Basilia

Saint Basilia is, according to tradition, a virgin and martyr, one of the nine daughters born at a single birth to Calsia, wife of the Roman governor of Gallaecia and Lusitania, Lucius Castelius Severus. Tradition says she was born at Baiona or Braga, in the year 119 or 120. The story belongs to the legend of the nine sisters of Galicia and is legendary in character.

Frightened by the multiple birth and fearing to be cast out as unfaithful, Calsia decided to be rid of the girls and ordered her servant Sila to drown them secretly in the river Este (by other sources, the Miñor). Sila, who was a Christian, left them in the houses of well-⁠known families, who brought them up in the faith, and Bishop Ovidius of Braga baptized them. Later they were brought before their father on the charge of being Christians; he learned that they were his daughters and promised them a life of abundance if they renounced Christ. Basilia and her sisters (Liberata, Marina, Victoria, Germana, Quiteria, Euphemia, Marciana and Genibera) refused. They fled to different places and were all put to death. By one version, Basilia suffered martyrdom in Syria; another view says that she died a natural death, and this part of the story is probably confused with that of Saint Basilissa, because of the historical distortions made by the forger Jerónimo Román de la Higuera.