PONZIANO, POPE, saint, martyr. — According to the Liberian Catalogue and the Liber Pontificalis, P. was a Roman, son of a certain Calpurnius; he was pope from 231 to 235, when, together with the priest Hippolytus, he was condemned to the mines in Sardinia, where, after abdicating the supreme pontificate, he died as a result of ill-treatment. His body was brought to Rome and buried in the cemetery of Callistus on 13 August.
It is on this date that he is commemorated in the Depositi Martyrum, and in that cemetery, in January 1909, his Greek epitaph was found, with the title of martyr. He is also remembered on the same day in the Leonine Sacramentary and in the Hieronymian Martyrology, while in the Roman Martyrology he is commemorated on 19 November.
Considering the news of his exile in 235 as certain, this must have occurred after 18 March, when Alexander Severus was killed and Maximinus Thrax was elected emperor. The latter (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 28), out of hatred for Alexander’s house, stirred up a persecution against Christians, though limited to the leaders of the Church. In compliance with the orders, the prefect of Rome (Maximinus, elected in a province, never came to Rome) relegated P. to Sardinia. There the Pontiff, so as not to leave the Church without a guide, on 28 September of the same year, resigned the papacy. On 21 November following, Anterus (v.) was elected. The year of the translation of his body to Rome is also uncertain, but presumably between 244 and 249, during the reign of Philip the Arab. For such translations of corpses to be carried out, the permission of the Emperor was necessary, and Pope Fabian may have taken advantage of Philip’s goodwill.
There is no connection between P. and the cemetery of the same name on the Via Portuense.