Baring-Gould’s sources: Martyrology of Jerome. Roman and most Latin Martyrologies. Hereford Kalendar. By the Greeks, and Russians, and Copts on the same day. The Syriac Church on Dec. 9 and Aug. 21. Authorities: — The Acts in Greek and Latin, not contemporary, and not wholly trustworthy.] In 431, the church built over these martyrs' bodies at Rasaphe, in Syria, was falling with age, and it was restored by Alexander, the bishop. Evagrius describes the tomb in the church as plated with silver, in the middle of the 6th century. The Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora gave a gold cross to the church in honour of the martyrs. Sergius and Bacchus were two officers in the household of the Emperor Maximian. One day, when the Emperor went into the temple of Jupiter to offer sacrifice, he noticed that his two officers had remained outside. Suspecting the reason, he sent for them and ordered them to unite with him in adoring the great god J upiter. They refused, and Maximian ordered them to have their military insignia plucked off, and that they should be dressed in women's clothes, and so conducted through the streets of the city. They bore this indignity with great firmness. Then Maximian sent them to Antiochus, governor of the province of Augusta Euphratorum, to Rasaphe, and there Bacchus was scourged till he died; and Sergius, after having been made to walk in boots with nails in the soles so as to tear his feet, was executed by the sword. There is a church at Rome dedicated to these saints.