Blandina

All that is known of Blandina comes from the letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyon that Eusebius preserves. Her mistress, who was arrested with her, feared that she was too frail to hold out. The letter says that her torturers gave up exhausted, and that she kept repeating, “I am a Christian, and there is nothing vile done by us” (Eusebius, Church History 5.1.17–19). Hung on a stake in the arena, she looked to her companions like one crucified, and the beasts left her alone (Eusebius, Church History 5.1.41–42).

She was kept to the last day of the games, encouraged Ponticus, a boy of about fifteen, as he died, and was then scourged, burned, wrapped in a net and thrown to a bull. The letter calls her a “noble mother” who sent her children ahead of her to the King (Eusebius, Church History 5.1.53–56). See the Martyrs of Lyon and Vienne.