ROMANI PROTOMARTYRS. — This is the designation given to the first Christian victims who perished in Rome during the persecution of Nero (A.D. 64).
Information concerning their martyrdom has been handed down only by Pope Clement I (Epist. ad Cor., 6) and Tacitus (Annales, XV, 44), but neither specifies their number, limiting themselves to general expressions: multitudo ingens (Tacitus), πολύ πλάθος ἐκλεκτῶν (Clement). Tacitus’s sober description and Clement’s fleeting allusion, however, readily suggest that the tortures were numerous and cruel (v. NERONE; PERSECUZIONI).
The Roman Church has handed down neither the names of these first martyrs nor their dies natalis; nor is there any record of a public cult dedicated to them. An attempt has been made to relate them to the passage in the Hieronymian Martyrology which commemorates, on 29 June, a throng of 979 (alias 977) martyrs who would seem to be associated with the apostles Peter and Paul. Delehaye, however, maintains that, owing to the various registrations in the laterculi, the anonymous group is that same group already recorded under 22 June (unknown martyrs of Antioch whose number, moreover, is uncertain). It was Baronio who inserted in the Roman Martyrology, under 24 June, the elogium of the P. r. (apostolorum discipoli et primitiae martyrum), according to the text of Tacitus.
Collegium cultorum Martyrum (v.) deserves credit for having promoted their cult, initially reserved for the church of S. Maria della Pietà in Camposanto Teutonico, which stands on the site consecrated by their martyrdom (S. R. C., Romana, 6 May 1904), and subsequently extended, with a revised office, to the diocese of Rome (S. R. C., decr. 10 May 1922). The liturgical commemoration (double rite of the second class) is established for 27 June, the eve of the eve of s. Peter and Paul; the external solemnity, celebrated in the Vatican under the auspices of the Collegium, takes place on the Sunday within the octave of the feast of the two princes of the Apostles.