The ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat were, according to a medieval legend, Roman soldiers who, led by Saint Acacius, converted to Christianity and were crucified on Mount Ararat in Armenia by order of the Roman emperor. The story is attributed to the ninth century scholar Anastasius Bibliothecarius.
In the Roman Catholic Church the martyrs are commemorated on March 18 and June 22, according to entries in the Roman Martyrology.
In the Greek Orthodox Church the Great Synaxaristes has a reference on June 1 for the "The Holy Ten Thousand Martyrs" in Antiochia, under the Roman Emperor Decius.
Despite its questionable veracity, the event was extremely popular in Renaissance art, as seen for example in the painting 10,000 martyrs of Mount Ararat by the Venetian artist Vittore Carpaccio, or in the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand by the German artist Albrecht Dürer.
Famous quotes containing the words ten thousand, ten, thousand and/or martyrs:
“I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits.”
—John Webster (1580–1625)
“I detest the thought of him
With his ten children under ten years old.
I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,
All’s ever I heard of it, which isn’t much.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)