Ia, in particular, has been transformed into an elderly woman. Her body and her beauty are now of little importance. Each woman now becomes a new type of heroine, whose virtue is linked to, and expressed by, her facility with language. However, their revisers (an anonymous and Makarios the monk, respectively) deliberately transformed their chosen martyrs partially by employing rhetorical and philosophical terminology. Tatiana’s antagonist is Emperor Alexander Severus whilst Ia’s is Shapur II. Technically, the stories follow a ‘standard’ plot whereby a beautiful, virginal girl is subjected to horrific tortures by a male aggressor. Examination of the rewritten Greek passions of the late-antique martyrs, St Tatiana of Rome (C8th-9th), a deaconess, and Ia of Persia (C13th), reveal women who were transformed into public orators. Those passions that were revised have mainly been analysed for information on the women’s resurrected cult or for linguistic interest. For Byzantium, scholarship has tended to assume that she occupies a more subdued role since, given historical circumstances, no new virgin martyrs appeared.
The virgin martyr is a familiar heroine in Late-Antique hagiography, whose body and/or beauty is the catalyst for her martyrdom.
