Eugenia of Rome

Eugenia's passion, composed in the fifth century, tells of the daughter of the prefect of Alexandria who, converted in secret, cuts her hair and enters in man's habit a monastery of which she becomes abbot. Accused by a woman she had rebuffed, she must reveal her identity before the tribunal of her own father. The narrative, among the most reproduced of the genre of cross-dressed saints, ends with her martyrdom at Rome under Valerian. History occupies little of it and legend much, but her cult is ancient: her name appears in the Hieronymian martyrology and a basilica was dedicated to her on the via Latina.