Nicetas, St (1)

Nicetas, St. (1), a Christian martyr of the 4th century, was of Gothic descent, and born near the Danube. Though he had long been a Christian, he met with no molestation on that account until the persecution under Athanaric in A.D. 370. That monarch of the Eastern Goths ordered an idol to be drawn about on a chariot through all the places where Christians lived. The chariot stopped at the door of every professed Christian, and he was ordered to pay it adoration. Upon a refusal the house was immediately set on fire, and all within were burned. This was the case with Nicetas, who became a martyr to his Christian constancy, being consumed to ashes in his own house, Sept. 15. 372. See Fox, Book of Martyrs, p. 71; Hardwick, Ch. Hist. of the Middle Ages, p. 293.