Martyr Felicity of Carthage

Martyr Felicity, a slave woman, was seized together with a group of Carthaginian catechumens — the noblewoman Vibia Perpetua (age 22, a nursing mother), Perpetua's brother Saturus, and fellow catechumens Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundus (the last of whom died in prison before the execution). Felicity was pregnant at the time of her arrest and feared that, under Roman law forbidding the execution of pregnant women, her death would be postponed and she would be unable to suffer alongside her companions; two days before the scheduled execution she gave birth to a daughter in prison, who was later raised by a Christian woman. In the amphitheater, Felicity and Perpetua were first thrown to a wild cow, which wounded but did not kill them, and were then dispatched by the sword — tradition holds that Perpetua herself guided the inexperienced executioner's hand to her own throat. Their joint martyrdom is recorded in the "Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity," one of the oldest and most historically significant surviving accounts of early Christian martyrs, including Perpetua's own written record of her visions in prison. They died on March 7, 203. Not to be confused with Martyr Felicitas of Rome, a different, separate 2nd-century saint.