(ABOUT 300.)
[Roman, Spanish, German, and other Martyrologies. There is some
difficulty as to whether the African S. Marciana and the Saint of
the same name, honoured at Toledo, are to be distinguished; but
probably they are the same. Some hagiographers have supposed that
there were two, because at Toledo, S. Marciana is commemorated on
July 12th, but that is in all probability the day of her
translation. The Acts of the African Saint and the Toledan hymn to
S. Marciana, as well as the account of her in the Mozarabic
Breviary, relate the same incidents. None of these are of any great
authority.]
Saint Marciana was a native of Rusuccus, in Mauritania. When at
Caesarea, in Mauritania, she was brought before the governor on the
charge of having overthrown a marble statuette of Diana, which stood
above a drinking fountain in the public street.
For this outrage on the established religion, she was scourged, and
then delivered over to the lust of the gladiators, but was miraculously
delivered, for God was as careful to protect the modesty of his
servant, as was she to proclaim the honour of His name.
She was exposed in the amphitheatre to a lion, which, however, spared
her; but a bull gored her with its horns, and a leopard despatched her.
Patroness of Tortosa, in Spain.