ZOTICUS, saint and martyr. — The martyr ZOTICUS is commemorated in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 12 January together with Castulus and on 10 February with the topographical indication of his sepulchre: “Via Lavicana, mile X,” followed by the name of Amantius; by means of the historical martyrologies (H. Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques du moyen âge, Paris 1908, p. 49) a third martyr may be added: Hyacinthus.
The cemetery, at the tenth mile of the Via Labicana, in the locality Torre Nuova, was discovered in 1715, visited and explored that year by M. A. Boldetti and G. Marangoni, who inscribed their names there. At that time a tomb closed by a tile was found with the inscription of a “Detercaria”; in 1717 access was gained to a chapel with images and the inscription of an Inaurius. In 1850 it was visited by G. B. De Rossi, who published the inscription of a Lepusclus Leo who died in 404 (Inscr. chr. Urbis Romae, I, Rome 1861, p. 530) and that of a Proiectus who died in 424 (ibid., p. 639). Later it was explored by E. Stevenson, who found the descending stairway in the cemetery, the chapel seen by Boldetti, and identified the images as those of the martyrs ZOTICUS, Irenaeus, Hyacinthus, and Amantius. There was found a marble barrier containing at the top the epitaph placed by the parents “Refrigerius” (clarissimus) v(ir) and “Valeria Sebera Laetonia” (clarissimus) f(emina) for their son “Refrigerius” (clarissimus) p(uer) (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 2ª serie, 3 [1872], pp. 173-75). In the course of ten years, with the feet he identified three images in tunic and pallium, with capsae at their feet and volumes, and the faded figure of a fourth person. In the area above there was a church dedicated to St ZOTICUS, restored by Pope Leo III (Lib. Pont., II, pp. 2, 34, n. 11) and called in a bull of Paschal II “SS. Zotici et Amantii.” To this church a monastery was attached, as attested by the inscription “Dominicus, Domini gratia abbas, ec porticu(m) cum turri fieri iussit.” Scenes of the martyrdom of St ZOTICUS were painted in the 10th century in S. Maria in Pallara on the Palatine.