BASILIDE, saint, martyr. — Of this martyr of the Tuscia suburbicaria, buried at the twelfth mile of the Via Aurelia, near Lorium, between Bottaccia and Castel di Guido, we possess no reliable biographical data; the three hagiographical compositions concerning him are late and without historical value. The Hieronymian and Roman martyrologies commemorate him on 10 and 12 June, but their lists are corrupt and inconsistent, especially in the Roman one. The Capitulare evangeliorum of Würzburg (seventh century), and subsequently the other later Roman Capitularies of the pure type, commemorate him alone on 12 June (cf. Klauser). The eighth-century Gelasian Sacramentary commemorates him on the same day, placing him before the heterogeneous group of the old Gelasian: Quirino, Nabore, and Nazario, a group still found today in the Roman Missal. It seems to us that the date of the dies natalis to be preferred is 12 June. Nothing remains of the basilica erected over the body of B. at the twelfth mile of the Via Aurelia, mentioned in the Itinerario Malmesburiense, or of the church of “S. Basilidis in Merulana,” recalled by the Liber Pont. in the life of Leone III.
A. Pietro Frutaz