Ten Thousand Martyrs

The Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat are, according to a medieval legend, Roman soldiers led by Saint Acacius who became Christians and were crucified on Ararat by order of the Roman emperor. The story is attributed to the ninth-⁠century scholar Anastasius Bibliothecarius. Scholars regard it as a legend with "many historical inaccuracies and utterly improbable details".

The Roman Martyrology has two separate commemorations: on 18 March, the same date as in the Greek Orthodox Synaxarion, "Myriads of holy martyrs, by the sword, at Nicomedia" (Francis Mershman identifies them as the twenty thousand Christians killed in the persecution of Diocletian in 303), and on 22 June, on Mount Ararat, a commemoration that appears based on the legend. The Greek Synaxarion has a second entry, on 1 June, for ten thousand martyrs at Antioch under Decius, but it is unclear whether this is the same event. Despite its questionable veracity, the scene was very popular in Renaissance art, in Carpaccio and Dürer.