[4] The tradition states that Eleutherius was appointed bishop of Messana and Illyricum at the age of twenty and apparently settled in Aulon.

[5] A Latin translation of this Greek text, dating from around the 8th century, states that Anicetus, after consecrating Eleutherius, assigned him to the see of Apuliam Aecanam civitatem (Aeca).

[3] Baronius uses the descriptive Episcopi Illyrici (bishop of Illyricum) in his Roman Martyrology, since he consulted the Greek source.

[6] They were tortured with hot boiling oil, resin, and heated irons, and then thrown to the lions; none had the desired effect and finally the two were executed.

According to tradition, the church claimed the relics of Eleutherius and Antia, carried from Rome by Bishop Primus of Rieti.

It acquired greater splendor after 1000 AD, when Peter, a local abbot, restored the church and its monastery, which lay near a stream and the city cemetery.

At Chieti, Benevento, Salerno, and Sulmona, he was venerated on May 21; at Terracina on May 13; on May 23 at Arce, and on 31 December at Canne, where he described as a bishop of that town and a son of Evantia (a corruption of Antia).