GORGONIO, saint, martyr. — A Roman martyr, he was confused by Adon with his namesake from Nicomedia (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VIII, 6).
He is already commemorated in the Depositio Martyrum on 9 September. The Hieronymian Martyrology recalls him on the same date and records that he was buried in the cemetery « Ad duas lauros » on the Via Labicana. The itineraries of pilgrims from the seventh and eighth centuries specify that he lay in interiore antro. No precise information is known concerning his life and martyrdom. Pope Damasus dedicated a poem to him, from which it appears that G. was a priest. He seems to have perished during the persecution of Diocletian.
BIBL.: Acta SS. Septembris, III, Paris 1868, pp. 328–55; Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 407 ff.; Martyr. Romanum, p. 387; R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, p. 25 ff.; A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Vatican City 1942, p. 165 ff. Agostino Amore