Marius a nobleman of Persia with his wife Martha and two sons Audifax and Abachum being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among the poor as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem and came to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles in the year 270. The emperor Aurelian then persecuted the church, and by his order a great number of Christians were shut up in the amphitheatre and shot to death with arrows, and their bodies burnt. Our saints gathered and buried their ashes with respect; for which they were apprehended and after many torments under the governor Marcianus, Marius and his two sons were beheaded, and Martha drowned, thirteen miles from Rome, at a place now called Santa Ninfa. Their Mass is full of contrast, depicting on one hand the sufferings of martyrdom and on the other the joy of eternity and the triumph of God in His saints.