[2]The hagiographer Alban Butler (1710–1773) wrote in his Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints under June 28, St. Plutarch, &c. MM.
Hence it is not to be wondered that out of it came many illustrious martyrs in the persecution of Severus, which raged with great fury from 202, the year before Origen was made catechist, to the death of that emperor in 211.
Origen visited and encouraged him in prison, and accompanied him to the place of execution, where he narrowly escaped death himself, from the resentment of Plutarch’s Pagan friends, who looked upon him as the cause of their losing him.
Potamiana was by condition a slave, but had the happiness to be educated in the faith by a pious mother, whose name was Marcella, and seeking the ablest master of piety, applied herself to Origen.
The prefect not being able to persuade her, made her undergo several torments, and at length caused a caldron of boiling pitch to be prepared, and then said to her: “Go, obey your master, or you shall be thrown into this caldron.” She answered, “I conjure you by the life of the emperor whom you respect, that you do not let me appear uncovered; command me rather to be let down by degrees into the caldron with my clothes on, that you may see the patience with which Jesus Christ, of whom you are ignorant, endues those who trust in him.”[4]
The martyr, by way of requital, bade him be of good courage; and promised, that “after her death she would obtain of God his salvation,” as Eusebius expresses it.
By such a favour was the conversion of the soldier Basilides wrought through the prayers of St. Potamiana, who whilst alive had promised he should feel the effects of her gratitude when she should be gone to Christ.
He answered them, that Potamiana had appeared to him on the night after the third day from her martyrdom, and had placed a crown on his head, saying, that she had besought the Lord to give him the grace of salvation, and had obtained her request; and that he should shortly be called by Him to glory.
After this, having received from the brethren the seal of the Lord (that is, baptism), he made the next day, a second time, a glorious confession of the faith before the tribunal of the prefect, and sentence of death being passed upon him, his head was cut off with an axe.