴν

Αριάδνην

πέτρα

Χριστὸς

γὰρ

αὐτὴν

ἔσκεπε

ζωῆς

πέτρα.

The split rock preserves Ariadne: for Christ, the rock of life, visited her.

In the Synaxary which once belonged to Sirmond it is added that Ariadne was also called by another name Maria, which I do not find elsewhere.

[3] the time and place of the martyrdom. As regards the time and place of the martyrdom, on which the Fasti of the Greeks do not accurately agree, if we wished to reconcile their statements about the time, it would have to be said that St. Ariadne suffered in the year 138, in which Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius and made him Cæsar, and in which he himself then died and had Antoninus as his successor. For thus it would in some manner be true both that the Saint suffered under Hadrian, and that she suffered under Hadrian and Antoninus. But the authority of the monuments alleged is not so great that we ought to torture ourselves much to reconcile all their assertions. Wherefore I have fixed the martyrdom under Hadrian or Antoninus Pius. The place of the martyrdom is more nearly assigned in the Menæa than in the Menologies; which nevertheless do not conflict with the place assigned in the Menæa. Tertillus, the Saint's master, is said to have been the first man τῆς Προμισέων Πόλεως, and that city is placed in Phrygia Salutaris. Now in the enumeration of the cities and provinces of the Eastern Empire which Hierocles the Grammarian made, in Banduri's Imperium Orientale, page 41, among the cities of Phrygia Salutaris is named Πρύμνησος, Prymnesus, which I judge to be the one indicated. For also in Cellarius, Geographia antiqua, tom. 2, page 89, among the cities of Greater Phrygia, a part of which was afterwards called Salutaris, there occurs Prymnesia or Prymnesus; and the author notes that in the Notitia of the bishoprics of Phrygia Salutaris there is found ὁ τοῦ Προμισοῦ, where it is written in exactly the same manner as in the Menæa. This city was episcopal, as may be seen in Lequien's Oriens Christianus, tom. 1, page 843, where he reckons up some of its bishops.

* Antoninus Pius