Maxima of Thuburbo

Who they were

At Thuburbo in present-day Tunisia, Saints Maxima, Donatilla and Secunda, virgins and martyrs, of whom the first two, during the persecution of the emperor Diocletian, fearlessly refused the Caesar’s order to sacrifice to the idols and, by sentence of the proconsul Anulinus, were first exposed to the wild beasts together with little Secunda and then had their throats cut with the sword.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

The Roman Martyrology remembers her on 30 July as a virgin martyr at Thuburbo in present-day Tunisia who refused to sacrifice to the idols, was exposed to the wild beasts and was then killed with the sword.