ST. PONTIUS, AN ILLUSTRIOUS PRIMITIVE MARTYR

HE suffered in the persecution of Valerian about the year 258, at Cimelé, a city in the Alps, which was afterwards destroyed by the Lombards; when, from its ruins, arose in the neighborhood the town of Nice, in Savoy. Of the old city, only the famous abbey of St. Pons at Cimilé, or Cimies, subsists; and the relics of the holy martyr were translated to the monastery of Tomieres in Languedoc, where pope John XXII. erected an episcopal see, called St. Pons de Tomieres. The abbey of Tomieres was secularized in 1625. St. Valerian, bishop of Cimelé in the fifth century, in the three panegyrics which he has left us of this martyr, assures us that many miracles were wrought at his relics. See the Bollandists.