Felicitas was a widow of Rome who, with her seven sons, confessed Christ during the persecutions of the second century and was put to death for refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods. The tradition records the names of her sons as Januarius, Felix, Philip, Silvanus, Alexander, Vitalius, and Martial. The whole household is commemorated together, and in the Eastern Orthodox calendar their feast is kept on January 25.
According to the account, Felicitas was born into a wealthy Roman family and openly professed her Christian faith before the emperor and the civil authorities. Pagan priests accused her of insulting the gods by spreading Christianity, and she and her sons were handed over to the Prefect Publius, who sought to compel them to worship the idols. When persuasion and threats failed, mother and sons alike were condemned. The synaxarion relates that Felicitas witnessed the suffering of each of her sons in turn, praying that they would stand firm and enter the heavenly Kingdom before her, and that she followed them in martyrdom soon after.
By tradition the seven sons died by various means: Januarius, the eldest, was scourged to death; Felix and Philip were beaten with clubs until they expired; Silvanus was cast down from a height; and Alexander, Vitalius, and Martial were beheaded. Their mother was put to death after them. Western accounts record that the martyrs were buried in several Roman cemeteries along the great roads outside the city, and that Felicitas herself was laid in the catacomb of Maximus on the Via Salaria.
The dating and circumstances of the martyrdom are not certain. The sources place the sufferings at Rome in the second century, about the year 164; some accounts assign them to the reign of Marcus Aurelius and others to that of Antoninus Pius. The surviving Acts of the martyrs are of comparatively late date, and historians treat the narrative details with caution while the veneration of Felicitas and her sons is ancient and well attested. Pope Saint Gregory the Dialogist, who preached a homily on her feast, described her as having undergone martyrdom in each of her children before her own death.
