SINFOROSA (Sympherousa, Συμφεροσάσα = "the helper"), saint and martyr. — The Rev. P. Delchaye held that seven saints buried nearby or venerated on the same day were transformed into brothers and attributed to St S. as her sons, repeating the case of St Felicity, as Cesare Baronio had already doubted (Acta SS. Iulii, III, p. 7; IV, p. 252).
Her Passion makes her the mother of seven sons (BHL, 7971), as is also read in the Passions of Getulius (who would have been her husband) and of Zoticus (op. cit., 3524-25; 9028); the indication recurs in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 18 July, indicating their tomb at the eighth mile of the Via Tiburtina (ed. Delchaye-Quantin, p. 383); the seven are noted on the Via Tiburtina without mention of their mother, both on 29 May (ibid., pp. 280-81) and on 27 June, at the ninth mile; there, however, their names are given: Crescens, Julian, Nemesius, Primitivus, Justinus, Stacteus, Eugenius (op. cit., pp. 337-38). These names recur in the Itinerary de locis (with the addition of an Ireneus) as buried in the Basilica adjacent to that ad corpus of St Lawrence in the Agro Verano (R. Valentini - G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, p. 114). The Roman Martyrology records the group on 18 July.
The ruins are still visible at the 14th km of the Via Tiburtina, where the apse of the larger basilica still stands and traces of other parts of the two buildings can be seen. This is what was spared from the destruction carried out by the Lombards of Astolf. In anticipation of the devastation, Pope Stephen III (a. 752-57) had the relics of those martyrs removed and taken to Rome; Pius IV found them beneath the high altar of the diaconia of St Angelo in Pescheria, in the Portico of Octavia. The exploration and study of the foundations and remains of the two small basilicas was carried out by E. Stevenson in 1878. Near these ruins there now stands a small church dedicated to the holy martyrs; the place is called S. S.; in the Middle Ages it was called Sette Fratte, a corruption of ad Septem Fratres.