Anatolia and Audax

The Holy Martyrs Anatolia and Audax suffered for Christ in Italy in the time of the Emperor Decius, around the year 250. Anatolia was a virgin and Audax a soldier.

According to a Passion of the sixth or seventh century, which added the name of Audax, Anatolia and her sister Victoria had been betrothed to two noble pagan Romans but refused marriage. The suitors were unwilling to denounce them as Christians and asked to keep them on their estates, to persuade them to give up their faith; Titus Aurelius, Anatolia's suitor, gave up and handed her back to the authorities. Anatolia was confined in a village near Rieti, now called Sant'Anatolia, and was shut in with a poisonous snake, which refused to bite her. The soldier Audax, sent to kill her, was attacked by the snake, but Anatolia saved him; moved by her example, he believed in Christ and was slain by the sword with her. Victoria, according to the legend, was stabbed through the heart at Trebula Mutuesca (today Monteleone Sabino).

Anatolia is first mentioned in 396 by Victricius, bishop of Rouen. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her with Victoria on 10 July; relics of Victoria were carried in 827 to Mount Matenano, where the town of Santa Vittoria in Matenano grew up. Anatolia and Audax are commemorated on 9 July as saints of the undivided Church, by the New Calendar.