Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Menæa, and Menologium of the Emperor Basil. Inserted in the Roman Martyrology by Baronius. Authority:—The account in the Menologium.

Antonina is said to have lived in the city of Nicæa, in the reign of Maxentius [rival emperor at Rome 306–312, defeated by Constantine]. On account of her refusal to offer incense to the gods she was stripped of her clothes, hung up, and her sides torn with rakes. Then she was thrust into a sack, or earthen vessel (it is uncertain which), and was drowned in a lake near the city. A head and body are shown at Bologna as those of S. Antonina, "but whether of this one or of another we are not able to divine," say the Bollandists [Jesuit scholars who since the 1600s have critically studied the lives of the saints]. A curious instance of the facility with which some forgeries may be detected is connected with S. Antonina. Canisius published an edition of the Greek Menologium in the 16th century; in it occurred a mistake. S. Antonina was stated to have suffered at Cæa, a misprint for Nicæa. Shortly after, the Jesuit, Hieronymus Romanus de Higuera, forged a chronicle of Flavius Dexter, Bishop of Barcelona, in the 4th century. He had seen the Menologium of Canisius, and, as there was a Ceija in Spain, he inserted S. Antonina in his Spanish Chronicle as having suffered there, and this blunder was partly the means of the detection of the forgery.