GORDIANUS and EPIMACHUS, saints, martyrs. — The information concerning them is scant and uncertain. In the most ancient and reliable sources they do not appear together, nor are they designated as brothers, as the author of the itinerary *De locis* claims. In the manuscripts of the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum*, although they are commemorated on the same day, 10 May, they are clearly distinguished, and in some years GORDIANUS is commemorated in his cemetery on the Via Latina, while EPIMACHUS is commemorated in that of Praetextatus on the Via Appia.
The itineraries of the 7th century, however, place them in the same church on the Via Latina, but in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries only the feast of GORDIANUS is found. Indeed, he is the better known of the two. An inscription attributed to the 6th century reports that the priest Vincent renewed the tomb of GORDIANUS. The same *Passio*, which is false and legendary, speaks only of him. According to this account, GORDIANUS was a vicar of Julian the Apostate, entrusted during the persecution with the task of judging the priest Januarius. During the night, however, he had a secret conversation with the priest, converted together with his wife Marina and 53 people of his household, and was baptized. The Emperor then sent a certain Clementianus, who imprisoned Januarius and GORDIANUS, and sent Marina to a villa to perform forced labor. Only GORDIANUS was later condemned to beheading, and his body, after being exposed to dogs for five days, was buried on the Via Latina about a mile outside the walls, in the crypt where EPIMACHUS had already been buried.
The falsity of this narrative is evident, quite apart from other considerations, because it is in open contradiction with the data of the aforementioned inscription, which is certainly more reliable, and in which it is stated that GORDIANUS was a young child. The confusion later increased because EPIMACHUS was identified with the homonymous martyr under Decius at Alexandria (Eusebius, *Hist.*, VI, 41), whose relics were said to have been transferred to Rome, whereas it is known that they were transferred to Constantinople and he was venerated on 12 December. The church and cemetery on the Via Latina, where the two saints were buried, have not been identified with any certainty.