Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, Ado Ac.] N the Acts of SS. Processus and Martinian (July nth), we read that when these saints had been baptized in the Mamertine prison by SS. Peter and Paul, “a certain matron named Lucina ministered to them incessantly.” And when they were led to martyrdom, “the most blessed Lucina followed them with all her household to the aqueduct,1 where they were beheaded, and after that she collected their bodies, and buried them in the sand quarry in her farm, near the place where they were decapitated on the Via Aurelia.”
Another Lucina lived at Rome in the reign of Diocletian [Roman emperor 284–305, who began the ‘Great Persecution’ of Christians in 303], and is mentioned in the acts of S. Sebastian, and in those of Pope S. Marcellus. When Nicostratus the praefect was converted with all his family, amongst the holy women of it who were baptized were Beatrix ' “ Jr.xta formam acqu*ductu8.” Forma arc "Canales structllcs et arcuatl." Nov. Justlnlani, 19.
S. Mar ai. and Lucina. S. Sebastian appeared in vision to Lucina and told her where to find his body. “ Thou wilt find my corpse near the circus in the sewer, hanging on a grate.”1 S. Lucina went to the spot indicated, raised the body, carried it away, and buried it. According to the acts of S. Marcellus, S. Lucina gave her house to be used as a church in the year 309. But the acts of S. Marcellus are so utterly untrustworthy, that no reliance may be placed in anything they assert. Nor are the acts of SS. Processus and Martinian worthy of more confidence. They were written certainly later than the acts of S. Sebastian, and probably the name of Lucina was adopted into them from the already extant acts of S. Sebastian.
It is consequently most probable that there was only one Lucina who lived in the 4th century, but the Roman Martyrology, as reformed by Baronius [Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607), church historian who edited the Roman Martyrology], favours the other opinion, for it asserts, “ Lucina, a disciple of the apostles, who ministered of her substance to the necessities of the saints, and visited the imprisoned Christians, and buried the martyrs, was buried near the martyrs in the catacomb she had herself constructed.”
