NARCISSO. - A personage after whom is named a group greeted by St. Paul in Rom. 16, 11: “those of the household of N. (τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ναρκίασου), who are in the Lord,” that is, Christians. The name N. was common among slaves and freedmen (cf. CIL, VI, 4123-4346. 5206. 22875).
A freedman was also so called, formerly the all-powerful minister of Claudio, who was driven to suicide by Agrippina shortly after Nerone’s accession to the throne (Tacito, Ann., XIII, 1; Dione Cassio, LX, 34). Once his property and servants had passed to the State, the slaves would have retained the designation “those of N.” or Narcissiani (cf. Maccenatiani: CIL, VI, 4016, 4032; Amyotiani, ibid., 4035; elsewhere Agrippini, Germaniciani, etc.). For the two second-century inscriptions in the cemetery of Domitilla, in which the name of N. appears alongside other names of the Neronian family, cf. O. Marucchi, Le catacombe romane, Roma 1933, pp. 162 f., 168, note 2.
Pseudo-Ippolito (De LXX Apostolis, 30: PG 10, 955) makes N. one of the 72 disciples and bishop of Atene. The Martirologio romano commemorates him on 31 Oct. as martyred at Roma with Urbano and Ampliato (cf. Acta SS. Octobris, XIII, Parigi 1883, pp. 678-98).
Teodorico da Castel San Pietro