Indes

Saint Indes, martyr, was a eunuch in Nicomedia, put to death for his faith in Christ in the year 302, in the time of Diocletian, together with Bishop Anthimus and many other Christians. His commemoration is on 3 September and on 28 December.

According to one tradition, before Baptism he had been a pagan priest. The life of Anthimus says that a millstone was tied to the neck of Indes, together with Gorgonius and Peter, and they were drowned in the sea. The bodies of the martyrs were drawn from the water by fishermen, and the virgin Domna undertook the burial, for which she was killed by the pagans. The source speaks of twenty thousand martyrs with whom Anthimus is said to have suffered.

Symeon Metaphrastes gives another, longer account of the sufferings of Indes and Domna, found in Migne's Patrologia. In it Domna is a virgin raised in the palace of the emperor Maximian and even a pagan priestess of Diana and Minerva, keeping her virginity. Reading the New Testament in secret, she was baptized together with her tutor, the eunuch Indes. The faith could no longer be kept hidden, and both were tormented by the pagan priests. Domna, feigning madness, managed to be taken to a monastery, as to a refuge for the mentally ill, and Indes was appointed to guard her.

After the emperor returned from a campaign, Indes was brought back to the shrine of the palace, but he refused to offer pagan sacrifices and was arrested. To protect Domna, the abbess Agatha cut her hair like a man's and hid her in a monastery of men. From there the story is as in the life of Anthimus: Domna was killed while praying over the bodies of the martyrs drawn from the sea.