Augurius of Tarragona

Augurius of Tarragona (Latin: Augurius; also called Augurius of Tarraco) was a deacon of the Christian church in Tarraco, capital of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis, in the mid-third century. No reliable source records his date or place of birth, his family, or any events of his life before the persecution in which he died. He is known exclusively through his association with Bishop Fructuosus of Tarragona and with a fellow deacon, Eulogius. The three men were executed by fire in the amphitheatre of Tarraco during the persecution of the Church under the emperor Valerian. The principal source for their deaths is the Latin Passio Sanctorum Fructuosi Episcopi, Auguri et Eulogi Diaconorum, an early martyr narrative that modern historians generally treat as comparatively trustworthy because of its sober tone, its local colour, and its relatively early circulation.

The passion states that Fructuosus, Augurius, and Eulogius were arrested on Sunday, 16 January 259, and placed in prison. There they passed the time in prayer, and Fructuosus is reported to have baptized a catechumen. On 21 January they were led before Aemilianus, the praeses of the province. In the interrogation preserved in the text, Aemilianus asked whether they knew of the emperors' orders that the gods be worshipped. Fructuosus replied that he worshipped one God. Asked in turn, Augurius and Eulogius made the same confession. When the governor pressed the bishop on obedience to the gods, Fructuosus refused. Aemilianus then sentenced the bishop and both deacons to be burned alive.

The three were taken to the amphitheatre of Tarraco. The passion depicts them walking to execution without fear. Fructuosus is said to have spoken briefly to the Christian faithful who were present, urging them to remain steadfast, and to have declined a drink that was offered him. After the fire had done its work, Christians of Tarraco collected the remains. Subsequent episodes in the acta describe apparitions of Fructuosus warning the faithful not to divide the relics of the three martyrs among themselves, a detail that indicates an early and joint cult of Augurius together with his companions rather than a separate devotion to any one of them.

The memory of Augurius, Fructuosus, and Eulogius was firmly established in Hispania by late antiquity. Around the turn of the fifth century the Spanish poet Prudentius devoted the sixth poem of his Peristephanon to their martyrdom, describing the amphitheatre, the fire, and the gathering of relics. A basilica dedicated to them existed at Tarragona in the late Roman and Visigothic periods, and their names entered the Martyrologium Hieronymianum and later the Roman Martyrology, which commemorates them on 21 January. They are venerated as patron saints of Tarragona. Apart from the passion, Prudentius, and the traces of local liturgical cult, no further verifiable biographical facts about Augurius himself have survived.