Of all the virgin martyrs of Rome none was held in such high honor by the primitive church, since the fourth century, as St. Agnes.

Since the close of the fourth century the Fathers of the Church and Christian poets have sung her praises and extolled her virginity and heroism under torture. It is clear, however, from the diversity in the earliest accounts that there was extant at the end of the fourth century no accurate and reliable narrative, at least in writing, concerning the details of her martyrdom. On one point only is there mutual agreement, viz., the youth of the Christian heroine. St. Ambrose gives her age as twelve. St. Augustine as thirteen . Damasus depicts her as hastening to martyrdom from the lap of her mother or nurse . We have no reason whatever for doubting this tradition. It indeed explains very well the renown of the youthful martyr.

The rhetorical narrative of St. Ambrose, in addition to the martyr's age, gives nothing except her execution by the sword. The metrical panegyric of Pope Damasus tells us that immediately after the promulgation of the imperial edict against the Christians Agnes voluntarily declared herself a Christian, and suffered very steadfastly the martyrdom of fire, giving scarcely a thought to the frightful torments she had to endure, and concerned only with veiling, by means of her flowing hair, her chaste body which had been exposed to the gaze of the heathen multitude . Prudentius, in his description of the martyrdom, adheres rather to the account of St. Ambrose, but adds a new episode: The judge threatened to give over her virginity to a house of prostitution, and even executed this final threat; but when a young man turned a lascivious look upon the virgin, he fell to the ground stricken with blindness, and lay as one dead. Possible this is what Damasus and Ambrose refer to, in saying that the purity of St. Agnes was endangered; the latter in particular says (Behold therefore in the same victim a double martyrdom, one of modesty, the other of religion. She remained a virgin, and obtained the crown of martyrdom). Prudentius, therefore, may have drawn at least the substance of this episode from a trustworthy popular legend.

The Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Agnes . In these Acts the brothel episode is still further elaborated, and the virgin is decapitated after remaining untouched by the flames.

We do not know with certainty in which persecution the courageous virgin won the martyr's crown. Formerly it was customary to assign her death to the persecution of Diocletian (c. 304), but arguments are now brought forward, based on the inscription of Damasus, to prove that it occurred during one of the third-century persecutions subsequent to that of Decius.

The body of the virgin martyr was placed in a separate sepulcher on the Via Nomentana, and around her tomb there grew up a larger catacomb that bore her name. The original slab which covered her remains, with the inscriptions Agne sanctissima, is probably the same one which is now preserved in the Museum at Naples. During the reign of Constantine, through the efforts of his daughter Constantina, a basilica was erected over the grave of St. Agnes, which was later entirely remodeled by Pope Honorius (625-638), and has since remained unaltered. In the apse is a mosaic showing the martyr amid flames, with a sword at her feet. A beautiful relief of the saint is found on a marble slab that dates from the fourth century and was originally a part of the altar of her church.

Since the Middle Ages St. Agnes has been represented with a lamb, the symbol of her virginal innocence.