Calepodius and Companions

The Holy Martyrs Calepodius and Companions suffered at Rome under the emperor Alexander Severus, between the years 222 and 232, and are commemorated on 10 May. Calepodius was a priest and the first to suffer. Tradition says he was tortured and thrown into the Tiber with a millstone tied about his neck.

Commemorated with him are Palmatius, a man of consular rank, who died with his wife, his children and forty-⁠two members of his household; Simplicius, a senator, put to death with sixty-⁠five of his family and dependents; and the married couple Felix and Blanda.

One of the catacombs of Rome, the cemetery of Calepodius on the Via Aurelia, bears his name. In the tenth century his relics, together with those of Saints Callistus and Cornelius, were moved to the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere and laid beneath the high altar. Parts of them reached Fulda and Cysoing.