Confession and Martyrdom
The accounts place their suffering in the year 300, during the reign of Diocletian, when Flavian was governor of Pamphylia. Resolving together to confess Christ, the nine men went to the temple of the goddess Artemis at Perge and in the course of a single night tore down and destroyed the idols there.
Following this they were arrested and questioned. The synaxarion describes a series of tortures: they were flogged, their sides were burned with fire, their flesh was torn with iron claws, and their eyes were put out. They were also imprisoned without food or drink.
The tradition relates that when the martyrs were given to wild beasts to be devoured, the animals did not harm them nor move against them, and onlookers cried out, 'Great is the God of the Christians.' After this, amid thunder, lightning, rain, and hail, the nine were beheaded.