Drosida of Rome

Holy Martyr Drosida of Rome was the daughter of the Emperor Trajan (98-117), a fierce persecutor of Christians. In the year 99 he renewed an older law forbidding secret societies, which indirectly touched Christians, and in 104 he issued a special law against Christians; from then on the persecution continued to the end of his reign.

In that time the bodies of Christians who had been killed often remained unburied, to frighten the others. Five Christian virgins, Aglaida, Apollinaria, Daria, Mamphusa and Taisia, took on the labour of burying them. They secretly carried off the bodies of the martyrs, anointed them with perfumes, wrapped them in shrouds and buried them. Learning of this, the princess Drosida, a secret Christian not yet baptized, asked the virgins to take her with them.

But on the advice of her betrothed, Hadrian, a high court official, guards were set beside the slain to seize those who buried them. On the first night Drosida and the five virgins were taken. Trajan, recognizing his daughter among them, ordered her kept apart, in the hope that she would change her mind. The others were condemned to be burned in a bronze-⁠smelting furnace and received the crowns of martyrdom.

From bronze mixed with their ashes, tripods were made for Trajan's new bath, but while the tripods stood in the bath no one could enter: whoever crossed the threshold fell dead. The priests, understanding the cause, advised that they be removed.

Hadrian then proposed that they be melted down and made into five statues of naked maidens like the martyrs, for mockery, to be set before the bath. Trajan agreed. After the statues were set up, the emperor saw in a dream five pure lambs grazing in paradise and a shepherd who told him that those whom he had meant to put to shame had been taken from him by the Good and Merciful Shepherd and settled there, where in time the pure lamb Drosida, his daughter, would come.

Waking, Trajan flew into a rage and ordered two enormous furnaces to be lit and kept burning every day, and the emperor's order was posted: the Galilean men who worship the Crucified should spare themselves many torments and spare the authorities the labour by sacrificing to the gods, and those who would not should throw themselves into the furnace of their own will. Many Christians went willingly to the torment.

Learning of this, Drosida resolved to take up a martyr's death as well. In prison she prayed that the Lord help her to leave unnoticed, and the guards fell asleep. Outside, she made for the furnace, but reflected that she could not go to God without the wedding garment, that is, without baptism. She prayed that Christ Himself baptize her by His Holy Spirit, anointed herself with holy chrism she had taken with her and, immersing herself three times in water, said: The handmaid of God Drosida is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For seven days she hid, in fasting and prayer; in that time Christians found her and learned from her all that had happened. On the eighth day she went to the blazing furnace and threw herself into the fire.

The Synaxarion commemorates her on 4 April (new style).