EMILIANO, saint, martyr. — A servant of a pagan from Durosotrum in Moesia, in July 362, during a festival organized by the vicar of Thrace, Capitolino, he entered an unattended temple, destroying the arches and overturning the idols. A citizen was accused, but E. spontaneously gave himself up. He was tried, scourged, and condemned to be burned alive. The sentence was carried out on 18 July on the banks of the Danube, and his body was buried in a place 3 miles from Durostorum. The historicity of his martyrdom is absolutely certain, because it is attested by several ancient ecclesiastical writers; but the Acts, as they exist today, although deriving from an authentic and perhaps contemporary text, were certainly reworked.
BIBL.: Teodorico, Hist. ecl., III, 3; Acto SS. Iulii, IV, Parigi 1866, pp. 370–76; Synac. Constantinop., col. 827; H. Delehaye, Sainti de Thrace et de Mélie, in Anal. ball., 31 (1912), pp. 260–65; Martyr. Romanum, p. 294.
Agostino Amore