DASIUS, Saint, Martyr. — He is commemorated in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 5 August and 4 October as a martyr of Axiopolis, while the Passio states that he died at Durostorum in Moesia on 20 November 303. D. was a soldier; chosen, according to custom, as king of the Saturnalia festival, he was to be sacrificed at its end to Cronus. Seeing that he was certain to die, he preferred to die as a Christian by confessing his faith. Imprisoned and brought before the tribunal of the legate Bassus, since he refused to sacrifice to idols, he was beheaded. In the second half of the 6th century, when Durostorum was invaded by the Avars, Ancona (v.).
BIBL.: F. Cumont, Les actes de s. Daisius, in Anal. Boll., 16 (1897) pp. 5-16; id., Le tombeau de s. Daisius de Durostorum in Anal. Boll., 27 (1908), pp. 369-72; H. Delehaye, Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires, Brussels 1921, pp. 321-28; id., Les origines du culte des martyrs, 1913, p. 248; Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 609 sq.; Agostino Amore