The short account of their martyrdom given us in today's liturgy:
"At Rome, in the persecution of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the prefect Publius tried first by fair speeches and then by threats to compel seven brothers, the sons of St. Felicitas to renounce Christ and adore the gods. But, owing both to their own valor and to their mother's words of encouragement, they persevered in their confession of faith and were all put to death in various ways. The brothers gave up their souls to our Lord on the sixth of the Ides of July. Januarius was scourged to death with leaded whips, Felix and Philip were beaten with clubs. Silvanus was thrown headlong from a great height, Alexander, Vitalis, and Martial were beheaded. Their mother also gained the palm of martyrdom four months later."
John Gilmary Shea, American author and historian (d. 1892): "The illustrious martyrdom of these saints happened at Rome, under the emperor Antonius. The seven brothers were the sons of St. Felicitas, a noble, pious, Christian widow in Rome, who after the death of her husband, served God in a state of contenency and employed herself wholly in prayer, fasting, and works of charity.
By the public and edifying example of this lady and her whole family, many idolaters were moved to renounce the worship of their false gods and to embrace the faith of Christ. This excited the anger of the heathen priests, who complained to the emperor that the boldness with which Felicitas publicly practiced the Christian religion drew many from the worship of the immortal gods, who were the guardians and protectors of the empire, and that in order to appease these false gods, it was necessary to compel this lady and her children to sacrifice to them.
Publius, the prefect of Rome, caused the mother and her sons to be apprehended and brought before him, and, addressing her, said: "Take pity on your children, Felicitas; they are in the bloom of youth, and may aspire to the greatest honors and preferments.” The holy mother answered: “Your pity is really impiety, and the compassion to which you exhort me would make me the most cruel of mothers.” Then turning herself toward her children she said to them: “My sons, look up to Heaven where Jesus Christ with his saints expects you be faithful in his love and fight courageously for your souls.”
Publius, being exasperated at this behavior, commanded her to be cruelly buffeted; he then called the children to him one after another, and used many artful speeches, mingling promises with threats to induce them to adore the guards. His arguments and threats were equally in vain, and the brothers were condemned to be scourged. After being whipped, they were remanded to prison, and the prefect despairing to overcome their resolution, laid the whole process before the emperor. Antonius gave an order that they should be sent to different judges and be condemned to different deaths.
Januarius was scourged to death with whips loaded with plummets of lead. The two next, Felix and Philip, were beaten with clubs till they expired. Sylvanus, the fourth, was thrown headlong down a steep precipice. The three youngest, Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were beheaded and the same sentence was executed upon the mother four months after."
Commentary from Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Marcus Aurelius had just ascended the throne, to prove himself during a reign of nineteen years nothing but a second rate pupil of the secretarian rhetors of the second century, whose narrow views and hatred of Christian's simplicity he embraced alike in policy and in philosophy. These men, created by him prefix and pro-consoles, raised the most cold-blooded persecutions the church has ever known. The skepticism of this imperial philosopher did not exempt him from the general rule that where dogma is rejected, superstition takes its place; and monarch and people were of one accord in seeking a remedy for public calamities in the rights newly brought from the East, and in the extermination of the Christians. The assertation that the massacres of those days were carried on without the prince's sanction not only does not excuse him, it is moreover false; it is now a proven truth that, foremost among the tyrants who destroyed the flower of the human race, stands Marcus Aurelius Antonius, stained more than Domitianor even Nero with the blood of the martyrs.
The seven sons of St. Felicitas were the first victims offered by the prince to satisfy the philosophy of his courtiers, the superstition of the people, and, be it said, his own convictions, unless we would have him to be the most cowardly of men. It was he himself who ordered the Prefect Publius to entice to an apostasy this noble family whose piety angered the gods; it was he again who, after hearing the report of the cause, pronounced the sentence and decreed that it should be executed by several judges in different places, the more publicly to make known the policy of the new reign. ...
Under the cover of the pretended moderation of the Antoninines, Hell was exerting its most skillful endeavors against Christianity, at the very. With the martyrdom of the seven brothers. The Caesars of the 3rd century attacked the Church with a fury and a refinement of cruelty unknown to Marcus Aurelius, it was but as a wild beast taking a fresh spring upon the prey that had well nigh escaped him. Such being the case, no wonder that the Church has from the very beginning paid special honor to these seven heroes, the pioneers of that decisive struggle which was to prove her impregnable to all the powers of Hell. Was there ever a more sublime scene in that spectacle which the saints have to present to the world? If there was ever a combat which angels and men could equally applaud, it was surely this of July 10th, 162; when in four different suburbs of the eternal city, these seven youths, led by their heroic mother, opened the campaign which was to rescue Rome from these upstart Caesar's and restore her to her immortal destinies.
After their triumph, four cemeteries shared the honor of gathering into their crypts the sacred remains of the martyrs; and the glorious tombs have in our own day furnished the Christian archeologist with matter for valuable research and learned writings. As far back as we can ascertain from the most authentic monuments, the sixth of the ides of July was marked on the calendars of the Roman church as a day of special solemnity, on account of the four stations where the faithful assembled around the tombs of "the martyrs." Inscriptions of the 4th century found even in those cemeteries which never possessed their relics, designate July 11th as "the day following the feast of the martyrs."
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