ZOTICO, saint, martyr. — The martyr Z. is commemorated in the Hieronymian Martyrology on 12 January together with Castulus, and on 10 February with the topographical indication of his tomb: «Via Luvicana miliario X», followed by the name of Amantius; through the historical martyrologies (H. Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques du moyen âge, Paris 1908, p. 49), a third martyr, Hyacinth, may be added.
The cemetery, at the tenth mile of the Via Labicana, in the locality of Torre Nuova, was discovered in 1715, and visited and searched that year by M. A. Boldetti and G. Marangoni, who wrote their names there. At that time a tomb closed by a tile was found, bearing the inscription of a «Detercalia»; in 1717, access was gained to a chapel with images and the inscription of a «Ianuarius». 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 rediscovered the descending staircase in the cemetery, the chapel seen by Boldetti, and identified the images as those of the martyrs Z., Irenaeus, Hyacinth, and Amantius. There a marble transenna was found, containing at the top the epitaph placed by the parents «Refrigerius c(larissimus) v(r) » and «Valeria Sebera Lacontia c(larissima) f(emina)» for their son «Refrigerius c(larissimus) p(uer) » (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 2ª series, 3 [1872], pp. 173–75). In an arcosolium Stevenson himself identified three images in tunic and pallium, with the capsae containing books at their feet and the faded figure of a fourth person. In the area above stood a church dedicated to S. Z., 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». A monastery was attached to this church, as attested by the inscription «Dominicus, Domini gratia abbas, ec porticu(m) cum turri fieri iussit». Scenes of the martyrdom of S. Z. were painted in the 10th century in S. Maria in Pallara on the Palatine.