Potamiaena and Basilides

Let Basilides be counted the seventh among these. He was the one who led away the famous Potamiaena, of whom a great deal is still sung among the people of that country. Countless times she fought off those who desired her, for the purity and virginity of her body, in which she excelled; for along with her soul, the beauty of her body was in full bloom. She endured countless sufferings, and at last, after tortures terrible and dreadful to speak of, she was perfected by fire together with her mother Marcella. [a]

They say that the judge, whose name was Aquila, inflicted cruel torments over her whole body, and at last threatened to hand her over to the gladiators to violate her body. She considered for a moment within herself, and when she was asked what she had decided, she gave an answer by which she seemed to have said something they considered impious. [b] As soon as she spoke she received the final sentence, and Basilides, one of those enrolled in the army, took her and led her away to death. When the crowd tried to harass her and insult her with filthy words, he held them back and drove off those who were insulting her, showing her the greatest mercy and kindness. She accepted the man’s sympathy for her and urged him to take courage; for when she had departed, she said, she would ask her Lord for him, and before long she would repay him for what he had done for her. [c] Having said this, she nobly endured her departure, while burning pitch was poured slowly, a little at a time, over different parts of her body, from the tips of her feet to the crown of her head. Such was the contest fought out by this celebrated girl.

Not long afterward Basilides was asked by his fellow soldiers, for some reason, to swear an oath. He insisted that it was not lawful for him to swear at all, for he was a Christian, and he confessed it openly. At first they took it for a joke; but when he kept insisting, he was brought before the judge, and when he confessed his stand before him, he was put in chains. When the brothers in God came to him and asked the reason for this sudden and astonishing impulse, he is said to have told them that three days after her martyrdom Potamiaena had stood beside him at night and placed a crown on his head. She said that she had pleaded with the Lord for him and had obtained her request, and that before long she would take him to herself. [d] At this the brothers gave him the seal in the Lord, and on the next day, having distinguished himself in his witness for the Lord, he was beheaded. Many others at Alexandria, too, are recorded to have come over in crowds to the word of Christ in those times. [e] Potamiaena, it is told, had appeared to them in their sleep and called them. But let this be enough about these things.