Martyrs Africanus Publius, and Terence of Carthage

Africanus, Publius, and Terence are commemorated among a company of Christians who were put to death at Carthage in North Africa for refusing to sacrifice to idols. The Orthodox Church in America's brief synaxarion notice places their suffering in the third century and assigns them feast days on March 13 and April 10; the Carthaginian commemoration of the martyrs is also kept on October 28.

The fuller account associated with the April 10 commemoration sets their martyrdom during the persecution under the emperor Decius (249-251), when the governor of Africa ordered the population to offer sacrifice to the idols. By this account a band of forty Christians refused. Thirty-six of them were scourged and beheaded, while a smaller group led by a martyr named Terence was isolated and held apart in prison.

The names of the martyrs and the details of their suffering vary between recensions. In the wider tradition Terence's closest companions are given as Africanus, Maximus, and Pompeius; the in-repo record names the group as Africanus, Publius, and Terence (Publius and Pompeius being variant forms of the same companion). The synaxarion relates that these prisoners were chained and left to starve, but were preserved unharmed, and were finally beheaded; the year is given as 250.