A group of sufferers called the Madaurian martyrs seems to belong to the same period; in the correspondence of St Augustine, Namphamo, one of their number, is spoken of as an "archimartyr," which appears to mean a protomartyr of Africa.
[2] The martyrs' trial and execution took place in Carthage under the proconsul Publius Vigellius Saturninus, whom Tertullian declares to have been the first persecutor of Christians in Africa.
Their names were Speratus, Nartzalus, Cintinus (Cittinus), Veturius, Felix, Aquilinus,[3] Laetantius, Januaria, Generosa, Vestia, Donata, and Secunda.
But when called upon to swear by the name of the emperor, he replied "I recognize not the empire of this world; but rather do I serve that God whom no man hath seen, nor with these eyes can see.
The fame of the martyrs led to the building of a basilica in their honor at Carthage[5] and their annual commemoration required that the brevity and obscurity of their Acta should be supplemented and explained to make them suitable for public recitation.