In the home of Romulus stands the tomb of Agnes, a brave maiden, a renowned martyr. Laid to rest within sight of the towers themselves, the virgin guards the welfare of the Quirites, and protects too the very strangers who come as suppliants with pure and faithful heart. A double crown was granted to the martyr: her virginhood untouched by any stain, and then the glory of a freely-chosen death. They say that, scarcely fit for the marriage-bed, in her earliest years a little girl, burning for Christ, she bravely resisted the impious commands, that she might not, surrendered to idols, forsake the sacred faith. For tried first by many arts, now by the enticement of a flattering judge's lips, now by the threats of a raging executioner, she stood persistent with fierce resolve, and offered her body of her own accord to harsh torments, not refusing to die. Then the savage tyrant:
'If it is easy,' he said, 'to bear punishment, with its pains overcome, and a cheap life is despised, yet the modesty of dedicated virginity is dear to her. It is resolved to thrust her into a public brothel, unless she lays her head at the altar and now begs pardon of Minerva, whom the virgin proceeds to scorn, virgin though she be: all the youth shall rush in and seek her as a new chattel of their wantonness.' 'By no means,' says Agnes, 'is Christ so forgetful of his own that he should let our golden modesty be lost and forsake us too; he is at hand to the chaste and does not suffer the gifts of holy integrity to be defiled. You will stain the steel with blood, if you will, but you will not defile my limbs with lust.' When she had thus spoken, he orders the maiden to be set publicly at the bend of the street.
As she stood, the mournful crowd fled from her, with faces turned away, lest anyone too wantonly should gaze upon that place to be revered. One man by chance fixed his eyes brazenly upon the girl and did not fear to gaze on her sacred form with a lustful eye. Lo, a winged fire is hurled in the manner of a thunderbolt, blazing, and strikes his eyes; blinded by the flashing light he collapses, and writhes in the dust of the street. His comrades lift him half-dead from the ground and lament him with funeral words. The virgin went on in triumph, hymning God the Father and Christ in a sacred song, because, having faced the stain of unholy peril, she had found the brothel chaste and inviolable, a victorious virginity. There are those who have reported that, asked, she poured out prayers to Christ, that he might restore light to the guilty man as he lay there: then the breath of life was renewed in the young man with his sight made whole.
This was but the first step Agnes had to the heavenly court; soon another ascent is given her; for the frenzy of the bloodthirsty foe goads his wrath: 'I am conquered,' he says, groaning; 'go, soldier, draw your sword, and carry out the commands of the supreme king and prince!' When Agnes saw the grim man stand with naked blade, more joyful she said: 'I exult, because such a one rather comes — mad, fierce, turbulent, in arms — than if there came a languid and tender one, soft, a beardless youth steeped in perfume, who would ruin me by the death of my modesty. This one, this lover, now I confess, pleases me; I shall go to meet his rushing steps and will not delay my burning vows: I shall receive the whole blade into my breasts and draw the sword's force down to the bottom of my heart. Thus, wedded to Christ, I shall leap across all the darkness of the sky, higher than the ether.
Eternal Ruler, open the gates of heaven, barred before to the earthborn; and call, O Christ, the soul that follows you, both a virgin's offering and her father's sacrifice!' Thus having spoken, with bowed head she adores Christ in supplication, that her neck, bent forward, might more readily undergo the impending wound. But he accomplishes so great a hope with his hand, for with a single stroke he cuts off her head, and a swift death forestalls the sense of pain. Thence the spirit, set free, darts forth and, liberated, leaps into the air; angels hedged her in as she went along a shining path. She marvels at the world set beneath her feet, gazes at the darkness laid below her, lofty as she is, and laughs that the wheel of the sun goes round, that all the world rolls and is entangled, that life is lived in the dark whirlwind of things, that the vain mutability of the age sweeps men away:
kings, tyrants, empires and ranks and the pomps of foolish men swollen with pride, the force of silver and gold sought by all with rabid thirst through manifold wickedness, dwellings built with much splendour, the empty mockeries of painted garb, anger, fear, vows, perils, now a long grief, now a brief joy, the smoking torches of black envy, whence men's hope and glory grow dark, and — what is fouler than all evils — the squalid clouds of heathenism. These Agnes treads underfoot and tramples down, standing and pressing the dragon's head with her heel, the dragon who, savage, scatters all earthly things with his poisons and plunges them into hell, now subdued by a virgin's foot, lowers the crests of his fiery brain, and, conquered, dares not raise his head.
Meanwhile God crowns the brow of the unwedded martyr with two crowns; the one a reward, brought forth tenfold six times over, fashions her with perennial light; in the other stands forth a hundredfold fruit. O happy virgin, O new glory, noble dweller of the heavenly citadel, turn upon our defilements your face with its twin diadem, you to whom alone the all-creating One has granted the power to make even the brothel itself chaste! I shall be cleansed by the brightness of your propitious countenance, if you fill my heart. Nothing is unchaste which you, in your piety, deign to visit or to touch with your kindly foot.