12 May — Nérée and Achillée sare two martyrs put to death in a persecution of Christians in ancient Rome. They convince their mistress, Flavie Domitilla, who is about to marry, that virginity is preferable.

The fiancé, who is thus rejected, obtains an order from the emperor that she be relegated to an island. There, the two eunuchs, who accompany her into exile, argue with two disciples of Simon the Magician. Brought back to the mainland because they continue to confirm Domitilla in her refusal of the fiancé, they are beheaded in Terracina.

In the form of a letter, the Acts of the Apostles reports information from a disciple of the two saints who brought their bodies from Terracina to Rome and buried them "in the domain of Domitilla in the crypt of a quarry... on Via Ardeatina, a mile and a half from the city wall, near the tomb in which Petronilla, daughter of the Apostle Peter, was buried".