From MAURICE M. HASSET
Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas
From the Catholic Encyclopedia

 Thus in the Middle Ages no tradition existed in Rome which associated the martyrs in any way with the Coliseum; it was only in the seventeenth century and in the manner indicated, that it came to he regarded with veneration as a scene of early Christian heroism. Indeed, little attention was paid by the Christians of the first age to the actual place of a martyr's sufferings; the sand stained with his blood was, when possible gathered up and treasured as a precious relic, but that was all. The devotion of the Christian body centred wholly around the place where the martyr was interred. Father Delehaye calls attention to the fact that although we know from trust-worthy historical sources of the execution of Christians in the garden of Nero, yet popular tradition preserved no recollection of all event so memorable (op. cit., 37). The Acts of Roman Martyrs, it is true, contain indications as to the places where various martyrs suffered: in amphitheatro, in Tellure, etc. But these Acts are often merely pious legends of the fifth, sixth, and following centuries built up by unknown writers on a feast reliable historical facts. The decree formerly attributed to Pope Gelasius (492-96) bears witness to the slight consideration in which this class of literature was held in the Roman Church; to read it in the churches was forbidden, and it was attributed to unknown writers, wholly unqualified for their self-imposed task (secundum antiquam consuetudinem, leguntur, quia et eorum qui conscripsere nomina penitus ignorantur, et ab infidelibus et idiotis superflua aut minus apta quam rei ordo fuerit esse putantur.-- Thiel. Epist. Rom. Pont., I, 458).

The evidence, therefore, which we possess in the Roman Acts in favour of certain martyrs suffering in the Coliseum is, for these reasons among others, regarded by Father Delehaye as inconclusive. He does not deny that there may have been martyrs who suffered in the Coliseum, but we know nothing on the subject one way or the other. (Je ne veux pas nier qu'il y ait eu des martyrs de l'amphithéâtre Flavien; mais nous ne savons pas non plus s'il y en a eu, et en tout cas leurs noms nous sont inconnus.--Op. cit., 37.) It is, of course, probable enough that some of the Christians condemned ad bestias suffered in the Coliseum, but there is just as rnuch reason to suppose that they met their death in one of the other places dedicated to the cruel amusements of imperial Rome; for instance, in the Circus Flaminius, the Gaianum, the Circus of Hadrian, the Amphitheatrum Castrense, and the Stadium of Domitian. Even as regards St. Ignatius of Antioch, the evidence that he was martyred in the Coliseum is far from decisive, the terms employed by St. John Chrysostom and Evagrius in reference to this matter convey no precise meaning (Delehaye, op. cit. 43). The same is true of the term used by Theodoret in reference to the death of St. Telemachus, who sacrificed his life to put an end to the bloody spectacles which, as late as the early fifth century, took place in Rome. There is no reason to doubt the fact of the heroic death of St. Telemachus, but there is, on the other hand, no clear proof that its scene was the Coliseum. Theodoret, the only writer who records the incident, says that it happened eis to stadio (in the stadium), a different place from the Coliseum.