Mary and Charlotte explore the story of Perpetua, a young Christian woman tortured and murdered in the Roman arena in Carthage (modern day Tunisia) for her faith in the 3rd Century CE. Astonishingly, Perpetua kept a diary during her last days - right up until the point she was led into the arena - recording her life, dreams and fearless conviction that death was better than renouncing God. Even more astonishingly, this diary survives, incorporated into a longer account of her martyrdom narrated by another hand.. 

Perpetua describes the attempts by both her father and the presiding Roman official to convince her to just say the words that will save her life. She describes her inability to do this, even though it means depriving her baby of its mother. She also describes several of her dreams in the days before her death. The narrator takes over to recount what happened next. Perpetua was mauled by animals and finally despatched by a gladiator. 

Perpetua’s account is so remarkable, many have questioned its authenticity. The current scholarly verdict is that it is real, providing a rare insight not only into female experience in the Roman Empire - but a woman living through extreme circumstances. 

Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:

You can find an online translation of Perpetua’s diary here: https://www.ssfp.org/pdf/The_Martyrdom_of_Saints_Perpetua_and_Felicitas.pdf

Barbara Gold, Perpetua: Athlete of God (Oxford UP, pb, 2021) and Sarah Ruden, Perpetua: the woman, the martyr (Yale UP, 2025) are accessible introductions to Perpetua (both including translations of the whole or parts of the text)

More specialist studies include; 

Jan N. Bremmer and Marco Formisano (eds), Perpetua’s Passions (Oxford UP, 2012)

Thomas J. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas (Oxford UP, 2012)

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