Alexander of Rome the Soldier

The Holy Martyr Alexander of Rome, soldier of the regiment of the Tiberiani

Martyr · b. c. 280 — d. c. 298–305, at Drizipera in Thrace

Commemorated 13 May — Beheaded at Drizipera in Thrace after a long journey of torments

Alexander was a young soldier of the regiment of the Tiberiani at Rome, brought up a Christian by his mother Pimenia, who at the age of eighteen refused to take part in the sacrifices commanded by Maximian Herculius (285–305). Denounced by his tribune, he was arrested, and instead of being executed at Rome was carried under guard on a long journey through the provinces to Thrace, tortured at each halt and confessing Christ at each, until at Drizipera he was condemned and beheaded — the executioner, the passion says, holding back his hand at the sight of angels standing by the martyr. His mother followed him the whole way, encouraged him in his torments, and took up his body by the river Ergina for burial; healings were worked at his grave. Whether he was a soldier or a bishop is an old textual question, discussed below.

The soldier of the Tiberiani

Alexander was a Roman, of a Christian mother named Pimenia, who brought him up in the faith from childhood — the passion makes her, and not any teacher or bishop, the whole formation of his soul. He entered military service young, and was enrolled in the τάγμα τῶν Τιβεριανῶν, the regiment or command "of the Tiberiani," at Rome. He was eighteen years old when the edict of Maximian Herculius required the soldiers of the city to sacrifice to the gods before the standards. Alexander would not go; and when the whole cohort was assembled and the sacrifices offered, his absence was conspicuous.

His tribune, Tiberianus, reported him to the emperor. Alexander did not deny the charge but confessed Christ openly before Maximian, and — the passion adds the touch that turns the story — his mother, when the news came, did not plead with him to save himself but strengthened him to endure.

The journey of torments

What follows is unusual in the passions of the Roman martyrs: Alexander was not put to death at Rome. He was given into the custody of the same Tiberianus, who was ordered to take his prisoner with him out of Italy, and he was carried on a long journey through the provinces towards Thrace — the transmitted itinerary names, among other halts, Carthage and Philippopolis, and ends at Drizipera on the Thracian road, near the river Ergina. At station after station he was brought out, examined and tortured, and at each place he confessed Christ again; the effect, as the passion tells it, was that the persecution intended to break one soldier became a preaching of the Gospel the whole length of the road.

Two miracles belong to the journey. When the escort was exhausted with thirst in a dry place, water was given at Alexander's prayer — for the soldiers who were leading him to his death. And at one halt he prayed beneath a tree, and the place became a source of healing for the sick who came to it afterwards. Through the whole march his mother Pimenia followed her son, came to him where she could, and — the account is insistent on this — spoke to him not of rescue but of endurance, so that the Church honours her memory within his.

Drizipera

At Drizipera the sentence was finally given, and Alexander was condemned to be beheaded. The passion relates that when he was brought out and knelt, the executioner's hand faltered: he saw angels standing about the martyr and could not strike, and had to be commanded a second time. Then Alexander was beheaded, and — as at the deaths of many soldier-martyrs — a heavenly voice or a light is said to have marked the moment.

His mother recovered the body near the river Ergina, and buried it. Healings followed at the grave, which became a place of pilgrimage on the great Thracian highway; and the passion ends with the martyr appearing to Pimenia in a dream to comfort her — the son consoling the mother who had taught him not to be spared. His death is placed in the reign of Maximian, and the calendars describe it as of the very end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century.

Feast and commemoration

May 13 (church date; New Calendar civil May 13, Old Calendar civil May 26). He is a universal commemoration, kept in the Greek, Antiochian and Slavic calendars alike, after Glyceria and Laodicius; the Menaion gives him no proper service, and the common of a martyr is sung with his name. Because the date of Pascha moves, May 13 falls in some years within the Paschal season and in others after Pentecost, and no fixed seasonal note belongs to the day. His grave at Drizipera kept his cult alive on the Constantinople road through the Byzantine centuries, and it is from that Thracian veneration, rather than from Rome, that the feast passed into the synaxaria.

Hymns

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)

Thy martyr Alexander, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.

Kontakion — Tone 2

A soldier of the earthly king, thou wast found a soldier of the King of heaven, O Alexander; and being led from land to land in bonds, thou didst preach Christ in every place, and wast crowned by the sword at Drizipera; wherefore we honour thee with thy mother.

Iconography

Alexander is painted as a beardless youth — eighteen years old, and the youngest of the soldier-martyrs of the May calendar — in the short military tunic and the red chlamys fastened at the shoulder, holding the martyr's cross in his right hand; where he is shown in full military type he carries a spear and a shield, and where the painter wishes to mark the martyrdom rather than the profession the cross alone is given him and the armour omitted. In narrative scenes two episodes recur: the youth standing apart from the ranks while the cohort sacrifices before the standards, and the beheading at Drizipera with the executioner drawing back and angels above; his mother Pimenia may be shown receiving the body. His feast being in May, the Menologion of Basil II (September–February) offers nothing for him, and no pre-1900 image that can be securely distinguished from the many other martyrs named Alexander has been identified for this collection — the risk of misattribution here is high, and no candidate has been stored.

Disputed questions

Soldier or bishop? This is the central textual problem of the entry, and the Greek synaxaristes states it plainly. The Paris Codex Suppl. gr. 152 describes Alexander as a bishop; the Lavra Codex I 70, fol. 238v describes him as a soldier of the regiment of the Tiberiani in the days of Maximian (285–305). Sophronios Eustratiades proposed the solution that has been generally accepted: the original notice read ἐπὶ κόμητος Τιβεριανοῦ — "under the comes Tiberianus" — and this was corrupted in transmission into ἐπισκόπου Τιβεριανῶν, "bishop of the Tiberiani," the two phrases being nearly identical in an abbreviated minuscule hand. The soldier reading is therefore the sound one, and "bishop" is a scribal ghost. The corruption also explains why some Western and Greek lists have looked for a see of "Tiberias" or "Tiberiane" that never existed.
"Alexander of Tiberias." Because of the same phrase, English and Greek notices sometimes style him Alexander of Tiberias or of the Tiberiani, as though from the city on the Sea of Galilee. There is no connection with Tiberias in Palestine; the word is the name of his regiment, or of its commander.
The date and the century. Maximian reigned 285–305, and the calendars variously give Alexander's death as "284–305," "c. 298," or "early in the fourth century." He is indexed here in the fourth century, following the common notice, but the third century is equally possible and nothing in the passion decides it.
The itinerary. The route as transmitted — Rome, then Carthage, then Philippopolis and Drizipera in Thrace — is geographically strange, since Carthage lies in Africa and off any land road to Thrace. Either a Thracian or Macedonian place-name has been assimilated to the famous Carthage in copying, or the escort's route genuinely went by sea. The difficulty is transmitted with the text and is recorded, not resolved.
Not to be confused with Alexander of Rome, Pope (†c. 119, March 16) — the same epithet "of Rome" for a wholly different saint, a bishop of the city martyred two centuries earlier; nor with the martyrs Alexander of Pydna, Alexander of Side, or Alexander of Adrianople and his companions; nor with Alexander of Jerusalem or Alexander the Sleepless. Alexander is among the most crowded names in the calendar, and the epithet "the soldier," with the day May 13, is the reliable identifier of this martyr.