Auspicius

Saint Auspicius is venerated, according to local tradition, as the first bishop of Apt in Gaul and a martyr under the emperor Trajan. What is told of him comes from late hagiographic texts and cannot be taken as certain.

His name is mentioned in the Passion of Saints Nereus and Achilleus and in a "Life" of his own, preserved in old manuscripts. According to them he was of senatorial family, teacher of the noble Roman lady Flavia Domitilla and friend of her servants, the brothers Nereus and Achilleus, whom he is said to have buried after their martyrdom. Sent by Pope Clement of Rome to preach in Narbonese Gaul, he settled at Apta Julia (Apt) and brought part of the city to the faith. Denounced, he was brought before the authorities; when he overturned the statue of Jupiter his right foot was cut off, and after a week of torment he died, by tradition on 4 August 102.

His tomb was found in 1056 in a crypt beneath a ruined altar in the cathedral of Apt, where his relics are kept. His veneration appears in the liturgical books of Apt from the thirteenth century. He is a saint of the undivided Church, venerated above all in the local Church.