Quiteria

Quiteria was a second-century virgin martyr and saint about whom nothing is certain except her name and her cult. She appears in the Roman Martyrology, but not in any other ancient calendars (such as the Martyrologium Hieronymianum). Name Quiteria may be derived from Kythere (or Kyteria, Kuteria), a title applied to the Phoenician goddess Astarte which meant "the red one", or from (the possibly related name) Cytherea, an epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite because she was born on the island of Kythira. Legend She is said to have been born in Bracara (now Braga, Portugal) to Lucius Catilius Serves, Roman governor of Gallaecia and Lusitania, and Calcia, his wife. Her father wanted her to marry and renounce Christianity. Quiteria fled and her father's men found her at Aire-sur-l'Adour, in Gascony. She was beheaded on the spot. Her sister, Liberata, also suffered the same fate in the forest of Montus and lies in a 14th-century sarcophagus in the fortified church of Saint Jean Baptiste in Mazéres 32 km from her sister Quiteria in Aire-sur-l'Adour. Quiteria and the Nonuplet sisters