Martyr
Martyr Felicity of Carthage
† 203
Martyr Felicity of Carthage — a pregnant slave-woman who gave birth to a daughter in prison, thrown to a wild heifer in the arena together with Martyr Perpetua and dispatched by the sword under Emperor Septimius Severus in 203.
Martyr Felicity of Carthage was a slave-woman who, at the time of her arrest, was in the final months of pregnancy. She suffered at Carthage in 203 AD under Emperor Septimius Severus alongside her mistress, the young noblewoman Perpetua (see the separate entry martyr_perpetua / perpetua_of_carthage), and fellow catechumens Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundulus, along with their teacher Saturus.
Their arrest, imprisonment, and martyrdom are recorded in one of the earliest and most reliable hagiographic documents, "The Passion of Saints Perpetua, Felicity, and Their Companions," partly written in Perpetua's own first-person voice as a prison diary.
Two days before the games, Felicity gave birth to a daughter in prison, entrusting the infant to Christian sisters. In the amphitheater, she and Perpetua were thrown to a wild heifer, then both were dispatched by the sword.
Her feast is kept on February 1/14.