[3] However, legend has it that Cyriacus was a Roman nobleman who converted to Christianity as an adult and, renouncing his material wealth, gave it away to the poor.

Under the reign of Western Roman Emperor Maximian, co-emperor with Diocletian, Cyriacus was tortured and put to death, beheaded in 303 on the Via Salaria, where he was subsequently buried.

With him were martyred his companions Largus and Smaragdus, and twenty others, including Crescentianus, Sergius, Secundus, Alban, Victorianus, Faustinus, Felix, Sylvanus, and four women: Memmia, Juliana, Cyriacides, and Donata.

[6] The 1962 Calendar, issued together with Pope John XXIII's Roman Missal, the licit private and, under certain conditions, public use of which was authorized by the 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, reduced their celebration to a Commemoration.

The title was definitively suppressed in 1587 by Pope Sixtus V, who assigned a titulus of Sts Quirico e Giulitta to Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici.

On St Cyriacus' feast day, 8 August 1899, a category four hurricane made landfall on the island of Puerto Rico and was named after him.