Ten thousand martyrs
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The ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat were, according to a medieval legend, Roman soldiers who, led by Saint Acacius, converted to Christianity and were crucified on Mount Ararat in Armenia by order of the Roman emperor. The story is attributed to the ninth century scholar Anastasius Bibliothecarius.
The martyrs are commemorated by the Roman Catholic Church but not (as might have been expected given the location of Mount Ararat) by the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the story is thought to be without historical foundation.
Despite its questionable veracity, the event was extremely popular in Italian Renaissance art, as seen for example in the painting 10,000 martyrs of Mount Ararat by the Venetian artist Vittore Carpaccio.
