MARIO, MARTA, AUDIFACE and ABAGO, saints, martyrs. — Commemorated in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, but without any family relationship, on 16 and 20 January, whereas in the Roman Martyrology on the 19th of the same month. Most probably the true dies natalis is the 20th, on which they are also commemorated in the Gelasian Sacramentary. Their tomb, visited by pilgrims in the seventh century, was at the thirteenth milestone of the Via Cornelia, where the remains of a basilica can still be seen today, still standing in the ninth century. The date of their martyrdom is uncertain; the Passio says that they died in the time of Claudius Gothicus, whereas it seems instead that they perished in the persecution of Diocletian.
According to the highly legendary Passio, Mario and Marta, Persian nobles, are said to have come to Rome together with their sons Audiface and Abago in order to venerate the bodies of the martyrs, and to have tended, together with the presbyter Giovanni, the burial of 260 of them on the Via Salaria. After being captured, they are said to have been beheaded on the Via Aurelia following severe tortures and buried by the matron Felicita in one of her fields.
Miscellanea Ebrle, II (Studi e testi, 38), Rome 1924, pp. 96–99; Martyr. Hieronymianum, p. 51; Martyr. Romanum, p. 27; R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, there 1942, p. 107. Agostino Amore