ROMANO, saint, martyr. — He is commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 9 Aug.
The Itineraries of the 7th century remember him as buried on the Via Tiburtina in the cemetery of Ciriaca, longe in spelunca deorum. According to the author of the Liber Pontificalis, he held the office of doorkeeper and perished together with s. Lorenzo. According, however, to the legendary Passio s. Polychronii, he was a soldier who converted upon witnessing Lorenzo’s martyrdom; he was beheaded outside the Porta Salaria and buried in a crypt in the Agro Verano.
ROMANO, saint, martyr. — He is commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 17 Nov., as a martyr of Cesarea, and on the following day as a martyr of Antioch.
The Eastern Martyrologies and the Roman Martyrology commemorate him on this second date; the true dies natalis, however, is the 17th, as Eusebius of Cesarea attests. Almost contemporary and trustworthy documents exist concerning his martyrdom. R., a native of Palestina, was a deacon and exorcist in a small church near Cesarea. During the persecution of Diocletian, while he was in Antioch and saw that many were hastening to sacrifice, he began to reproach them. Arrested and condemned by order of the same Emperor, he had his tongue cut out, was confined in prison, and strangled after horrible tortures.