Pothinus, by tradition a disciple of St. Polycarp, was the first bishop of Lyon — the Roman capital of Gaul — and ninety years old when the persecution broke out in 177 under Marcus Aurelius. His community of perhaps a few hundred Christians, mostly Greek-speaking immigrants from Asia Minor, was suddenly subjected to denunciation, mob violence, and judicial torture.
The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyon — preserved by Eusebius (HE 5.1) — gives the most detailed surviving eyewitness account of any Roman persecution. Forty-eight Christians were martyred over weeks: torn by beasts in the amphitheatre, beheaded if Roman citizens, beaten to death if slaves.
Their leader was Blandina, a fifteen-year-old slave girl tortured longest of all because — in the words of the Letter — 'her body could no longer bear it, and the executioners gave up by turns.' She was bound to a stake, scourged, exposed to wild beasts that refused to touch her, placed in a red-hot iron chair, finally tossed by a bull and dispatched. The pagan author of the Letter exclaims: 'She had put on Christ, that great and invincible Athlete, and her Christian witness shamed even the executioners.'
Pothinus the bishop, dragged before the tribune, was reproved with the demand: 'Who is the God of the Christians?' He answered: 'If you are worthy, you will know.' He was beaten to death and threw into prison where he died two days later. Their relics were thrown into the Rhône to deny them Christian burial, but their memory has been venerated at Lyon every June 2 for over eighteen hundred years.