Marciana of Mauretania

Saint Marciana of Mauretania suffered for Christ in North Africa, in the time of Diocletian's persecution, around 303 or 304. She is also called Marciana of Caesarea or of Toledo.

According to Alban Butler, she was a native of Rusuccur in Mauretania, in present-⁠day Algeria. Filled with zeal for her new faith, she left her parents' house and settled at Caesarea in a cave, to keep her virginity and give herself to God through fasting and ascetic labours. The account of her martyrdom, written perhaps in the fifth century, says that she overturned and smashed a statue of the goddess Diana in the public square. The citizens brought her before the governor's tribunal; she was shut in the gladiators' school and then thrown into the arena, where a bull gored her and she was killed.

Her relics were later moved to Toledo. She is a saint of the undivided Church, commemorated on 9 January (new style); other calendars list her on 12 July.