The legend of St. Anastasia, virgin and martyr (Zadar)
During the rule of the Emperor Diocletian (3-4th century) and his cruel persecution of the Christians, a young girl from a respectable patrician's house was married to the Roman patrician Publius. Her fate would be no difference from the fate of other women who lived in arranged marriages without love, had she not meet and become delighted with the "new" idea of love and faith of a Roman knight - later the martyr St. Chrysogonus.
Due to her desire for virginity and accepting the "new pagan faith", she was long locked away in the house. After her husband's death, she joined St. Chrysogonus and went to Aquileia, where they visited the prisoners and tortured Christians, and there, unfortunately, she was present for his martyrdom. According to the legend, she died a martyr's death in her hometown of Sirmium, and her head was cut off and her body cast into the sea near the Italian island of Palmaria. Relics found in the 5th century were taken to Constantinople and in 804, the Frank Bishop Donat of Zadar received them from Emperor Nicifore I as a sign of reconciliation between Byzantium and Zadar.