Caius, Bishop of Rome

Caius, Bishop Of Rome from Dec. 17 (16?), 283, to April 22, 296-i.e. for twelve years, four months, and one week (Pontifical, Bucher, p. 272); but only eleven years, according to Anastasius (c. 24), and for fifteen years, according to Eusebius, who speaks of him as a contemporary (H. E. vii, 32; Chron. 284). He is probably the same as Caius the deacon, imprisoned with pope Stephen in 257. Caius is said, in: the early pontifical, to have. avoided persecution by hiding in the crypts. He is stated by Anastasius to have established the six orders of usher, reader, exorcist, subdeacon, deacon, and presbyter, as preliminary stages necessary to be passed before attaining the episcopate; also to have divided Rome into. regions, and assigned them to the deacons. He is said to have sent Protus and Januarius on a mission to Sardinia. According to the 6th century pontifical he died in peace, and is not called a martyr earlier than by Bede and Anastasius. From a confusion between the calends of March and of May, in the Mart. Hieron., Rabanus assigns his death, and Notker his burial, to Feb. 20. His commemoration on July 1, in the latter martyrology, is unexplained. He was the last of the twelve popes buried in the crypt of Sixtus, cemetery of Callixtus'; and is, therefore, mentioned again Aug. 9, at which date a copy of the inscription, set up by Sixtus III, was placed in the margin of the ancient 'martyrology.