Dasius, Gaius and Zoticus

Saints Dasius, Gaius and Zoticus, martyrs, suffered at Nicomedia, at the beginning of the persecution of Diocletian, in the year 303. They are venerated in the Catholic Church and in the Orthodox Church and commemorated on 21 October. According to the sources, they were put to death by drowning.

According to the hagiographical sources, Dasius was a servant in the Nicomedia residence of the Roman emperor Diocletian. According to some reports, he was unjustly accused by pagans, together with his companions Zoticus and Gaius, of setting fire to the imperial residence. According to others, Dasius and his companions were seized after they overturned the gifts placed on the altars of the pagan gods. In spite of the cruelty of the tortures, Dasius, Zoticus and Gaius would not renounce the Christian faith. By the emperor's order they were drowned and were among the first victims of the Great Persecution of Christians at the beginning of the fourth century.

Dasius, Zoticus and Gaius are mentioned as saints already in the Syriac martyrology of the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, but without details of their martyrdom. The Martyrology of Jerome already gives the place of their execution, the city of Nicomedia, and says that with the three saints twelve Roman soldiers who followed their example also suffered. A more detailed account of Dasius and his companions is found in a Byzantine life of these saints, from which the reports of the later synaxaria are drawn. In the Roman Martyrology the day of commemoration of Saints Dasius, Zoticus and Gaius, martyrs of Nicomedia, is 21 October.