ABSTRACT
Hieron and the Martyrs of Melitene follow naturally the XL Martyrs of Sebasteia, whose Passion was the model for theirs. As Peeters unflatteringly put it: ‘The whole narrative has been assembled shamelessly in imitation of the Passion of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia, interlarded with fables worthy of a poet somewhat lacking in inspiration.’1 It is with the fables, more extensively developed in the Metaphrastic Life than in the primitive Passion, that we are principally concerned here.
